
A father must be an inspiration
Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center · Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
August 19, 2025
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Show Notes
Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophets and Messengers.
Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, may peace and blessings be upon him and his family and his family,
has been a great Muslim.
After that, my brothers and sisters, Allah mentioned men in the Qur'an.
And he mentioned the relationship of the man and the woman in marriage.
And he mentioned the role of men, the fathers, in the homes.
And Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, said,
الرجال قوامون على النساء
Allah said, the men,
Allah did not say,
Allah did not say,
He said,
الرجال, with the plural of رجل,
الرجال قوامون على النساء
The men have been given authority over the women.
Allah did not say,
الرجال قوامون على النساء
Or تحت النساء
Allah said, على النساء
Men have been given authority over the women.
The reason I am saying this is because
The result of the feminist movement
And then later on, the woke movement
Has produced, has literally emasculated the men.
At least those men who have allowed themselves to be emasculated.
And it seems to have produced two extremes.
On the one hand, you have the brutal, foul-mouthed men
Who curse their wives, who beat the wives, who beat their children.
And on the other extreme, you have men who are women with beards.
No backbone.
Now, both are men who are women with beards.
No backbone.
Both are horrible.
Both are terrible.
A man who beats his wife, a man whose foul mouth curses his wife
Is like spitting in the air.
The spit falls in your face.
Because your wife is your honor.
If you curse your wife, you are cursing yourself.
If you beat your children or your wife,
You are only proving to them that you are a stronger animal than them.
Right?
Nothing else.
And on the other hand,
If you are a woman with a beard, which is so-called man,
Then there is no leadership in the house.
Allah gave in Islam,
Everyone has a role.
This whole false ideology of the West,
Of equality between men and women,
Everyone has a role. This whole false ideology of the West,
Of equality between men and women,
Is nonsense.
We have equity.
We do not have equality.
We have a division of roles.
There is a role for the mother.
There is a role for the wife.
And there is a role for the father.
There is a role for the man.
Both are equally important.
It's not a question of one being more important than the other.
It's not a question of equality.
It's a question of two very important roles,
Working hand in hand,
Working together,
To produce a generation which is a credit to the parents,
And a credit to society,
A credit to Islam.
Now this has failed.
This is not happening.
So we got these two extremes.
Brutalized or brutal men,
Or effeminate men.
Now this must change.
The role of the father is to produce,
Is to be a role model for the children,
Especially the sons.
And that does not come out of weakness.
It comes out of strength.
And strength is not displayed by brutalizing,
By foul mouthing.
Strength is displayed by character.
It must begin with your appearance.
You must have the appearance of a man.
You must have the appearance of Rasulallah .
You don't shave your face and look like a woman.
You don't begin your day by shaving your face,
And removing the sign of Rasulallah from your face.
When Rasulallah commanded you and said,
Grow your beards.
Why do you shave your face?
For what?
To look like a woman?
Then it extends to,
Think about this.
What is the first memory?
The other day,
Sheikh Hafizahullah, may Allah bless him,
He told us about his father.
And he said that,
For all my life,
I would hear my father praying Salatul Lail.
Kamul Lail.
So also with me,
I have mentioned this story many times.
My earliest memory,
Is my father praying Salatul Lail.
Is my father waking up to make Udo for Kamul Lail.
In the days I'm talking about,
Sixties,
There was no heating in the bathroom.
There was no electric heaters and stuff.
Water had to be heated outside on a wooden stove,
And it was brought inside for you to have a bath.
There were no plastics.
Hold your breath.
There were no plastics.
No plastic buckets, no plastic chairs,
No plastic bags.
When the first plastic bags came,
And the first plastic bottles came,
We thought this is a miracle,
This is a blessing from Allah .
Shows us how little we know of the world.
Today the whole environment is being poisoned with plastics.
So what we had was buckets of metal.
Galvanized Zayin, Ziyai.
So my first memory,
Is my father in the bathroom,
When he picked up the bucket and put it on,
The big clang.
I said, okay, he's woken up for Salatul Lail.
Then he would make Udo,
He would pray Tahajjud,
Then he would read Quran,
Until the time for Fajr,
Then he would come into our room,
And he would say,
He would turn the light on,
He would say,
Salatu Khairu Minanawm,
Loudly, Salatu Khairu Minanawm.
And he would pull off our,
Our, you know, the cover,
The blanket.
There was no option,
There was no question,
Of sleeping through Salatul Fajr.
There was no question of sleeping through,
You had to be dead to sleep through Salatul Fajr.
No option, there was no question of saying,
You know, you have,
Oh my poor, my poor kid,
He has exams, he studied late.
I had exams, I studied late.
No, Salatul Fajr,
There's no negotiation with that.
