 From our previous ways that we look to science and really know answers in terms of how to deal with a lot of the issues that we're dealing with in our current circumstance. Despite all our technological advances in our modern world, we are more depressed than ever. We're more suicidal than ever. We're more addicted to drugs than ever. We're more unwell than ever. And when we look for a guidance, the technology is outpacing our ability to know how to cope with these changes. Because these are technological advances that shift cultures, shift lifestyles, shift schedules. And we are in a time where we don't really have that guidance. And it is all the more important to look for that guidance from other places, from a higher source. And the beauty of this is the bottom line is the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, warned us about these times. And he gave us solutions for these times. So let's click into this for a little bit. We look at our technological advances. We have cell phones, we have food that can be delivered to our front door. We have every variety of food. We have every variety of novelty on our cell phones. We have the ability to connect with each other, to family members, to build strong social support networks. Yet despite that, we're more unwell than ever. We have the ability to work from home and not go out to work. Eating food is no longer something that we have to plan out. Just have to snap your fingers, it's there. And despite that, we're more anxious. We have more time on our hands, we're more anxious, we're more depressed than ever. So when we look at the statistics over the last 20 years, suicide rates have increased by 35%. Now it's more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car accident. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death in adults greater than 45, younger than 45. So we're living in strange times. We're living in times where even that's just death. When we look at, for example, just feeling unwell, what leads to suicide in most cases is depression. When we look at the depression and anxiety rates, they're going through the roof and constantly increasing. And this is over time. So there's no real, it's a trend. It's not like we're figuring it out or there's a solution that we're going to see a turn around. Same thing with overdose deaths. Put that aside for a second. Drug use is just increasing. Alcohol use is increasing. Alcohol deaths are the third leading, permittable cause of death and increasing. Okay, put away drugs and alcohol for a second. We are just feeling unwell in general as a community and as a people, as a modern people. Forget if you want to call it depression or anxiety. We're just feeling a lack of purpose and unfulfilled. And if you don't want to call it anxiety, stress or overwhelm, and we have a variety of ways to escape this. So forget drugs and alcohol. We have a variety of ways to escape this through social media, Facebook, cell phones, an endless variety of digital drugs. So if you step back for a moment and you think about all of our conveniences. People five hundred years ago, if they looked at how we lived, they would think, I would savor every moment of that. I would be in jannah. I'd be in heaven. But despite that, we're not savoring it. We're looking for different ways to escape, to escape it, to check out. And we're feeling more unwell than ever. So the beauty of this is the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us about these times. He warned us about these times. He told us as time progresses, intoxicants will be widespread. He told us as time progresses, zina will be widespread. Fornication will be widespread. He told us as time progresses, different types of distraction will be widespread. People wish they were dead because of the severity of the pain that they're in. So the interesting thing about that is, it could have been rationally possible that intoxicants weren't widespread. Let's just look at one of those signs. Because it can be overwhelming. He described these signs to us as if we're looking around us right now. And you've got to imagine, we're inheritors of a tradition that's fourteen hundred years long. People were talking about the signs for generations and they were looking around and not seeing it. And they're thinking, how could this be? How would that even make sense? How could fornication be widespread? And we're looking around and thinking, when was there ever a time not like that? Or we're certainly in a trend where our children are going to be asking that question. So it's interesting, let's just look into the intoxication and intoxicants being widespread. It could have been rationally possible that we've been fighting this drug epidemic for fifty years with a war on drugs. It could have been rationally possible that we won that war. Look at all the other wars we had. It could have been rationally possible that we could have coordinated an effort to eradicate drugs as a problem. If you look at smallpox, people came together, coordinated worldwide effort. Smallpox affected the whole world. A worldwide effort to eradicate completely this disease, smallpox, that had been around for centuries. So it could have been rationally impossible that intoxicants weren't widespread as we progressed. But it's the amazing, miraculous nature of the Prophet SAW that he was able to warn us about these things. He was able to warn us about these things. And that's really an important treasure. Allah says in the Qur'an, It's Remember, be mindful. Don't forget the Netmah, the blessing of Allah when he blessed you with prophets. And we have the last prophet. We have the messenger of Allah. What a blessing. And it could have been that he just gave us this advice and said, figure it out. He could have just gave us this advice and said, It's going to come. I'm warning you about it. Be careful. Just be a little bit more cautious. But he gave us the advice and then he gave us the solution. He gave us the advice and then he gave us the solution. So before we go into the solution, just think about this for a moment. He gave us this advice as a signal and he said, he gave us corrections. He said, well, this happens. It's a signal to do this. Like you give somebody directions. You say, go down 10th street. And when you get to the corner, you'll see a bush. Then take a right. So when you walk, the signal to take a right is 10th street and a bush. So when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is telling us this information. That's for us. Pass down for us. It behooves us to be ready, prepared, and willing to take that information and the solution. