Raising a Righteous Ummah

done, you inspect it and say, ah, four out of ten, try again tomorrow morning.

And then midnight you get him up, forget about tomorrow morning, it's happened, do it again. I'm not encouraging you to do that, no. Let's not abuse religion.

Let's not abuse things. But what I am saying, let's be conscious of one another. Let's love one another.

Let's show that mawadda and rahma. You know what that means? When you're married, Allah says,

Allah has placed between you mawadda and rahma. The love and the mercy.

Mawadda is one of the highest levels of love. Allah didn't say hub. Allah says mawadda.

Mawadda is a closeness and intimacy. That love that is filled with the highest level of affection, the care. And rahma means mercy.

That's the wife, that's the mother of my children. Subhanallah, there is a rahma. I feel the mercy.

Part of the rahma isn't it that when you see her struggling, you can say, don't worry, tonight I'm on guard. That's what I'm saying. It's rahma.

So some people say, how come I'm married, Allah promises us mawadda and rahma, I feel neither mawadda nor rahma. Can I tell you one of the diagnosis? Because perhaps we're involved in sin. That's why.

One of the reasons. Perhaps we have unplugged from Allah. Sins generally are of two types.

One is, you're not doing what is compulsory. And two is, you're doing what is prohibited. Two things.

So my brothers, my sisters, we don't feel the love because we're involved with another woman. That's why. So now you come home, you don't see the mother of your children as the mother of your children anymore.

You see her as, this lady is five kilos more than the other one. Wow, five kilos. She gave birth to one child.

You are fortunate, subhanallah. I remember a man with a belly, big belly. You know the men after a certain age, maybe 35, 40, sometimes more, sometimes less, they develop a belly, subhanallah.

It's the mercy of Allah. So that the woman can say. So the wife tells her husband, you know what, you need to lose a bit of weight, look at your belly.

So he says, look at yours. She says, I'm pregnant, I'm about to give birth, I'm about to be a mother. He says, well, I'm about to be a father.

May Allahsubhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us. We sometimes don't realize that as much as, I'm talking about men, as much as we'd love our wives to be the most good looking, you need to understand those looks

go beyond that which is just physical and outward into the heart. Earlier I heard Sheikh Abdul Fattah say that after 10 years of marriage, then you actually now feel you're married.

Did you hear him say that? Why? He worded it differently from what I would word it, but in essence, there comes a stage in your marriage when you begin to appreciate the sacrifice of your spouse if you are fearful of Allah. If you have taqwa and iman in you, if you have a heart, you begin to appreciate what your spouse has sacrificed for you and for this marriage, and you get on to a new level of love. At that point, what you look like doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter. It's your sacrifice. I love you.

What have you done? You gave up your home. You gave up everything. You gave up your family.

You gave up your area. You gave up sometimes your country. You traveled to a different continent.

Can't I appreciate you as a spouse? Subhanallah. May Allah bless us. May Allah grant us goodness.

My brothers and sisters, these children of ours are an amanah from Allah. Just like your life is in the hands of Allah. Just like you wouldn't want your parents to think that they have the right to instruct you to do that which is against the command of Allah.

You as a parent should understand the same about your child. The child is an amanah. Do you know what the term amanah means? Amanah means it does not belong to you.

Allah allows you to say, my son, my daughter, just for a short space of time. Could you have said that before the child was born? You couldn't because you didn't have the child. Where was the child? With Allah somehow, somewhere.

Alam al-arwah. Where the arwah were. But you couldn't say, my son, my daughter.

Why? They weren't yours at that stage. They were still with Allah. The minute they were born or perhaps conceived, you say, my child.

Once they are out in life, you say, my son, my daughter. Whose is that? Not yours. You are allowed to use the word, my.

At this juncture, yet it does not refer to ownership. Have you thought of that? I remember speaking to a group of people and one of the speakers with us raised an issue. After that a question was asked and the sister who asked the question got up and said, you know, my husband.