Salatul Fajr is Salatul Fajr.
You have to wake up no matter what.
Even if you are sick,
You wake up when you pray Salatul Fajr,
Go back to sleep.
We prayed Salatul Fajr,
Then we would go for a walk.
My father would take us for a walk.
And we walked four, five miles.
And one day as we were walking back,
We see this whole flock of sheep,
Completely surrounding us.
So I said, what's happening?
Why is this,
Why are there sheep all around us?
My father didn't say anything.
We kept on walking.
When we got to the road with the car,
And the shepherd came,
Then my father said,
There was a leopard.
There was a leopard,
Which was stalking the sheep,
And the sheep collected around us,
To save themselves from the leopard.
My earliest memories,
A man who was a man,
A man who was dedicated to Allah ,
Whose day began with tahajjud.
And having said that,
My father never told us,
Even one day,
You should pray tahajjud.
Not one day.
Then we would go on the weekends,
Our whole weekend,
Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
We would go for Salatul Jummah,
Then we would go,
There was a big madrasa,
Eventually I went to that madrasa also,
And did my six years there.
And then,
But the sheikh of that madrasa,
Was my father's sheikh.
We would go and spend the whole weekend there.
We would sit on stone floors,
We would listen to duroos,
From morning till night.
And then in the night,
We would sleep there,
On the same stone floor.
Food would be provided by the madrasa.
And then we came home.
Every weekend.
No options.
There is no question of,
Do you want to go?
Oh, I want to go to play my,
No, no, no, no.
Allah comes first.
And my mother,
Same thing.
I saw a film called,
The Horseman.
Omar Sharif.
And in that film,
There was one sequence,
He gallops,
Full tilt,
He is galloping down,
And he is doing a show,
So he gallops,
And on,
He gets on the side of the horse,
And picks up,
A piece of cloth,
From the ground,
With a knife,
With a dagger.
Now I got very,
Charged up with that.
So next day,
I take my horse,
Open field,
The friend of mine,
Called Mohammed,
Mohammed and I were together,
He,
Both of us on two horses.
So I take my horse,
I tell Mohammed,
Throw a piece of cloth,
Further in the field,
And then I go full tilt gallop,
I go on the side,
I pick up the cloth,
And then I can't get back out again.
Because what I forgot was,
In the film,
Omar Sharif is riding,
An Akal teki,
Which is fourteen hands,
And I was riding,
A thoroughbred,
With seventeen hands,
And the thoroughbred has,
The gait of,
I don't know what,
It goes,
Thump, thump, thump,
So it's a,
Very rough gait.
So I went down,
I couldn't come back up,
I fell,
I disappeared,
And I was,
I came back up,
I fell,
I dislocated my shoulder.
Shoulder came out.
Horse ran away.
So now what happens?
And all this when I'm around,
Maybe sixteen,
Fifteen, sixty.
So what happens now,
I told Mohammed,
I don't know how I knew that,
I said just,
Pull very hard,
And hit hard here,
So he pulled hard,
He jerked like this,
And my shoulder,
The ball,
Ball and socket joint,
Went back inside.
Shoulder got swollen up,
Intensely painful.
But,
My horse has run away.
So you got to go find,
You got to go catch the horse.
No question of shoulder pain again,
Crying,
No crying,
Go catch the horse.
So we go,
We catch the horse,
Take the horse back.
How do you take a horse back?
You don't,
You don't take him,
Lead him,
By the bridle on the road.
You ride the horse back.
So with the shoulder,
Get back on the horse,
Ride the horse back,
Put him in the stable,
Put him in the stable,
Groom the horse,
Then go home.
Now I go home,
My shoulder is,
I can't lift my hand,
Above this.
I told my mother,
She is at home.
I told my mother,
This happened.
What do you think my mother did?
Oh my poor boy,
No chance.
My mother,
Recites a line of poetry.
Ajeeb,
These people.
My mother was a tough nut.
My mother recites a line of poetry.
She says,
Girtay hain shah sawar hi maidane jang mein.
Girtay hain shah sawar hi maidane jang mein.
Wo tifl kya girega jo gudnaon ke bal chale.
My mother says,
Only a knight will fall in battle.
How can a child who is crawling on his knees fall in battle?
Then she says,
Go,
Get this,
Get a dressing tub.
My father's clinic was next to my house.
She said,
Go and show it to your dad,
Get the dressing tub.
That's it.
Period.
No fuss.
That is how you raise children.
You raise children by spending time with them.
Today what happens?
If somebody does something wrong,
And you complain to the father,
At the most,
The father will punish the child.
That's it.
Then he goes his way.
And the child goes to the mother,
The mother says,
Oh my poor thing,
How did you get punished?
Blah,