Modern Family - Corrected Lecture
By Yasmin Mogahed | 2026-01-10T03:24:14.789909+00:00 | Topic: Relationships
Modern Family
Lecture by Yasmin Mogahed
Introduction
I remember going to these conferences when I was younger and it's just always very surreal that I'm up here and I was always there and I just honestly feel like when I speak with you, I never want to feel as though I'm speaking at people. This is why one of my favorite types of audiences are American audiences because we're pretty - if you guys actually travel around different parts of the world find that Americans are quite expressive and when I say expressive you don't even have to speak we make faces and I love people who make faces. So keep making your faces because then I know whether or not you get me or you don't get me if you look confused then I explain a little more if you look like oh, yeah, I got that then, you know, I understand. So inshallah, hopefully it's a two-way conversation. I always try to ask my audiences to just use nonverbal communication. Just be very expressive make faces if if I'm making no sense be like that's okay. That's good. And if I am do this. So then I know okay, they got that okay that I can move to the next point you get me. So it's a way for us to have two-way communication.
The Importance of Family in Religion
The topic today is something that's extremely important. I'm going to talk about family and the reason why this is so important and I'm going to emphasize the importance of it as oftentimes we believe that religion - that Deen (دِين - deen) - we have a very limiting definition of religion and Deen. For example, if a person is looking to get married, right - as maybe many of you in this room are - if a person is looking to complete half their Deen, is looking for a good spouse and you know they're teachers their parents the scholars that tell them look for Deen, right? So we all know this we got this. Okay, we're supposed to look for Deen, right? But then we have this challenge of well, how do I know a person's Deen, right?
Well, oftentimes what happens is the definition of a religious person is very superficial. Very superficial. So for a brother, it's the ones who have the biggest beard the shortest pants if that's what they do and they can maybe recite the most Hadith and that's awesome. That's all very awesome however, our definition of Deen is just very surface. It's a person maybe who has the most things memorized which is great but sometimes - and on the other end we have with sisters. It might be very much a surface thing right although unfortunately, and this is just a side thing - a lot of times there even among I found this trend that even among very religious brothers there is an absolute positively complete definition on looks even if the bro is religious the most important thing in the sis is looks and I found this unfortunately across the board. This is something we have to start getting a little more balanced about right in the sense that yes attraction is important however we have to start being a little more deep - a little more deep about the substance of a human being and this applies to whether you're just looking for looks or whether you have a superficial definition of what it means to be religious.
The Prophet's Litmus Test for Character
And that's what brings me to the topic of family because the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) for example gave us a definition of a religious person. He says in one hadith:
(Tirmidhi 3895)
"The best of you are the best to their families"
Now all of a sudden the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) has given us a litmus test for character. That's what he's doing in this hadith. He's giving us a litmus test for character. And what is that litmus test? He's saying the best of you are the best to their families. So right now we already have a litmus test. He actually didn't say the best of you are the ones with the longest beards. Yeah, okay. This is a beautiful thing to follow the Sunnah. However, when he's really talking about the litmus test of a human being of a human's character, he says look at how they are with their family.
Why Family Treatment Reveals True Character
Why do you think that would be a litmus test? Well, there are many reasons. Number one is that what happens behind closed doors is behind closed doors. It's not on social media how you are with your children how you are with your parents how you are with your siblings. That's a hard one, isn't it? Right? Because the reality is we sometimes have it flipped. We aren't the best with our families. We're the worst with our families. We save the best for outside the home. Isn't that the truth? We save our politeness and our kindness and our generosities and our pleases and our thank-yous for the people at the grocery store for maybe the teller maybe the waiter maybe the people in the masjid, but once we get home all the pleases and thank yous are done. They're expired.
You know I'm saying and now all of a sudden sometimes we even go to the extent that our family is our punching bag both figuratively and literally. This is an extreme, right? But even if it's not physically our punching bag, although sometimes it actually is, we use our families as our emotional punching bags. So we're frustrated with our boss. We're frustrated with our teacher. We're frustrated with someone whatever is happening to us outside the home. We come home and take it out on the people inside the home. And this is the exact opposite of what the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) is teaching us. He's teaching us we're supposed to be the best with the ones in the home. Meaning on our best behavior inside the home not the other way around.