My husband. So the guy gets up, the speaker says, hang on, hang on, hang on. You have 25% shares in this man.

The other 75 you are granted as a gift to enjoy whilst it's not yet there. And I was like, gosh, did you have to say that right now?

But I learned a lesson. He was trying to say, when you say my, it's not ownership.

It's just a gift of Allah. For a while you can say it. But at some stage Allah may take that away from you.

Allah may take your husband away from you. Allah may take your child away from you. Who gave Allah the right to take my son away at the age of five? How can I even ask that question? It was Allah who gave me in the first place.

And I want to tell you, those of you who have lost children, may Allah give you Jannah. Those children will be waiting for you.

Bi'idhnillah.

To fight your case on the day of judgment. May Allah make it easy for us to earn Jannatul Firdaus. I promise you, my beloved brothers and sisters, if you think you have a problem, just go back to the life of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam and read his life.

And you will find that he didn't lose one child. He didn't lose two children. He lost all his children in his lifetime besides one.

Who was that one? Fatima radhiyallahu anha. She passed away just a few months after him. Have you lost children? If the answer is yes, the best of creation has lost all his children in his lifetime.

It's not a sign of the displeasure of Allah. It's not a sign that Allah didn't choose you for something good, no. It could be a sign of the love of Allah.

I remember a brother who had several children and he lost a few of them, a few of them in a car crash. And he was so upset.

And ten years later he told me the amount of trouble that the rest of my kids have given me.

I sometimes through my weakness wish that Allah had taken them all away. If I had told him that years before, he would have probably thought I was some Satan. But he's saying it himself that I see the wisdom of Allah.

Maybe Allah took these kids away because Allah did not want me to struggle with their upbringing. Perhaps. So you don't know, you don't know what Allah has in store, what Allah has planned.

You fulfill whatever you have to. But thank Allah. The child belongs to Allah.

That's the meaning of amanah. Allah will take the child away at any stage. Now I want to give you another example.

May Allah take us all for hajj. Say ameen. And Umrah.

Say ameen. Again and again say ameen. MashaAllah.

I'm sure one of those ameens is accepted. I believe in Allah. Okay.

If your neighbor was going for hajj and they were leaving the house and they told you, listen, here are the keys. Please can you take care of the house. We're going for three weeks.

We're gonna come back. Do you have the right, once they're gone, to open the house, take the car, start driving, going out, change the paint of the car, come back, change the painting of the house, break a wall, make something else in the kitchen, take something away, put it back. When they come back, they'll say, what happened to this house? Right? We would never do that if we were honest people.

We are doing it with our children. Allah gives us and says, look, I'm gonna give you. You made dua for a good spouse, we gave you.

You made dua for children. I'm giving you for a while. I'm gonna take this child away.

And between now and then, I want you to make sure that you only do what I have told you to do because it's mine, not yours.

So from a young age, do not let that child sit with cartoons, with phones. Wallahi, I've had a question that was asked to me not long ago, saying, you know what, how can I seek the forgiveness of Allah because my three-year-old was watching pornography on my phone.

Why? How? I couldn't believe it. But now, your three-year-old knows more about your phone than mine, or than anyone else's, than anything else. Let me read it again.

Your three-year-old knows more about your phone than you. They will pick it up. I recall I put a little finger.

You know, there is this system of opening your phone with your eye and your finger. At one stage, it was the thumb. Now, it's the eye.

And the child says, No, come here. Don't just give me the phone. Put it here.

It's your finger that's gonna work here. The children know the pattern on your phone, how to open, what not. Number one is, for a child to access porn at that age, it means it was somewhere in the phone.

Something was happening. You don't just click on a website. You don't know.

But you have pressed either the history or a clip that's happening. Number one, promise Allah that you are going to delete all the clips from your phone that are immoral. Do we promise? What happened? Why are we reluctant? Do we promise Allah that we will delete all the clips from our phones that are immoral? It's still not good enough.