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, when we see these signs, when the time progresses, when we see these signs and we see this iftilaaf, these fitan, at the end of times, this confusion, these trials at the end of time. He told us what? He told us to hold firmly to the book and the sunnah, the Qur'an and the sunnah. Not that we forget about the Qur'an and sunnah for 12, 13, 1400 years. And then it's relevant 1400 years later. Of course, it's always been relevant. We've always had the Qur'an and sunnah, the guidance. Now, the difference is the holding onto it, holding onto it firm. You know, like you hit turbulence on a plane, you hold onto your seat. You get the fasten your seatbelt signed and you hold onto your seat. This is the time to hold firmly to the Qur'an and the sunnah. Especially when we're not finding answers on a population level for all of these problems. Of course, there's treatment. There's treatment for suicide, depression, addiction. Of course, there is. And it works. That's important to recognize that if you're in these problems, there is treatment. There is hope. Well, what I'm talking about is a bigger picture of prevention. Of working on this from a long term perspective, from a prevention perspective. So, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us to hold onto the Qur'an and sunnah. He told us to hold onto the Qur'an and sunnah. And it's not that the Qur'an and sunnah was relevant 1400 years ago and not relevant now. Don't fall for that. That's the fallacy. It's not that it was relevant a thousand years ago and it wasn't relevant now. Don't be doomed. How could it be that this is some sort of tradition or superstition or culture that we just do it? Like it's some superstition in order to ward off some, you know, make-believe harm. This is a lifestyle that's been designed for us. The same one that knew that these problems were going to exist is the same one that designed this lifestyle for us. This was a lifestyle by design to protect. And it's important to take it fully. Allah says in the Qur'an, Allah says in the Qur'an, Enter into the deen comprehensively. This is a lifestyle that is an immunization from the problems that we are facing in our current circumstance. So it's important to recognize that the Qur'an and sunnah, that our deen is not for the past that exempt for us. And now we just have to hold on to it. It's meaningless. It doesn't have a function. It doesn't operate in our, it has no utility in our current circumstance. Of course not. We talked about how all of these signs were passed down and irrelevant for many generations until they came to us. So of course the solution is going to be relevant to us. And on that line of reasoning, we shouldn't fall for the fact that the Qur'an and sunnah is for men at the exempt of women. As if Allah is a man and not a woman. That's foolish. The Qur'an and sunnah is not for adults at the expense of women, I mean at the expense of children. It's not for the rich at the expense of the poor. It's not for some tribe versus the expense of some other tribe. The other people just have to kind of go along with it so that these people can benefit from it 1400 years ago. So it's important to recognize that our tradition has answers. And it has answers that are relevant. We gotta look. We gotta look. So the Qur'an and sunnah has a comprehensive way of life for us to adopt. This isn't a slogan. This is serious and in many instances it's life and death in the circumstances that we're in now. The Qur'an and sunnah is a comprehensive lifestyle we're meant to hold on to. And that's important. So let's look into this. Let's go into a few principles of the Qur'an and sunnah for our times. One important principle is nurturing our children. The way to nurture our children, there's a whole Islamic science behind this. We're missing. We're missing it. There's a whole way to raise your children that's based on the Qur'an and sunnah. It guides us in this manner and it's important for us to understand this. So I'm going to highlight two points from this idea of raising children. Tarbiyeh, which is number one, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam gave attention to people. He gave attention to people. This was his way of being. When he looked at somebody, he turned his whole direction towards them. And that's connected to the way he was at home. The way he was with his children. The way he was with the young Sahaba. So one of the things that our scholars caution us to these days in terms of raising children is although it seems like we have more time on our hands, maybe the work day gets shorter, maybe we don't have a commute. We have a hundred different ways to stay connected and track our children and connect with them. Although it seems like that because of all the fitan of this time and all the issues we're dealing with, we're not spending enough time with our children. There's not enough energy and time spent with our children. And the Qur'an is filled with the dua of the envyat, the prayers of the prophets, and their concern for their children. Sure for their ummah, but their children. This is something they dedicated, they carved out time for. And it's important for us to dedicate energy, time, and attention into how we raise our children. Second thing about this real quick point I want to make about raising our children is that it's important to recognize the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had a method of his tapia. So we can all agree that pray sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had a method of his tapia. So we can all agree that pray sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had