Kuwait Parenting Workshop #1

Auto-generated transcript:I want to remind myself and you that as far as children are concerned, the only thing that parents will be questioned about before Allah is how those children were raised, about their tarbiyah. Right? You will not be asked whether your child was a doctor or an engineer or a pilot or an architect and so on. None of which are bad things to have. All good things, I am telling you. But you will not be questioned about that. You will be questioned only about the tarbiyah of the child. What is it that the child did with respect to his beliefs? And with respect to his akhlaq, his dealings? And that is why it is so important to pay attention to that. See, I want to draw your attention to is this, that people in our normal sort of, you know, we will talk, say, well, so and so has been blessed with a child. Right? Or so and so has not been blessed with a child. Some people have children, some don't have children. Although Allah swt in the ayat of Mishra Allah swt made it very clear. Allah swt said, Allah is the one who has control over everything. . Allah said, He gives to whoever He wants to give. He gives to whoever He wants daughters. And He gives to whoever He wants sons. And Allah said, to some He gives both. And to some He gives nothing. So it is the, something which is given by Allah swt. Children. So I know many people, some friends, some others who talk about, who are so desperate to have children. And if they don't get children, they feel very bad about it. Society also puts pressure on them. How is it you don't have children? How long have you been married? Did you seek particular attention? Did you do this, do that? People ask all these funny questions. So there is a lot of sort of psychological pressure, social pressure. And then of course desire also. Alhamdulillah. No one can say, No one can say. No one can say. No one can say. No one can say. No one can say. No one can say. No one can say. Alhamdulillah, the world today has, how many, 7 billion? 7 billion didn't happen by accident. Because people have a desire to have children, so they have children. So, Alhamdulillah, this is all the Qadar of Allah. Allah made the earth, He created human beings, and then He put this desire to propagate the species in the hearts of people, so they are doing it. So, we talk about this, people who don't have children, they feel as if they are somehow, I won't say cursed, but not blessed. But the thing I say to them, I say to the others also, which is, look in the Quran and show me where Allah called children a blessing. Find me the place. Niyama. Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, called children fitna. Trust. Inna wa alhamalukum wa auladukum. Niyama or fitna? Fitna. In Surah Al-Taghabi, Allah said this, In Surah Al-Taghabi, Allah also said, Inna wa alhamalukum wa auladukum, aduwan lakum. They are your enemies. Azwajikum wa auladukum. Your spouses and your children are your enemies. Except those who you have. So, forgive them and treat them and guide them correctly and so on. So, I'm not saying you should not have children. I'm saying, hamza merla givu. But don't just imagine that because you have a child, you are somehow blessed in this special manner. You're not. You have now entered the testing ground. If Allah gives you a child, Allah is giving you a child. He does not give you a test. If Allah does not give you a child, seriously, when people come to me and ask me, I say, thank Allah. Say, Alhamdulillah. Should I do this operation, that operation? No, I'm not. You're asking my opinion, I say no. Don't do any operation. Ask Allah. Allah will give you. So, I want. Why do you want? What? Huh? Huh? You're not sitting in this house in a bad manner. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. Don't feel at peace at all. There is no one to sit and eat. And it will be left. So the point is that, first and foremost, think about this. Those of you who are, who don't have children, or who are not yet married, and once you get married, you will want to have children. Don't make that into a default setting. Right? So spend some thought on this. Say, do I really want children? Alhamdulillah, by all means have children. But do that thoughtfully. I'm not discouraging you. I'm saying, do it thoughtfully. Spend some. It deserves that thought. And if you don't have children, if you don't have children, don't need to feel bad about it. Don't need to feel somehow defensive. Alhamdulillah. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has Qadar. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has Qadar. He gave us, if you look in Islam, there are many examples of some of the biggest names in our scholars, in our Sarbh Sali, who never had children. And they did not even marry woman after woman after woman until they have a child. No, they didn't do any of that. They accepted the Qadar of Allah. Alhamdulillah. But now you have, you have children. What must you do? Today, unfortunately, we have this situation where this title again, one of Nathiv's creations, he always makes very good titles for lectures and stuff. Keeps you, gets you thinking. So, raised by iPad or Takwan. iPad, iPhone, Android, whatnot. The title is good because this is the actual reality. And the excuse that people usually give is, for example, in Majlis Nabawi Shari, if you go there, and if you have, if you pray anywhere, I actually, even if you pray far away, it's still here, but if you are praying anywhere close to the women's area, the children screaming and children crying is like, you know, a may amount of noise. So, the argument that is given is, you know, what is the mother? What is the mother supposed to do? So, she turns on some cartoon or something on the phone, puts it in front of the child, the child listens to that cartoon and keeps quiet. What else can she do? So, I say, do whatever your mother did. Because at the time when you were that age, there was no iPhone. So, do what your mother did. Oh, my mother never brought me to the Haram. Good. So, why do you bring a little one-year-old child to the Haram? For what? Take turns. There is a responsibility, no? And people give the example always, the moment you say this, forget about the Haram, okay, Haram, somebody's got an excuse, I'm going for Umrah, I'm there, I want to do it, I don't want to be like, okay, khalas. But, much in itself, especially in Tarawih, every much in the world, same issue. And if you tell them, people object. Then the example they give you is, oh, what do you see, with Rasool Allah , his grandsons, they used to come and, you know, they would climb on his shoulders, she was in his childhood, she was in his childhood, she was in his childhood, she was in his childhood, would be, you know, one of them climbed on his blessed shoulders and his neck. So, my answer to that is, I have written two books on Sira. So, my answer on this is, how many times did that happen? To the best of my knowledge, it happened once. So, my guess is that, I don't know which one it was, whether it was Hassan or Hussain, but there was Hanuman. He must have gotten away from his mother. You know, she must be busy with something else. The little kid would have gotten away, his grandfather is there. He would have run to the grandfather. One time. And that one time, was he running around screaming like a banshee, you know? Quietly he came, he climbed on his grandfather's shoulder. Alhamdulillah, grandfather held him. And then another time, the granddaughter of Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, she came, he was giving a Jum'ah Khutbah. She came inside, she looked like she would fall down. He got up, he got up, picked her up, held her. Alhamdulillah, we get a hukum from this, in Fakhr al-Sira, to say that, is it possible, Thabit Dhamudi asked you a question, is it possible, is it permissible, if the Imam is holding, a child in his hand? Yeah, sure. But do you want to make this a part of how an Imam should give Khutbah? Find a child. You can't find a child, you catch one child from somewhere, hold it. It so happened, there was something which happened that, that day, some incident. Okay, we have a hukum, but. So, taking care of children. The reason I am going into such detail is because he said, it's a very, it's a very daily thing, it's something which is there. And because of this now, we have the other issue of, how do you take care of them? And we have forgotten, for example, if you have very small children, obviously one way is to have a place where there is someone to take care of them. In Dharam, I saw this, this time, I went around the other side. And there is a whole, yeah, there is a grease and grease building, there is a complete building, there are, you know, babysitters and what, but people won't leave their children. I mean, this is, why won't you do that? They won't steal your child's energy, it's all, everything is accounted. They insist on bringing the child into Dharam and screaming and doing all kinds of stuff. So, the key thing is, what is the alternative? So, as I said, one alternative is, control the child. Second alternative is, have some babysitters. Third alternative is, toys. Get children, if they are only enough to read, let them start reading. If they start reading, even at two or three, because, you know, book with pictures, sit down there, let them read. Why, where does this phone come into the picture? I'll tell you why it's very, very lethal in nature. There's a chap called Jonathan Haidt. H-A-I-D-T, right? Jonathan Haidt.