Back to School - Saving Our Children
By Yaser Birjas | 2026-01-13T08:04:42.071438+00:00 | Topic: Knowledge
Back to School - Saving Our Children
Opening Salutation and Bismillah
السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ
بسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
Opening Khutbah (Khutbah al-Hajah)
إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ ، نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَهْدِيهِ وَنَسْتَغْفِرْهُ، وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَسَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا، مَنْ يَهْدِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ، وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ
Quranic Verses
O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except as Muslims [in submission to Him].
O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Indeed Allah is ever, over you, an Observer.
O you who have believed, fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice. He will [then] amend for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great attainment.
أَعْلَمُ عِبَادَ اللَّهِ أَنْ أَحْسَنَ الْكَلَامِ كَلَامُ اللهِ تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى، وَخَيْرُ الْهَدْيِ هَدْي مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَشَرُّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا، وَكُلُّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ، وَكُلُّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ، وَكُلُّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ
ثُمَّ أَمَّا بَعْدُ عِبَادَ اللَّهِ
Main Khutbah
My dear brothers and sisters, for many people the summer is coming to an end and the school year will start. A lot of parents celebrate the day when the school starts because finally the kids are away from home. For kids of course they are agonizing about the beginning of the school year and they have all the right to agonize - not because of the homework, but because of a lot of the challenges. Sometimes parents don't understand what their kids go through, specifically if they go to public schools.
Do you guys know that when kids go to school they are going to spend 900 hours of that year just in the hand of some other people teaching them whatever they are teaching them - values, information, skills, knowledge and so on. Time that is supposed to be spent a lot with parents like it used to be before in the past, but now we are giving them 900 hours in the hand of other people teaching them sometimes core values. And specifically for younger children, they love their teachers more than they love their parents probably, and that is a very challenging time and that as a result of this, of course it affects everybody.
Some of you might say alhamdulillah my kids are growing up right now, alhamdulillah they finished and they are in college, but you know what? Your kids going to have kids inshallah, and even if they are not going to marry anytime soon, the children who belong to your community they will have influence on your community, your masjid, the future of your own children, grandchildren - you name it. So we are all part of this as a community understanding the challenges our kids go through when they go to school. It is very important and we need to prepare them for that.
Subhanallah, a lot of us when we send our kids to school, all we care about is the academic achievement. So when our kids go and they get let's say B or C, people freak out. But if they miss Juma after Juma after Juma, well they have excuse because they are in school, and then when the kids start falling short on fulfilling some of their religious duties towards their parents and their elders and so on, we complain why their behavior is changing and why aren't you behaving the way - we didn't raise you that way! Subhanallah.
So there is a big challenge our kids go through when they go to school. This is a community issue. It is not just one single family who had one or two kids they go to public school or Islamic school or charter school - this is a community issue and we all need to understand that we need to help one another inshallah and that our kids they have a lot of challenges when they go to school.
You know, even in Islamic school, if they go to Islamic school, they will go through the same challenges sometimes - the challenge of maintaining their salah on time, the challenge of being proud of their identity as Muslims, the challenge of being proud of their hijab. There are so many things they have to go through, and sometimes when they bring these pains and these concerns to their parents, they might not have the positive response from their parents, and as a result they feel left out.
How can we understand the challenge of our children and how can we prepare our kids inshallah spiritually? At least how can I prepare my kids spiritually? How can I prepare my grandchildren, the children of my community spiritually inshallah for the next school year? I have five things to share with you, so bear with me. How can we control inshallah this whole challenge issue and bring a better spiritual environment for our kids for the next school year inshallah?
Point One: Parents as Spiritual Leaders
Number one: Parents need to understand that the change of your family's spiritual leadership or spiritual environment is in your hand. Parents need to understand that religious responsibility, spiritual responsibility of their own children belongs to them. It starts from the house, from the home - that's where it starts from.