Because the way we've got it often is that we're on our best behavior outside the home we come in the home now it's our time to relax, but relaxation unfortunately means I don't have to be on my best behavior anymore. You get it. I can treat them however I want I can talk in whatever tone I can snap I can all of a sudden we're not so concerned about the feelings of the people inside the home as we were just concerned with our colleagues and our boss and even just the teller at the grocery store. That's a big problem, and it shows a problem in character. It shows actually a problem in character because the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) gave us the litmus test and the litmus test is خَيْرٌكُمْ خَيْرٌكُمْ لِأَهْلِهِ (Tirmidhi 3895).
That actually if you want to know who is the best - who is the best among you in what actually matters not only in your dress not only in what you can recite not only in the external superficial like the surface things but in really your character - the litmus test is how are you with your family? How are you with the people closest to you the people who we tend to take for granted? The people who aren't paying our income our check our monthly check the people who aren't giving us that status you see because at the masjid - how we behave in the masjid we get something from it, right? That's a status thing sometimes. It's an image thing. What are people gonna say? What are people gonna think I want people to think of me a certain way. You know this feeling of wanting that but in the home, you know, there's no trophy at the end.
The Real Test of Character
There's no position. No one's putting it up on social media. It's not being Facebook lived you feel me and so sometimes what happens is we don't follow this formula and instead we do the opposite. But if you really want to know a person's character - truly test a person's character - you look at how they are with those in their family. You look at how they are with those closest to them those who don't have power over them but they have power over them make sense. If you see how a person is with the one who can't benefit them or can't have sultan or power over them and see how they treat those people - their kids their siblings their parents - you understand the things that are in private.
And why does the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) tell us this? Because here's the amazing thing if a person can be on their best behavior - this is called Ihsan (إحسان - Ihsan) by the way. Ihsan don't ever think Ihsan means perfection. Sometimes it's mistranslated. Ihsan doesn't mean perfection because there's no such thing as perfection except with Allah. Human beings are not perfect. Human beings are not perfect. This doesn't mean we are expected to be perfect. However, Ihsan is to strive for excellence in everything you do. To strive for excellence in your behavior to strive for excellence in your manners to strive for excellence at how you treat everyone whether they can benefit you or they can't all right.
And so if a person is able to have Ihsan with those in private then that's the real test of how they're gonna be with those in public make sense. If you want to really know a person - because at the end of the day as they say you don't really know a person till you live with them or travel with them or deal with them with finances. You know the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) told us that you don't really know a person unless you deal with them in certain circumstances and one of those circumstances is that you travel with them that you're with them in a living situation in an extended period of time. Why? Because that's when somebody is uncomfortable. Travel is uncomfortable. Travel is not - I mean even now even now with all of our transportation our comfort that we have we have airplanes now. We're not on camels. However, it's still stressful. You know what I mean when you're missing your flight or you're close to missing your flight or someone is discriminating against you or whatever you're put under stress and when a person is put under stress it tests their metal it tests what they really are.
So if you really want to know a person you really want to know a person these are some of the ways but I'll tell you this if you want to know a person say you're trying to get to know someone for marriage and you want to know that person look at how they are with their family. Look at how they treat their mother. Look at how they treat their father. Look at how they treat their siblings. Because even if a person is, you know, sometimes you might have someone who's really really great with their parents. Alhamdulillah. But then again you always also have mama's boys sometimes however. However if you look at how they are with their siblings you look at how they are with people who can do nothing for them then you start to understand the real metal the real character of a person.
Finding Balance in Parent-Child Relationships
Now, there's something else I'm gonna say when it comes to family. It's very hard to find a balance sometimes. Now I want to take a moment and talk about the relationship with our parents the relationship between parents and children. So much emphasis is put in the Quran and in the hadith about the elevated status of parents and how much respect and Ihsan our parents have a right over us. It's their rights. But sometimes we find it difficult to find a healthy balance. I mentioned in passing a term which we use "mama's boy," right? And I'm gonna explain that term for a second and why that's one extreme and why it's also dangerous and I'll explain.