So many of you are just silent, looking at me like, there's nothing immoral on my phone. Come on, get away. Don't lie.

Don't lie. Do you promise Allah, we want children who are going to grow up with high values and we are not prepared to promise Allah that we will have high values. Come on.

Do you promise Allah you will delete every clip that is in your phone that is immoral? A little bit better. Mashallah. May Allah make it easy for us.

Be strong. Be hard on yourself so that you don't need to be hard on your children. Many of us are so hard on our children.

Wallahi, I receive emails telling me that, you know what, I caught my father doing this, doing that, watching porn with the girlfriend, with this, that. I've read some of it. What do I do? I'm broken.

I don't know whether to bash his face or what to do. Allahu Akbar. Your father, Allah has blessed you, my beloved parents, with an automatic respect from those children.

It's we who spoil it. Automatic. Like what I said, when you get married, if your heart is pure, and your connection with Allah is good, Wallahi, you have to feel the mawadda and rahma.

Because Allah promised that in the Quran. But if you don't feel the mawadda and the rahma, the love and the mercy, there's something wrong with your connection with Allah. The same applies.

Your children, Allah made them mimic you automatically. You wear hijab, 2-year-old, 1-year-old wants to wear the hijab. You read salah, my beloved brother, 1-year-old, your son will fight to come to sujood next to you while you are reading salah.

It's automatic. Who told the child? Nobody. That's why if you look at the hadith of salah, the Prophet says, (صلى الله عليه وسلم)

(Abu Dawood 495)

Command your children to read salah when they are 7 years old.

Wow. When I looked at the hadith, one of my teachers told us that that means don't instruct them before that. And I was like, what? How can I not instruct my child when he is 4 or 5? I said, come, let's read salah.

You know what? I was taught that the child should do it just by you leading by example before the age of 7. Before the age of 7, the child shouldn't be instructed but rather should want to do it without instruction. Because they've watched you. Sisters, mashallah, we are dressed so beautifully in lovely hijab.

I always give an example to others in the western world and even in Muslim countries. I tell them, when I go to Nigeria, come, come with me, see the hijab there. Subhanallah.

May Allah bless you. Don't give up your Islamic identity. We give examples of you by the will of Allah.

I love to speak highly of these countries in West Africa because I've seen with my eyes what I've never witnessed even in Muslim countries. Thank Allah. Alhamdulillah.

Don't give up your Islamic identity. We have it and we are doing it willingly under tremendous pressure to give it up. But no one is forcing us to remove it.

Thank Allah. There are places where they want it but they are being forced otherwise. So I tell you, my beloved brothers, my sisters, when this child is before the age of 7, ideally taking from the hadith of salah, you are supposed to encourage the child not by way of instruction, but by other means.

Primarily, them learning by example. Who led them by that example? You. You were leading by example.

Time for salah, you speak of salah. You have the adhan. You have for example, you have a special place in your house where salah is fulfilled.

You have the burqa and various other clothings that are worn or perhaps Qur'an, something else that you sit and read. The children will follow automatically. I was saying sisters with hijab, mashallah.

Those of you who have children, am I not right when I say that your two-year-old will want to dress like you? Subhanallah. Who told the child? Even you didn't. Those in niqab for example.

There are some in niqab. They always say, our children, they just want to dress like this. They say, no, I want to be like this.

I want to do like that. I'm talking about myself. Subhanallah.

My little boys, when they were little, they wanted to dress exactly like this. And one day I delivered a lecture in Cape Town. And my son gets up after that.

When everyone was going, he says, hey, hey, now it's my turn. Sit down. And he wanted to talk.

Why? It made me cry. That is Allah. The gift from Allah.

Allah is just trying to tell you, look, we will do our part. But you, you better do your part. Now that you see this is happening, just take it and help it grow.

Subhanallah. You help it grow. The problem with us, we don't help it grow.