A lot of parents, they outsource that to anyone they can. So they send their kids to Islamic school - alhamdulillah I've done my part! Others they send their kids to hifz school - alhamdulillah at least when they memorize the Quran that's it, they're gonna be inshallah straight to Jannah. Others they think you
know what, just bring them to the masjid regularly and let them go with the youth leaders and the community and so on. But we don't put much effort, much emphasis on that at home, and if our children don't see that, they won't really see the value of it.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave the order to the parents. He said: "O you who believe, protect, guard yourself and your children, your families from fire of hell." So this obligation falls first on me and you as parents before anybody else.
(Sahih al-Bukhari Hadith 893 and Sahih Muslim Hadith 1829)
Rasulullah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) says in the hadith: "Each and every one of you is a shepherd and you're gonna be responsible, you're gonna be asked about the flock, about the herd, about the family that you'll be responsible for." And he may give details - even he said the man is responsible for his family and he's gonna be questioned about it, and the lady will be responsible for her party in her house and she will be questioned about. So everybody is considered right now is a leader, is considered a shepherd, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will hold us accountable - what have we done with the amanah, the trust that we had in our hand?
So before you think of outsourcing the spiritual religious teaching of your children to anything else - including TV or including online distant relations with a teacher or somewhere in the other side of the world - you need to make sure that you're part of this. And the number one thing that you should do as a parent: exercise, inform them what they want them to do.
A Personal Story
You know, a long long time ago when I used to teach children for Sunday school, one of my students he was in high school. So this kid he used to come to me. I would come to the class and subhanallah for multiple years in Sunday school we repeat the same surahs over and over again - you all know the surahs and so on - and he never advanced. And at some point I just told him, I said: "Listen, what's wrong with you? Why can't you just move any further? You need more surahs." But he told me, he said: "Sheikh, listen, I don't know what I'm doing this for." So what do you mean? He says: "I'm doing all this effort and my family, no one does it at home like nobody. I don't see my parents reading the Quran at home at all."
Can you imagine that statement coming from a child 15-16 years old and saying: "I never seen my parents open the mushaf. I don't know about Ramadan, but he said I've never seen them open the mushaf. I said what do I have to do with them for?" And I got like stunned with that answer. I said: "Are you willing to say this to your mom?" Because his mom was adamant, you know, to always bring him to the masjid mashallah, even though she might not necessarily be the most practicing person, but she wanted her child to grow up Muslim.
So when she came and she asked me: "So how did he do today?" I said: "Well, he gave me a surprising thing. Do you want to hear from him?" She said: "Yeah, what happened?" So I brought him in and said: "Do you want to tell your mom what you told me?" And he said to her: "Mom, listen, I'm doing all of this but I've never seen you or my dad holding the mushaf at home at all, so what do I have to do with myself?" And that for her was a revelation moment and she just - she couldn't do anything. She shook her head and just like subhanallah, that was it.
I've never seen the kid after that coming to the Sunday school. It was a sad moment, but subhanallah later on we became good friends. He finished his high school, he went mashallah to study, you know, medical school, he became a doctor. We were good friends actually, distant friends, you know, via emails.
The point is from this story is that this young man - I don't want to say forced, but with good intentions the parents want them to be exposed alhamdulillah to their Islamic identity and culture, so they want them to memorize the Quran, read the Quran, come to Sunday school. But then what? When they go home, there is nothing there. There isn't much of what they've been taught in school being practiced at home.
So my dear brothers and sisters, parents, if you really want your kids to be proud of who they are as Muslims, they need to see that at home. If you want them to read the Quran and memorize the Quran, they need to see you - they need to see you doing it regularly, not just playing it online. No, they need to see mom or dad holding the mushaf and reading the Quran.
Create that as an assignment for yourself. Make sure that you do that in the morning before they go to school, or when they come back from school. You yourself, let them see you sitting sometime every single day, holding the mushaf and reading the Quran and feeling happy that you're reading the Quran, because when they see you, wallahi they will follow your step inshallah wa tabaraka wa ta'ala.
Point Two: Teaching Mindfulness of Allah (Al-Muraqaba)
Number two: The second thing we need to do to prepare our kids inshallah spiritually for the school year is to teach our kids to be mindful of Allah azza wa jal. What we call in the Arabic language: Al-Muraqaba. What is Al-Muraqaba? Muraqaba is when you're not around, when nobody is around you, you still understand that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is watching over you and Allah is seeing you subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is it. This is what we need to teach our children, because again we're 900 hours away from our eyes and our sight. We don't even know what our kids are doing in school subhanallah, but I'm sure if they know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is watching, I hope they will make the right decisions.