Everything in our life needs to be balanced. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that we are a people of the middle path and while on the one hand we are told to respect our parents and we are told to be kind to our parents and have Ihsan with our parents, I have seen and we've seen in our communities a certain type of extreme which isn't healthy and that is that even when the parents are asking of the children something that is unjust for example. This is a very typical example when someone gets married and maybe the parents or the mother is being unjust to the wife - unjust to the wife maybe mistreating the wife. Now this is a situation where the husband is being put in a moral dilemma, right? Because the mother is the mother and she has her status. However, she may be doing something unjust to his wife and he's put in a situation. This is really where we have to find okay, what does Allah want me to do in the situation? How can I be just and still be kind to my mother and still be kind to my wife? This is a real life situation many people and actually there's a lot of marriages ending because of this because of the inability to find that balance.
Limits of Obedience to Parents
Okay respect for our parents absolutely, but there is a limit in that obedience. There is a limit. Now one of the clearest limits Allah told us in the Quran which is that if our parents are asking of us something which is displeasing to Allah meaning something haram, for example you have families where the parents aren't even Muslim and the child is a convert or a revert in this case the parent may not even want the child to be Muslim. This is one extreme example doesn't want the child to be Muslim. Obviously in that case, they can't obey that particular request of the parents make sense. What's even more common for example, the parent may not want the child to wear hijab for whatever reason, you know, you're not gonna get married or no one's gonna want to marry you that kind of thing in that case it's a situation where it's a test but the correct answer is you can't obey your parents in that which disobeys Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
But then there's these other sort of another level which isn't as black and white and that I'm gonna talk about next which is what happens when there is an injustice right. So in this case, for example, you have like the example I gave where there is an injustice that's being done to the wife for example by the parents. What should the husband do now in that case? It is required of him Islamically to be fair. It is required Islamically to be just. To do that justice with Ihsan to do it with Ihsan meaning in a beautiful way. You know, even when there was a companion his mother was telling him to leave Islam. She wasn't a Muslim and she was saying unless you leave Islam I'm going to starve myself until I die and his response to her was something of the sort of even if you had a hundred souls and they left your body one by one I wouldn't leave this Deen. Well, okay there's a way to say things. Do you know he was actually told he was corrected even though what he's doing - obviously, he shouldn't leave Islam but the way in which he spoke to his mother he was corrected for it. He was told that he had to be corrected because that's not the way.
So although we do things correctly, we may have to stand up for justice. However, we should do it with Ihsan that means that there's a way to do it. There's a way to be just if there is an issue where our parents are being unjust. There's a way to handle it, but do it with justice. Do it with Ihsan. What we shouldn't do and what we are going to be held accountable for is when we don't stand up in a circumstance where something is unjust and it is within our control. It is within our authority to say something and we don't - that's something we will be held accountable for so we have to find that balance of respect but at the same time justice and Ihsan if that makes sense, okay.
Accountability for Efforts, Not Results
The other thing that oftentimes happens is that I've had a lot of people come to me and sort of struggling with one of the issues they struggle with is I'm trying everything but I can't seem to please my parents. Like I'm trying I am working I am doing everything I can but they're just not pleased with me because of XYZ and the XYZ is usually something like I didn't go to med school or I don't want to be a doctor or I'm not marrying my cousin. You know what I'm saying? And the problem there - the problem
The Link Between Our Relationship with Allah and Others
Finally I'm gonna say this and then I want to leave time for questions because I'm assuming this is a topic where there will be a lot of different kinds of questions. When it comes to relationships between family when it comes to relationships between family there's a principle that we have to keep in mind and it governs every kind of relationship. In fact, whether it's with your parents or whether it's with your spouse or whether it's with your children. And that is this: there is a direct link between our relationship with Allah and our relationship with people. Now, what do I mean by that? When we fix when we rectify our relationship with the Creator then Allah rectifies our relationships with the creation so by fixing your relationship with your Creator Allah will then help you and rectify your relationships with people the people in your life the people in your family. But it also goes the other way around too and this is another principle.
