Respect Your Parents

Respect Your Parents

Khutba by Joe Bradford

Opening and Praise

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi ta'ala wa barakatuhu. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi ta'ala wa barakatuhu. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

Come to Prayer. Allah is whom we praise. We praise Him and we thank Him. And we seek refuge in Him from the evil of our own souls and the evil of our actions. Whomsoever He guides, none can misguide Him. And whomsoever He leaves astray, none can guide to the truth.

And I bear witness that there is no one worthy of worship but God Almighty alone and that Muhammad, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), may his peace and blessings be upon him, is His slave and His messenger. O you who believe, be mindful of Allah as He should be minded. Do not die except as Muslims.

O mankind, be mindful of your Lord who created you from one soul. And from that soul, its mate. And from those two, spread many men and many women. And be mindful of the wombs that bore you. And be mindful of those you ask your rights from. For indeed, Allah is ever watchful over you.

O you who believe, be mindful of Allah and speak the truth. He will guide you to righteous deeds and forgive you of your sins. And whomsoever obeys Allah and His messenger has achieved the greatest achievement.

Introduction to the Best Guidance

The best of speech is Allah's speech. And the best of guidance is Muhammad's guidance, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). And the worst of affairs are those newly introduced. And everything newly introduced into faith is an innovation. And every innovation goes astray. And everything astray leads to the hellfire.

The Blessed Days of Dhul Hijjah

We are at the advent of some of the holiest days, most important days, most blessed days of the year. The first ten days of Dhul Hijjah. The ten days culminating in the day of Arafah and then with Al-Hajj Al-Akbar. The greater Hajj. The day of Eid. While the Hujjaj are making pilgrimage, we will be here where we live.

Remembering Allah and striving to do as many good deeds as possible. The prophet, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - alayhi salatu wasalam), he said, There are no days in which good deeds are more beloved to Allah and better than in these ten days. So make much dhikr therein. So make much remembrance of Allah therein. Glory be to Allah. There is no one worthy of worship but Allah. Allah is the greatest.

When we talk about good deeds in these ten days, we many times will say, Fast more. Pray more. Give more sadaqa. And there are no doubt that these are some of the best things that we can do. Not only in

these ten days, but any time during the year.

The Forgotten Good Deed: Honoring Parents

But today, I want to tell you about a specific good deed that each and every one of us should remain cognizant of. We don't think about it as a good deed until the person or the people that we'll talk about are in trouble, are ill, something's going wrong, or we feel remorse for our relationship with them.

Allah says:

"Allah, your Lord, has decreed that you worship none but Him. And He has decreed that you treat your parents with excellence. You treat your parents with excellence. If one of them or both of them were to reach old age, then don't say to them 'uff', and don't rebuke them, but say instead to them, a kind word."

The Natural Human Tendency

We don't think of being good to our parents as one of those good deeds that will actually get us into Jannah. It's not on the forefront of our minds many times. Not for everyone, but many times. Because as human beings, we are naturally selfish. We are naturally looking out for our own best interests. And we many times think that anyone else who has our best interests in mind is somehow trying to do something to stop what we know is good for ourselves.

But our parents are those who have our best interests in mind. They might not have the best solution for us at times, but they have our best interests in mind. And their opinions of us, and the way that they feel about what we do in life is important.

The Example of Ya'qub (AS) and His Sons

If it wasn't important, then why would Allah (سبحانه وتعالى - subhanahu wa ta'ala), out of one of the longest stories in the Quran, the story of Yusuf (عليه السلام - alayhi salam), why would Allah take the time out to mention a minor detail about Ya'qub (عليه السلام - alayhi salam) and his sons going to meet the pharaoh? "Oh my sons, when you go to meet the pharaoh, don't everyone go in rank and file through one door. Instead, go through a bunch of different doors."

Allah (سبحانه وتعالى - subhanahu wa ta'ala) says, this did nothing to change what Allah had decreed for them. Except to fulfill a need in the heart of Ya'qub. Allah found it so important to mention a father's feelings for his children that he took the time out in this surah to explicitly mention it, even though it changed nothing from what he himself (سبحانه وتعالى - subhanahu wa ta'ala) had decreed. Meaning that the way that our parents feel is as important as the way that we treat them.

Parents as Keys to Jannah

And so it's important for us in these 10 days to take time out to be good to our parents, to do good by them, to do good deeds that will have a positive effect on our relationship with them and insha'Allah get us all into Jannah. The prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - alayhi salatu was salam) was once on his minbar and he said, "Ruined, ruined, ruined. Ruined is the person who finds his parents, one of them or both of them, and they don't enter him into Jannah."