honesty, reliability, standing on one's own two feet, respect for parents, all these things are important. We can all agree on that. We all strive for that. There's no deficiency here. But the way in which we enact that, the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with the young sahaba, he had rifq, he had mercy, rahma, he was flexible with them, he would play with them. He was predominantly merciful to them. He was predominantly inviting. And this was his method. We know about the story of the man who came to the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and asked him for permission to commit zina. And then he walked them through a process of laji. The people were rebuking him. But the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he walked them through a process of logic. Would you like this for your mother? Would you like this for your sister? And then light bulb goes off. He understood it through a process of logic and love. And this was his way. This was his mode. It's hard. But the idea is progress, not perfection. Because a lot of these issues that we're suffering in our days is because we left this. And we're focusing on putting out the fire and not the prevention. And dealing with the risk factors of a lot of the issues. The third thing I want to say about this is, terbiyah is not like our parents are responsible for everything. Like if they forgot a few things in the enormous blessing of parents, now we hold that against them for the rest of their lives. Parents are an incredible blessing. We have to take it upon ourselves. Do our self-reflection, recognize what pieces are missing, and then find people who can do that terbiyah for us. So the murabi is the parents, but you can also find people to help you work on your character, to run things past, to talk to, to have a committee as opposed to being stuck in our heads. So this is something that eventually we have to take this responsibility on ourselves. The first pass is our parents. They get us started. The rest of it is up to us to figure out where are my missing, what are my habits that I keep coming back to, that I swear off, but I keep coming back to them. Let me focus on that. Because if opens the door of she'a fun, shoulda woulda coulda opens the door of she'a fun. The other important aspect I want to bring up is the gradual nature of change. So a lot of the issues in terms of mental health, in terms of addiction, in terms of generally just feeling unwell, we have to recognize that the principle within Islam is a gradual change. It's a gradual change. When the ayat of prohibiting khamr came down, intoxicants came down, it came down gradually. The first ayat was in Surat al-Baqarah. They asked you about intoxicants and gambling. Because gambling is addicted. They asked you about intoxicants and gambling, chemical and behavioral addictions. And then Allah says, Say in them is harm. And their harm is greater than their benefit. So it first started coming down with the logic of all of this. That, yeah, let's acknowledge that it's doing something for us. This behavior, this, like, you know, motive communication with my spouse or my child, or this addiction to my cell phone, which I even want to give up. I want to stop tick-tocking, but I can't. I want to stop this, but I can't. Four hours have been, and I feel completely unfulfilled afterwards, binging on, you know, you name it, and I'm, you know, exhausted afterwards. I feel unfulfilled, purposeless afterwards. The idea is to recognize that it does something for us. But recognizing the harms and using logic and, again, love. Then the second ayat came down. Don't come close to salah while you're intoxicated. So now, once the logic and the process, the heart and minds are right, because it's not like give it off or you fail. That's part of the problem. You know, perfection is the enemy of progress. We don't want to even venture down changing that habit, because it's never going to happen. It's not possible. Of course it's possible. If we take it step by step and give ourselves time. So there was restrictions priced on intoxicants. Don't drink during salah. So that's really just after a check. So placing restrictions on those habits or those conversations. When I get heated with my children with my spouse, that's it. Once my voice goes above this decibel, time for me to just go somewhere to remove myself, restrict myself. When I get to this internet website, time for me to restrict myself. When I catch the 30-minute limit on the cell phone, because for the social media or whatever, restrict myself. Put those restrictions on yourself. And restrictions are in the terms of time, like we see in this ayat, but they're also neuroscientists repeatedly show the order of distance. So just putting that bag of junk food in the garage as opposed to in your cabinet where you got to walk a little bit further. Putting that cell phone, leaving it downstairs when you're unwinding upstairs. You go before you go to bed. Leaving it in another room has been shown to be incredibly helpful in reducing engagement in these things. So that's physical and time distance. But then we also have the distance in the digital world where it's important to take advantage of all these things that restrict our digital activity. So that's that's that restriction. And the Quran and Sunnah is filled with this, filled with this. There's so much to talk about here, but suffice to say that we're in interesting times and there's an incredible amount of hope. But my dear brothers and sisters, don't be duped. There's treatment out there, take it. There's treatment out there, take it. But there's so much more to life than just preventing crisis or stopping crisis. There's joy that our deen tells us. Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala ala Sayyidina Muhammad wabarakul salam Rabbana aateena fuduniya hasala wa fil aakhirati hasala wa qina aalaba minna Allahumma arina haqqa an haqqa wa rizqna thiba'a wa arina baqila baqila wa rizqna tshinaba Allahumma wafitana liman tukhibu wa targha Allahumma ajma'na bi ibadika sali'in wa ja'alna binvum Allahumma wa fitana liman tukhibu wa targha