You know, in the Surah Luqman, alayhi salam, in the surah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned the dialogue that happens between father and son. What a beautiful dialogue between father and son, and I recommend this for every parent to study, to read, to memorize and teach Surah Luqman to their
children as well. You memorize it and have your kids memorize that surah inshallah, because in that surah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says Luqman, as he was speaking to his child, he says:
He says: "Listen my son, it doesn't matter what that is, even as small as the seed, the speck of dust you could say, whether it's in heavens on earth, underneath the rocks, or whatever that is, Allah will bring it out," which means Allah will know about it subhanahu wa ta'ala. We need to teach our children that.
So for me, when my kids don't pray, it's not because "Hey, you have to pray because if you don't pray you're going to lose this privilege." It's not about privilege, it's not about incentive in the dunya. It's about: "Listen, this is between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala," particularly when your kids become teenagers and they reach the age of puberty. They need to learn: "Listen, I've done my part. I got you this far. Now it's on you. If you don't pray, that's your responsibility. It's not my responsibility anymore. My responsibility from that moment onward is just to remind you. I can't force you, I can't hold you. I'm going to remind you."
So we need to teach our children that they be mindful of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that their relationship is with Allah azza wa jal and they're actually the responsibilities to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Lessons from Parenting
A lot of parents, what they do in their life, they strive and they struggle so hard to provide for their families, and when you ask them: "Why you're killing yourself? Why are you buying all this? Why are you doing all that stuff?" They say: "I want to see my family happy. I want my kids to be happy."
I do a lot of youth counseling and family counseling as well, so subhanallah a lot of times kids they come and they're not very happy - they're not happy. And the parents when they come: "You don't understand! I've given them everything! Why aren't they so happy?" I said: "Listen, your job as a parent is not to raise happy children. It's not your job. Your job is to raise responsible children. When parents try to make their kids happy, they fail. Your job is to make them responsible. Happiness is their own business. They can be happy with whatever that you give them."
So therefore, my responsibility as a parent, I want my kids to be again responsible. So I will always teach them: whatever they are, this is between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You don't have to tell me the details. If you've done something wrong, make sure that you seek tawbah from Allah azza wa jal. I expect you to make mistakes, but I want you to be mindful of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Ramadan, ya ikhwa, is one great opportunity for us to teach ourselves and our children the meaning of being mindful of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, because when you're fasting in Ramadan, who knows about
that? Who knows what you do when you go into the bathroom and you just try to make wudu and you drink water or not? Who knows about that? That's between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
We need to have the spirit of Ramadan in the mind of our children for as long as we can, because when they go to school, they know their responsibility is to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and only to Allah azza wa jal.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says: He is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allah azza wa jal, he is the lord in the heavens and the earth subhanahu wa ta'ala, he knows everything - the sir, the secret, the public, everything that you do, he knows everything that you do subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Teach your children these principles that Allah azza wa jal - yes, we don't see him, but he is the lord in the heavens and the earth and he would know everything that you do in this life.
Point Three: Teaching Priorities
Number three: What we need to teach our children when it comes to going to school and living their lives is to teach them priorities. Teach them priorities. What does that exactly mean? See, again we go back to the same story of Luqman. When Luqman starts speaking to his son in that beautiful dialogue between father and son, the first thing he starts with the most important thing that is priority. So what did he talk about? First thing about his responsibility towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, his responsibility towards Allah azza wa jal, and you need to teach your children the same thing too - that their priority is always towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala first and foremost, first and foremost.
So the first thing we teach our children is to believe in Allah azza wa jal, to be mindful of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and then As-Salat, As-Salat, As-Salat, As-Salat - whatever that you do, maintain your salat.