What do we do? We extinguish it. Because we come home, and then they see us swearing. When you swear, they will swear.

Something interesting, I once attended a course on marriage, and I was asked to speak. And you know what? In the interaction, I learned something amazing. I want to share it with you.

They say, when you're looking for a spouse, enter the home and talk to the parents. And see what's happening. And look at how the parents are getting along.

Because if those parents swear each other, the child will know no better. Obviously there are exceptions always. But you know, if this child grew up with Fs and Bs, don't expect F and B to stand for Facebook.

No. Those are bad words. Have you not noticed our young boys and girls today? I was in the lobby of this beautiful hotel, and I heard some people, I'd like to guess that they were perhaps non-Muslim, because if they were Muslim, let me say, at least if they saw us, they would have felt, hey, I better not say this.

They were using the worst, most vulgar words, just to greet each other. Just to talk to each other. Just to greet each other.

You must be wondering, but how? I'm not going to repeat it here. For what? Why has it become norm? You want to greet someone, you've got to swear with the M word. And say, yo, what's up? Come on, how? You cannot do that.

How can you call someone with such a dirtiness? That's immoral. So what I'm saying is for our children, they watch, and they're watching such that Allah has made it that they will look up to you and follow. That's a gift of Allah.

So use it, don't abuse it. Make sure you use it. You come home, you look at your wife.

You kiss her in the presence of your kids. Can it happen? Nigerian men will say, what? What did you just say? Me? My kids watching? I'm not talking of a long romantic kiss that should happen perhaps behind closed doors. I'm talking of a peck perhaps, a word of love perhaps, a hug perhaps, so that they know how to treat their spouses the day they have spouses.

That's what it is. I'd love my kids to know. Sometimes they look, and they actually look away, and they're like shy.

But I wanted you to see it, that's why I did it. You need to know what goes on here. Because if not, you're not going to know.

When you have matters and issues that need discussion because there's disagreement, do it behind closed doors. That's a gift you can bless your children with. Behind closed doors, do not let your children into your problems.

They are not counselors. They are not people. They actually need the good side, not the bad side.

They are young, let them grow. They don't need to hear everything. Sometimes we want kids to take sides, especially when divorce happens.

And we have to talk about this because divorce is huge in terms of ratio. I'd like to think we've crossed the 50% mark, generally. More than 50% of those who get married, divorce.

So we have to talk about it. When you divorce, there is a whole new door of ibadah that opens that was not open before. And that is the rights of the divorced parents and the children and the families.

That door wasn't there before. You know they say nikah opens a door of ibadah. Well, talaq opens another door of ibadah.

What is it? To allow a man I did not like or get along with or detest access and custody to his own kids for the sake of Allah.

That's an ibadah. Many people block the other parent from access or custody.

They say, no way, I'm not going to give access. Why? He's a bad man. I don't want.

They're playing with me. No, no, no, no, no. Allah decided.

His decision is final. Allah decided and His decision is final. That you know what? That is the father.

Come what may, that's the father. And you don't ever spoil the upbringing of the child by brainwashing the child against the other parent. And you don't ever think that another parent or the other parent is brainwashing the child just because the child doesn't want to relate to you.

I'll give you an example. Recently there was a couple that divorced. The man phones me and says, can you please tell my wife she needs to give me, she needs to give me access to the kids and custody to the kids.

And she mustn't tell the kids bad things about me. Because the kids when they come to me, they don't even want to be with me. Now I can't just do that because I don't know both sides of the story.

First I have to call the wife and say, what's going on? And she painted a totally different picture. This man swears. This man yells.

This man pulls the kids. This man says whatever. So they don't even want to go to him.

When they don't want to go, he's blaming me for brainwashing them. That's what I was saying. No one brainwashed.

You did it yourself. You want respect from your own children, you must respect them. How do you expect the ummah to be grown? When? Subhanallah.

You haven't even respected your own kids. You earn the respect. You see from amongst us, when we carry ourselves with respect, that's when we shall be respected.