We are taught when we fix our relationships with the creation when we rectify it when we work on it it also helps to fix our relationship with Allah. Now what do I mean by that? I'll give you a few examples. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) taught us that for example if you help a person in need so you see someone who's in need and you're compassionate with them Allah will help you when you're in need and Allah will show you compassion if you are merciful with people then Allah will be merciful with you. So there is a relationship between how I am with people and how Allah is with me. The other thing to keep in mind is this: there are ways to fix our relationship with others that fixes our relationship with Allah.
The Story of Abu Bakr and Forgiveness
I'm going to give you one example for that. At the time that Aisha was accused she was accused of being unchaste and during that period that very difficult period her father Abu Bakr found out that one of the people spreading the rumor was a relative and not only was he a relative but he was a relative that Abu Bakr was financially supporting giving financial support to. Now you can imagine how he would have felt. What would we do right? Now all that Abu Bakr did he didn't go after him. He didn't try to get revenge. All he did was withhold the financial support. That was it that was it and Allah actually reveals an ayah in Surah An-Nur about this and He tells Abu Bakr addressing this issue and obviously addressing all time:
"Let them pardon and overlook. Would you not like that Allah should forgive you?"
Now why I want to emphasize this is because it's very important to study why Allah says let them pardon and overlook. Oftentimes what keeps us from forgiving our family members what keeps us from forgiving people around us is we say to ourselves but they don't deserve my forgiveness right. They don't deserve my forgiveness or they didn't apologize or they didn't rectify. They didn't fix it. They didn't kiss my feet enough. You know I'm saying and they did this thing October 3rd 1991 to my family's neighbor's dog's owner's cousin and I'm gonna remember it forever right, and it's gonna go down in the books and then it's gonna be spread from generation to generation that this person this family did this to our family five decades ago, you know what I'm saying?
The problem with this attitude is that we're missing something very important and that is this: our interaction with people is actually about our relationship with Allah. It's not about people. It's not about people when Allah revealed this ayah. He said to Abu Bakr in this circumstance:
"Do you not love for Allah to forgive you?"
You see what's happened here is the focus is completely being shifted. It's not about Abu Bakr and the one who harmed him and the one who was spreading the slander about his daughter anymore, it's about Abu Bakr and Allah. (أَلَا تُحِبُّونَ أَن يَغْفِرَ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ) - do you not love for Allah to forgive you? And because of that because obviously Abu Bakr wanted Allah to forgive him he not only continued the financial support he increased it. Why did he do that? Because he recognized that it wasn't about this person deserving forgiveness it was about the fact that he wanted the forgiveness of Allah and Allah made a deal.
Allah's Deal with Us
See Allah is making a deal with all of us. How many of you guys like Black Friday deals? Exactly I know you like Black Friday deals because human beings like a deal you like to get something that's of this value for a lesser value for a lesser price. Everyone loves a sale, right? I know you do because people stand outside
of Best Buy camping literally sometimes standing in freezing cold weather to get a few hundred dollars off a laptop. That's the reality, right? Allah's making a deal with you. Allah's saying I will give you - Allah is saying that he will give us something that is priceless.
Imagine for a moment that you find a house all right, and you're in love with this house and you find out that it's 13 billion dollars. That's the cost because it's on some famous cliff off of some beautiful ocean, right? 13 billion dollar house and you go to the one selling the house and you say you know, I really love your house and the owner says well, it's your lucky day. It's on sale for a quarter. Would you feel like you got a deal? Yeah, right. So Allah is making a better deal a better deal than that because Allah is giving us something that's worth - the mercy of Allah, what's it worth? Anyone? It's priceless that means it's infinite it's infinite. It's not 13 billion dollars the value of the mercy and forgiveness of Allah. For Allah to forgive you that's not something you can put a price tag on. You can't even put a price tag on Jannah and none of us are gonna enter Jannah without the mercy of Allah. We all need it. Even the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said that he would not enter Jannah except by the mercy of Allah. Just his deeds alone wasn't enough. What are our deeds if the Prophet's (صلى الله عليه وسلم) deeds aren't enough? What about our deeds?