So our parents are one of the keys that we have to be able to open Jannah. We have to remind ourselves of this. If we truly believe what we believe as Muslims, we should realize that the way that we treat them and the way that they feel about us is one of the best things that we can do now in these 10 days.

The Priority of Mothers

A man came to the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - alayhi salatu was salam). He said, "Oh messenger of Allah, who has the most right to my benevolence, to my righteousness, to my companionship?" "Your mother." "Then who?" "Your mother." "Then who?" "Your mother." "Then who?" "Your father." "Then who?" "Then the closest relatives to them."

Uncles and aunts, grandparents, older brothers and older sisters. And in this is a lesson that the respect of our mothers is paramount. Honoring our mothers is paramount. And honoring our fathers is important as well.

Understanding the Divine Order

And for us as men, it's an extremely important lesson that by nature and divine decree, our children will gravitate emotionally to their mothers many times more than they do to their fathers. And that doesn't diminish the divine connection that we have with our children. Allah swears by the father and the son or the child that he begets. So there's a connection there. It's super important.

But we as men have to realize that our children, by the command of Allah and his messenger, have to be servient and dutiful to their mother more than they are to us. And in us realizing that and submitting to that is a realization that we are submitting to what Allah (سبحانه وتعالى - subhanahu wa ta'ala) knows what is best for that child, for you as a father, and for his mother.

The Father as the Door to Jannah

The prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - salallahu alayhi wa sallam), in a hadith narrated by Abu Darda in Sunan al-Tirmidhi and in the Musnad of Imam Ahmed. He said:

"The father is the middlemost, highest door of Jannah. So waste that door or preserve it."

This hadith tells us that being good to our fathers is one of the easiest, most accessible, and most facilitated ways to enter Jannah.

A lot of us, we hear the first hadith of our mothers having three times more right to companionship than our fathers, and we get this idea that fathers don't have any status, subconsciously. But the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - salallahu alayhi wa sallam) is saying you want the easy way to Jannah? Your father is that door to Jannah. You want the easy way to enter in paradise? Then the easiest way for you to do that is to preserve the door that is your father.

What do doors do? Doors hold in the good. They block out the bad. They allow access. They facilitate for us movement in and out. Our fathers many times do the same thing.

Rejecting Cultural Disrespect

Realizing the importance of both of our parents is extremely important because we live in a culture where parents in general are disrespected. Mothers and fathers. Mothers are pictured as clueless and doting. Fathers are pictured as dumb, idiotic, not due of respect.

And that is what we see most of the time. In everything from children's cartoons to dramas to the verbiage that people use in broader culture. As Muslims, this is not our culture. Culture is fine. But when it goes in the face of what Allah and his messenger has revealed, we reject that culture. And the culture of disrespect to parents, specifically of disrespect to fathers, which is very prominent, is a culture which is unequivocally rejected.

The Importance of Mutual Respect Between Spouses

It's important for parents to be mutually respective of each other. Because your children will marry, I'm sorry, your children will mirror the respect that you show for your spouse. If you don't respect your wife, don't expect your children to respect your wife. If you don't respect your husband, don't expect your children to respect your husband.

How do we know this? The Prophet, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - alayhis salatu was salam), he said:

(Bukhari)

"No one of you should go and curse his own father or his own parents."

The people said, "How can a person curse his own parents, O Messenger of Allah?" He said:

(Muslim)

"He goes and curses someone else's parents, and that person curses his parents. He curses someone else's father. And that person curses his father."

Meaning that the way that we interact with others will have a direct relationship on our relationship with our children. On our relationship at home.

The Ripple Effect of Respect and Disrespect

Which means it is imperative for us, even if we have differences, even if we're divorced, even if someone has passed on, even if there's hard hearts and hardship between those two people, that they only show each other respect. Why? Because that will have a reciprocatory effect, not only through those children, but across society.

Find me a child that disrespects his teacher at school, I'll find you a child that has one or both of his parents at home who are disrespectful. Find me a child that uses lewd language, I'll find you a child that has a parent or both of them that uses lewd language. Find me a child that doesn't know how to honor his grandmother and grandfather, I will show you a mother or father who doesn't honor their grandmother and their grandfather. We have to take responsibility to inculcate those values into our children.

The Greatest Sins

Our actions mean that we either are encouraging our children to do the best of things, which is to be respectful to their parents and their grandparents, or to commit one of the greatest sins in Islam. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) was asked about the greatest sins and he said:

"To associate partners with other than Allah." And then what did he say?

"And to be disrespectful to one's parents."

Ask yourself, what am I doing to make my children avoid those two major sins and the others? Am I pushing them towards sinning and thus sinning myself? Or am I pushing them towards righteousness and thus fulfilling the duty of righteousness upon myself?