Subhanallah, some cultures they emphasize on salat more than other cultures, and I met actually some people. Subhanallah, I met an individual in particular. This individual, he would commit whatever you can think of sins, but then when it comes to salat, he has to be there. And one day, just like how has it been this possible? He said: "Listen, this is different." He said: "This is my final thread between me and Allah azza wa jal. Like I know myself, I'm messing up a lot" - he's not that proud of himself - but he said: "This is at least my final thread, my final line between me and Allah azza wa jal. I'm trying to keep this so that at least if I die and I'm still not repenting to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, I hope my salat will save me."
And wallahi, for this, just like may Allah bless you, may Allah guide you. He's not proud of his sins, he's trying his best, and sometimes we need again to give our children the opportunity to feel that they're still human, they're not perfect, they're not angels. But if they make mistakes, they need to know their responsibilities towards Allah azza wa jal first and foremost. Teach them to maintain the salat.
The second thing: after they maintain their relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala comes the relationship with the people, and that relationship with the people - akhlaq and manners. First of all, again, Haqqullah - the right of Allah azza wa jal, and then comes the right of the ibad, the right of the people. And this is where akhlaq comes in.
In the story of Luqman, after teaching about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and I believe in Allah azza wa jal, he starts teaching him about akhlaq and how to deal with people. He told him: don't walk, you know, with so haughty and so proud of yourself among the people, and when you talk to people, don't give them the side of your face like you're so arrogant. Speak to them with humbleness. Don't raise your voice. He started teaching him akhlaq and manners and how to deal with other people.
Do we do that at home, or do we just expect our kids to pick up these things from the way we deal with other people? We need to teach them sometimes, and we teach them the manners and akhlaq not because they're embarrassing us - no, not because they're embarrassing us - we need to teach them these akhlaq and manners because we know that this is the best for you in the dunya and the akhira. Our kids need to see that we really care about their, you know, their interest in this tarbiyah man, and that's very crucial, very important.
Point Four: Academic vs. Character Excellence
Number four: The fourth thing we need to teach our children inshallah as they go to school. By the way, just before that, when it comes to schooling, one of the principles between me and my children is: "Listen, I know you're very smart, you're going to get straight A's, you're going to get the best grades. I know that you're going to do it, so therefore I'm not going to go after you doing your homework. That's your business with your teacher. My main interest is to make sure at the end of the year when I ask your teachers about you, they will give me inshallah a straight A akhlaq level. That's what I care about."
Because for me, if you get straight A in your grades and your report and then they will say he or she was not that great student in terms of akhlaq and manners, you failed! Because at the end of the day when you go out to the real world, it's about interpersonal relationships. No one cares about your grades - they care about your manners and akhlaq.
Make sure that your children understand that the relationship with the people is much more important than just a piece of paper that says they finished the first, second or top of their class. That's much more important.
Point Five: Being Proactive and Positive
Again, number four when it comes to raising healthy spiritual kids during school year: teach your children to be proactive and to be positive. What does that mean? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in a single surah taught us the principle of life. What is your job in this life?
Imam Al-Shafi'i says: if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed only Surah Al-Asr for us, would be sufficient to teach us what we need to do in this life. "Wa al-asr, inna al-insa la fee khusr" - Allah says: I swear by Al- Asr, I swear by the time, "inna al-insa la fee khusr" - that man is in a constant state of loss, which is true. Every minute that passes takes away from your life. Everybody is born in this world with an expiration date. We don't know it, but it's coming. So therefore we are in a constant state of loss, except those who invest in the time that passes. How is that? With iman, practice what they know. Number three: he says they enjoin each other to do the right thing and also they encourage each other to be patient in the process of doing that.
These four things - that's the principle of life. We need to teach our children to be positive and to be proactive. What does that mean? That's where Al-Amr bil-Ma'ruf wa an-Nah an al-Munkar comes in. My kids, I want my kids to know what is right and what is wrong and be proactive. If they know a friend that is doing wrong, they should talk to them.
I know it's not easy for them in middle school or high school to be that person always just saying: "Hey don't do this, don't do that." But you know what? Make sure that you teach your children to be strong and to be proactive and to be patient, and hopefully you'll be the best mentor for them.