So here Allah is saying I'm gonna give you this thing called my forgiveness and this thing that is infinite in value and I'm gonna give it to you for a quarter. All you got to do is forgive this person. You get it. All you got to do is forgive so-and-so who harmed you on this date on this day of the month on this day on this year. That's it. That's what you got to do to get the forgiveness of Allah. Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) was he not wronged? Was Aisha (رضي الله عنها) not wronged? It was like it's the worst kind of wrong - slandering a woman's chastity you feel me and yet Allah is saying I will give you my forgiveness. Do you not want Allah to forgive you? Forgive him pardon him and I will pardon you.
So you see within our families, within our communities when we forgive people we're actually benefiting ourselves because what we've done is we're paying a quarter for something that's infinite. We're paying a quarter - forgive this person and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will forgive you and that is priceless. That has no price tag that you can assign to it.
Conclusion
Question and Answer Session
Question 1: Anger at Home
So first question reads: sometimes after long days at work in school, we come home and explode on our families. Does this make us a hypocrite if we are outwardly very kind and composed but can sometimes have a temper or angry at home?
To answer your question: It doesn't mean you're a bad person, but it is definitely something you have to work on. What I believe as a fact is this: where there's a will there's a way. Meaning that if you believe that something is important enough to you, you will make it happen. Like you will make sure that you do it.
I'll give you an example. Let me just give you an example this same person who asked this question. Imagine it's the other way around for a moment. Just follow - stay with me. Imagine it's the other way around that this person got in a fight with his wife just before going to work. All right, so he's very upset he's angry he's going into work very angry and very stressed. My question to you: is he ever gonna take it out on his boss? No, is he gonna take it out on his boss? No not if he has any kind of rationality, right? No. Why? But he's angry, you know, I couldn't help it because it's not on the menu of options. You understand my point all of a sudden he has self-control when it comes to his boss all of a sudden self- control exists.
See, it's a choice we make. It's a choice. Believe me. It's a choice. We choose that we're gonna have less self-control with our families. It's not that we don't know how to have self-control and if we don't know how to have self-control even with our boss as well, then we need to seek anger management. We need help because self-control is a necessary component in anything in life. You can't do nothing in life without having self-control and you definitely can't have a relationship without self-control. Okay, just like you're not gonna keep your job unless you have self-control you understand. But see we care about our job more than our marriage sometimes. That's the reality we care about our job more than our children's well-being or maybe psychological well-being because we wouldn't mess up with our boss but we mess up with our spouse and our children. That's a big problem. It's really about priorities. It's about priority.
So I believe that if you make it - see the first step is for it to be a priority. If you make it a priority and you really internalize what the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is saying خَيْرٌكُمْ خَيْرٌكُمْ لِأَهْلِهِ (Tirmidhi 3895) - that you cannot be the best unless you are the best to your families. And so this is a litmus test that we should have for ourselves. For ourselves first, right because it's all about me. I need to change. A lot of times people listen to lectures like this and be like oh wait till I tell my wife or wait till I tell my husband or wait
till I tell my friend. No, no, we have to look at ourselves first. What do I need to change? What do I need to work on? So, yeah, it's about priorities.
Question 2: Parents Who Have Ostracized Their Child
The next question reads: How do you deal with a parent or parents who have ostracized you because you are gay and truly kicked you out of the family and are forcing prejudice against you? Do you still need to treat them with kindness? How do you deal with this?
So the ruling of treating parents with kindness is actually regardless. It's not conditional. So even I gave an example of a man whose mom was actually telling him to be a kafir - she was pushing him to kufr and she was threatening him. This was a companion threatening him that unless he left Islam she was gonna starve herself till she died and even with her, he needed to continue to be kind. This injunction of kindness - this injunction of kindness is regardless, it's not - see the thing I've learned is the relationship with parents isn't meant to be - how do I say it? When you're dealing with your parents it's not supposed to be like tit-for-tat. It's not supposed to be like oh, but I'm doing this to her cuz she did it to me. Like that's not how it works. That's not the differential with your parents. See when Allah says that you should lower the wing of humility to your parents that whole concept means it's not like you would be with your friend. It's something different. So even when they are not treating you well, your responsibility is how you treat them.