Practical Application in These Blessed Days

Being good to your parents, as we said, one of the greatest acts that you can do in these beautiful, blessed, holy days of the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah. I want you to not only increase your salah, not only increase your dhikr, not only fast and pray and give charity, but I want you to do so with the idea that you are continuing the legacy that your parents have set out for you.

You might say to yourself, well, I don't have parents who are Muslim. How am I continuing their legacy? Did they not encourage you to have good character? Did they not encourage you to be good people? Have you not learned one good thing from them in your entire life? Then do that one good thing and do it only for Allah. And you'll be continuing the legacy that they have set for you.

The Prophet's Teaching on Respect

The Prophet, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - alaihi salatu wasalam), said:

"He is not from us, the one who doesn't have mercy on our kids, on our small amongst us, and does not show reverence and respect to the elderly amongst us, and does not know or recognize the right of the scholars amongst us."

When we show respect at home, that home is a shining light for respect and reciprocation of that respect throughout society. When we show disrespect at home, then that disrespect, like sewage, seeps into the ground and makes it corrupt. Let's be those who shine light for people, not those who would corrupt where they eat from or where they live.

The Connection Between Allah's Pleasure and Parents' Pleasure

The Prophet, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - alaihi salatu wasalam), in a hadith narrated by Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As in Tirmidhi, he said:

(Tirmidhi)

"The pleasure of your Lord is found in the pleasure of your parent. And the displeasure of your Lord is found in the displeasure of your parent."

Ask yourself, what am I doing? And am I pleasing my parent at this time?

Important Balance and Boundaries

Now, at this point, I want to mention something very important because it comes up time and time again. People say, the pleasure of your Lord is found in the pleasure of your parent. And therefore, I have to do every single thing that my mom and dad want me to do. Even if I'm a 40-year-old married man who has his own life, we have a lot of people in our community who disrespect their wives or disrespect their husbands or disrespect the rights of their children over them because of overbearing parents.

And this is a reality. So how do we manage that along with the obligation of showing our parents respect? The idea of birr al-walidayn, righteousness and respect to your parents, is about what is good for them in their lives, not what they want to micromanage in yours.

You can do it, but if it comes to the point where you're balancing the rights of your wife and the rights of your parents, then guess what? If the request of your parents has no obligation to it, it's simply their preference and preserving your marriage means that you don't take what they prefer, then it's allowed for you not to do what your parents prefer you to do.

You should do what they prefer for them in serving them, but you don't have to change everything about your life.

The Example of Imam Ahmed

A man came to Imam Ahmed and he said to him, he said, "Oh Imam, my father told me to divorce my wife. Should I obey him?" Ahmed said, "No, don't obey him."

He said, "But I, he says to me the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - alayhis salatu wasalam) told Ibn Umar to obey his father when his father told him, meaning Umar ibn al-Khattab, told him to divorce his wife." He said, "When your father gets to the love of Umar ibn al-Khattab, then come and talk to me."

So there are things that have no generality to them, meaning that the respect for our parents should not create disrespect for our spouses, disrespect for our children, disrespect for other people in the family.

It has to be balanced because I hear and I see and people approach me too many times about this issue where this overbearing micromanagement by their parents is destroying their own marriages, destroying their own lives, destroying their own opportunities. What is respectful to your parents is about what is good for them in their lives, but it does not override your own personal choices and definitely doesn't override your own personal obligations and responsibilities.

Honoring Parents After Death

Now, how can we be better to our parents if they have passed away? This is another issue that comes up. Someone says, my parents have passed away. How am I supposed to be good to them? One of the things that you can do is make dua for them. Make istighfar for them. Seek forgiveness for them. Pray for them. Give sadaqa in their name.

And even one of the greatest things that you can do for your parents is visit their friends that they had in their life. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said that from the best birr, the best righteousness you can do to your parent is to visit the people that that parent loved in their lifetime.

Go and find your mother's old friend that she would have tea with and visit her. Go and find your father's best friend that he would sit with for hours and sit with him for a few hours. Remind that person of the legacy of your father and you will be doing good by your mother and your father by continuing that legacy.

Conclusion and Call to Action

Call and visit your parents in these 10 days. Check in on them. Ask them how they're doing. Pray for them. Give charity for them. Do any good deed and intend for that reward to go to them. And I'll add one more thing. Listen to them. Many of our parents are elderly. Many of them will not be with us any longer.

Go and listen to their stories. Understand what their life is. Learn what they want to see from you and then go out into the world and make that legacy a reality.

Final Prayer

Forgive us of our sins and our transgression and our affairs and make our feet firm, O Lord of the world. Make us from amongst those that respect our parents. Make us from amongst those that inculcate respect in our children. Make us from amongst those that leave a legacy in this life to last for generations.