The point of this is that if you let your kids to be proactive, that becomes a shield to defend them against any harassment or attacks or any whispers and inspiration to do wrong. When they're known to be good people, you know, not so many influencers will be around them. Al-khair aada - doing good is a habit. So when you keep your kids doing good things, it becomes a habit inshallah and becomes their character.
Point Six: Tafweed ilallah (Delegating to Allah through Dua)
And finally, the last thing I want to share with you: what can we do after that? I taught my kids all these values, so I'm the one who is teaching them at home, I'm the one who is teaching them priorities, trying to make them very positive, learn the haqoq of Allah, the haqoq of the ibad, but then what's left for me right now? What is left for you after this? What is left after we do your part?
Number 5 is to do what we call Tafweed ilallah - you delegate their efforts to Allah. How is that? Ad-Dua! How often do you make dua to your children? How often do you make dua for them? How much supplications and invocations of Allah for their protection, for their guidance?
You know, Ibrahim alayhi salam, when he used to make the dua to Allah:
"Allah subhana wa ta'ala, make me and among my offspring, among those who maintain the salah."
The ulama of tafseer, they say Ibrahim alayhi salam used to maintain this dua way before he even had kids. Before having kids, he's making dua: "Ya Allah, make among my offspring, my children, those who maintain salah." I mean, he had no guarantee that he will have kids in his lifetime, but he was making that dua: "And if Allah subhana wa ta'ala accepts from me that I will have children, they'll be among those who maintain salah and ibadah."
How often do you make dua for your children? Even if you're not married yet, even if you're married and you have kids and you don't have kids, keep making dua that Allah subhana wa ta'ala help you to maintain inshallah a healthy relationship with Allah azza wa jal for your children.
Remember, after you do everything, then you delegate your efforts to Allah subhana wa ta'ala in regard to the protection and inshallah the safety of your kids.
Conclusion of Main Khutbah
It is not easy for our children to spend 900 hours every single school year again in the hand of strangers those people who teach them values, personal values sometimes that might not be in accordance to what you believe or what you actually want your kids to grow up with. So it takes, it becomes your responsibility as a parent to make sure inshallah to provide that for them, and also it becomes the responsibility of the community all together to provide the services and the activities that will help us inshallah to all grow together as one community to protect ourselves and our children inshallah.
I ask Allah subhana wa ta'ala to make us listen to the speech and follow the best of it.
Second Khutbah
My dear brothers and sisters, one of the major things that we see in our culture today in our families and communities - subhanallah I do actually a lot of marriage counseling, a lot of youth counseling - wallahi it disheartens you sometimes the amount of conflict you have between family members, between husband and wife, parents and their children, cousins and siblings and so on. Subhanallah, a lot of relations have been cut, can be cut and severed because people just don't know how to manage the pressure of dealing with somebody else within the family.
I mean, people that were living together for generations, for ages, but what has changed in our society that is putting so much pressure on relationships such as a husband-wife relationship, parents and their children, children and their parents, siblings, in-laws, so many things? These relations are just forever
being existed, but today we have high rate of divorce, we have high rate of subhanallah of people go into depression and anxiety and all that stuff. All of it because we are not managing our relationship properly. There is so much pressure, and I can guarantee you, I tell you the truth, a lot of it because of the modern style of life that we are living today. A lot of it had to do with that.
So therefore, if we don't really upgrade our skills up to the date up to dealing with these relations because of these challenges that we have today, we are going to eventually have these troubles. And I would like for families inshallah to have the best relationship with each other, whether it's with your spouse, with your child, with your family members, and may Allah bless you, because if we don't have a happy home, if we don't have that safe and protected house, eventually you are going to struggle and a matter of success. It's in the dunya and the akhira - all of us would like to be successful in the dunya and all of us would like to be successful in the akhira, but without having the proper training for it, eventually we might struggle on our own.
Learning is very important. I came all the way actually from the Dallas community inshallah to teach this class - "Protect This House" - which is going to be about learning how to manage these relations in modern times: relationship between parents and their children, children and their parents when it comes to siblings, siblings' rivalry, when it comes to in-laws, when it comes to husband and wife. All these relations I hope inshallah that it becomes beneficial for us and for our community.
Closing Salawat and Duas
(Reference: Quran 33:56)