Otherwise, you won't be respected. So my brothers and sisters, what I've done today is only an introduction to the topic. You can't spend 40 minutes talking about how to bring up kids and expect to cover every aspect of it.

No, it's an introduction. But I want to tell you something amazing. In your midst, here in this beautiful country of Nigeria, there are scholars, male and female.

For the rest of the topic that I've just started now, you must make use of your local scholars. The workshops they have, the lessons they have. They are superstars, superheroes.

Would you not agree, those we heard today were superb. Say, mashallah. But some of you didn't even know they existed.

Am I right? Come on. Allah is going to ask you about the ni'mah, the favors that He blessed you with. Allah is going to ask you.

Brother is telling me time up. Is time really up? Thank you brother, we are democratic, mashallah, you heard what they said.

But don't worry, we'll round up, inshallah.

So, subhanallah, my brothers, my sisters, make use of the local scholars. That's my cry. Because you have in your midst those who are more qualified than I am.

I promise you. But you haven't made an effort to search for them, to look for them, to listen to them, to check. There are those who are so beautiful that I would learn so much from them myself.

And I feel embarrassed sometimes to be compared to someone far higher than I am. So do we promise we're going to make use of the local scholars? Do we promise? Mashallah, tabarakallah. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless you.

May He bless this nation. May He bless our families. May He bless those who are going through any issues.

May Allah help you through your issues. In fact, let me word it differently. Oh Allah, help everyone of us in the issues that we may be facing in our own unique lives.

Ameen. My brothers and sisters, it's been an honor to be speaking to you. And really, I think I need to go back and take notes from my own talk in order to be able to practice what I preach.

May Allah forgive my shortcomings and yours. May Allah open our doors. There's only one problem.

Today, I didn't crack any jokes. Did you notice? You noticed? So let's crack one. So what happened is, there is a television station full of young people here, right? Young people.

It's called HAL TV. Have you heard about it? H-A-L, it stands for Halal TV. HAL, the first part of it, right? So, these young people on Friday, they happened to meet me at their little studio, which is mashaAllah small.

And I went in and I saw the enthusiasm, and I saw the young boys and girls there, mashaAllah. And they were so, you know, powered up. And I told them, inshaAllah, in a few years you'll have such a big place, you won't even know.

Allah will bless it. So, what happened is, they had a little question that they were asking towards the end of the program. We're gonna ask quick questions to all of us.

And there were four or five of us seated. I was the only non-Nigerian. So, the quick question was, name three, name three Nigerian foods.

Now, how can I do that? So, one said X, Y, Z. The other one said A, B, C. Meaning they rattled out names as quick as they could.

And then it came to me, and I'm the last one. I was like, guy, I'm the only foreigner, you should have started with me, at least I could have had a bigger, you know, a broader selection.

But now, what am I gonna say? So, all I did is, I said, you know what? Soon as it came to me, I said, Jollof. So, that's one. What about the others? So, they were saying, what about the other two? I said, the other two are inside the Jollof.

MashaAllah. You know how it's made? So, mashaAllah. Now, let me tell you where I got that from.

I got that, I was inspired by a little kid. The kid, the teacher says, make a sentence with sugar. So, one says, there is sugar in coke.

And the other one says, sugar is very sweet. And the third one says, subhanAllah, you can tell that my time is up, right? The battery is going. So, the third one says, I drank my tea.

So, the teacher says, no, you're supposed to make a sentence with sugar. He says, no, I drank my tea. No, try again.

He says, no, I drank my tea. He says, but where's the sugar? It's in the tea. Allahu Akbar.

Okay, so that's what I used with the Jollof. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us all goodness and ease. I love you all for the sake of Allah.

Next year, make sure that we attend and tell the organizers that we will pay double what we have because it's not a payment, it's actually a contribution towards the success of an Islamic event, and that is an honor. May Allah reward every one of you and grant you much more than what you have put in.

Closing