Now having said that and obviously there's a whole other component to that which I'm not gonna get into but since this is about family, I want to add this other component and that is this: I definitely want to emphasize this - Islam never ever tells you to allow yourself to be abused. To allow yourself to be mistreated. Okay, and it doesn't matter who's mistreating you whether it's a spouse or it's a parent or it's a friend or whoever it is. Islam is not a passive religion and being patient - having sabr (صبر) - does not mean turn the other cheek. It doesn't mean - see the concept of turn the other cheek is not an Islamic concept. Turn the other cheek means that if someone came and hit me on this cheek I turn so they can hit me on the other. No. No, if somebody - Islam the Islamic concept is this: if somebody hits me on this cheek I do everything in my power within obviously within the Sharia and within the rules to make sure that they don't hit me on this cheek. Make sense? That we are a people of action and we are a people of justice and a people of Ihsan. So we do things but we do them in a beautiful way, but we do them we are not passive. We don't see abuse and say just stay quiet. Just be patient because sabr is also an active term. Sabr is also taking action and being patient and persevering in that action.
It requires sabr to run a marathon. Okay, it requires sabr to wake up for Fajr on time - it's an action it's also active it's not only that you just do nothing. That's not what sabr is in its essence in its comprehensive meaning. So I just want to really put that out there that it doesn't mean that you allow for abuse by anyone because Islam is a religion that teaches us to preserve the individual the dignity of the
Question 3: Parents Too Proud to Seek Help
If a family is facing issues and the parents are too proud to seek professional help such as therapy or counseling what can you do as a child?
Okay, well it depends I mean it's such a general question. I don't know how old the child is. I mean is the child 21 or the child 12? And I don't have any idea but I will say this: Number one seek help from Allah. Now when I say that I'm not saying not to seek help outside and from therapy, etc. I'm saying first seek help from Allah. Meaning ask Allah to make it easy for you and make dua ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to rectify your problems to rectify your situation to make it easy to open the hearts of your family that they will be willing to take to do counseling. So I want to emphasize this first point because at the end of the day everything is a tool your therapist is a tool the counselor's a tool me speaking up here I'm just a tool. I hope for good inshallah but at the end of the day everything is from Allah everything good is from Allah and any kind of help and any kind of salvation and any kind of cure is ultimately in the hands of Allah. Only Allah can really fix the problems that you're having but he puts tools out there in the world. Asbab (أَسْبَاب - Asbab) that's what they're called.
And so within those tools we are told to seek those tools, right? We when we're sick, we take medicine when we're sick we go to a doctor when we have a problem we go to a counselor. This is all within the injunctions of Islam however remember that the source is Allah the source of help is Allah the source of salvation is Allah. The fath (فَتْح - fath) only comes from Allah that means opening. That means when you have a problem everything seems closed the opening comes from Allah so make sure that that's first and foremost that you're seeking that help from Allah and then see what kind of action you can take depending on your situation. You might make dua try to talk to your parents. Maybe if that isn't working try to talk to someone who your parents respect. Maybe a scholar a teacher an imam in the masjid and see if you can do it that way. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easy and rectify all of our situations. Ameen.
Question 4: Family Conflicts Over Divorce
We're gonna have one more question. I have family members who are mad at me and starting problems with me because I'm friends with the ex-wife of my cousin. The reason why I asked this as many questions have here concerning people who are divorced out of the family but they're keeping relations with them and the family is being mad at them. Can you comment on this?
Yes. Okay, so here's one of the challenges that we are - this is one of the things that we are told as believers that you have to stand up for justice even if it is against yourself or even if it's against your family. What that means again, is that if something is right you do it you do it and you stand firm in it in a polite way. Does that make sense? So you don't cut off this person just because everybody else is mad because they got divorced or whatever but at the same time you can do it and continue but do it with Ihsan do it with respect do it respectfully. You have to - we have to be again. I'm gonna emphasize this - we have to be a people of justice and Ihsan and they go together. Justice and Ihsan and mercy so be firm on what's right. Yeah, if someone needs to be defended defend them but do it in a beautiful way if that makes sense.
"That's actually all the time we have may Allah preserve you for us and increase you in knowledge. Ameen. One last round of applause."