 وأقول في القرآن ما جاءت به آياته فهو الكاريم المنزاله وأقول قال الله جل جلاله والمصطف الهادي ولا أتأواله الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على أبد الله ورسوله نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته هو هو أو هو هو who created from water mankind وصحبه وصحبه وصحبه here is to do with lineage or to do with if you like blood relations he made them into people of lineage وصحرا وصحرا is the relationships that come about because of marriage the relationships that come about because of marriage so Allah in the beginning that person was born they had a mother and a father of course the lineage through the father and the father's father and the father's father so they get married and start their own family نسبا وصحرا وكان ربك قديرا and your lord is able to do all things and this just shows us that Allah is decreed from the Qadr of Allah from the Qadr of Allah is that Allah decreed the ties of kinship and the ties of marriage and so in those ties of kinship and ties of marriage that make up the Muslim family there is a great wisdom from the decree of Allah سبحانه وتعالى الله عز وجل said يا أيها الذين آمنوا قو أمفوسكم وأهليكم نارا صورة التحريم ayah number six all you who believe save yourself save yourself save yourselves and your families from a fire save yourselves and your families from a fire now why I wanted to quote this ayah here when we're talking about the understanding of the Muslim family is that this ayah tells us that the Muslim family is a protection or it should be a protection that a person tries not only to save themselves but they try to save themselves and then they look to their family members themselves and then their family members and so the Muslim family should be a source of protection the family members should be protecting each other and how is this protection achieved this protection is achieved بطاعة الله عز وجل by obeying Allah عز وجل and therefore can we not say that the Muslim family members the idea behind it is that this family unit is supposed to be a means of obeying Allah عز وجل a means to achieving obedience of Allah سبحانه وتعالى that's the objective behind it to have a means of obeying Allah and through that obedience to Allah that the members of the family are protected from the Hellfire the members of the family are protected from the Hellfire another ayah that I wanted to bring up when we're talking about this introduction to the Muslim family is the statement of Allah عز وجل كنتم خير أمة أخرجك للناس تأمرون بالمعروف وتنهون عن المنكر وتؤمنون بالله You are the best nation that has ever been brought out for the people You command what is good and you forbid what is evil and you believe in Allah Now this ayah talks about the Muslim nation It talks about the Muslim nation كنتم خير أمة You are the best nation So what relationship does this have to the Muslim family? Well if you think about it the Muslim family is the building block of this أمة This أمة is not in itself a sort of an abstract concept it's this أمة The أمة is made up of bricks لبنات little bricks that make up the أمة and the bricks that make up the أمة is each individual Muslim family So if the situation of the أمة is that the أمة is the best أمة because they are the ones who tell people to do good and forbid people from doing wrong and believe in Allah then this is an evidence that this is what your family should be built upon as well This is what the Muslim family should be built upon You command that which is good and you forbid that which is evil and you believe in Allah So our Muslim families that's what they should be A small unit in that big machine which is the a small cog in that big machine which is the أمة of محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم The Islamic Ummah That Ummah that Allah said كنتم خير أمة أخرجت للناس You're the best nation to ever be brought out for the people because you command what is good you forbid what is evil you believe in Allah That's what we want from our families We want our families to be a cog in that machine That means that within our families before we look outside before we look at our neighbours before we look at our districts before we look at our societies before we look at our countries we have to start by looking at our families and we have to start by implementing those three fundamental things within our family unit before we try implementing it anywhere else We tell people to do what is good We stop them from doing wrong We believe in Allah That was a kind of I feel like that should be like a title or a heading for every Muslim family تأمرون بالمعروف وتنهون عن المنكر وتؤمنون بالله You command what's good and you stop what's bad and you believe in Allah What a wonderful thing if each member of the family could have a role to play in those three things Down to the children the parents the husband the wife The wider family members and everyone has that as their their goal and their dream تأمرون بالمعروف وتنهون عن المنكر وتؤمنون بالله You tell people to do what's right You stop people from doing what's wrong and you believe in Allah And there's another آية in the Quran which actually clarifies this and explains that this is down to the individual It's not something which is only achieved on the level of the Muslim Ummah as a whole Allah said و المؤمنون مؤمنات بعضهم أولياء بعض يأمرون بالمعروف و ينهون عن المنكر و يقيمون الصلاة و يؤتون الزكاء و يطيعون الله و رسوله أولئك سيرحمهم الله إن الله عزيز و حكيم This is in Surah Tawbah آية No. 71 So Allah Azawajal said The believing men and the believing women They are allies to one another And that's how a Muslim family should be If anyone is deserving of being allies for people they're more deserving to be helping out each other and supporting each other to be allies to one another بعضهم أولياء أولئ They are supporters and allies of each other They command what is good And they forbid what is evil They perform the prayer And they give the zakah And they obey Allah and His Messenger It is those people that Allah will have mercy upon Indeed Allah is عزيز و حكيم Almighty And always And the reason I quoted this آية to you Is because I wanted to show you that When you hear the آية كنتم خير أمة أخرجة للناس Maybe the feeling is That this is on the level of the ummah You know The ummah as a whole Or individuals Special people within the ummah Who tell people to do the right things And stop people from doing the wrong things And believing in Allah But it's not actually the case It's an int down to each individual This ummah is made up of مؤمنون و مؤمنات It's made up of believing men And believing women بعضهم أولياء أولئ Helping each other Supporting each other Telling people to do the right thing Stopping people from doing the wrong thing Performing the prayer Giving the zakah A being Allah And a being His Messenger And that if we can achieve this In our families What are we going to get out of it أولائك سيرحمهم الله These are the people that Allah Is going to have mercy upon These are the people that Allah Is going to have mercy upon So if we want our family to be A place of mercy Not just mercy between ourselves But we want the mercy of Allah For our family Then we need to achieve those things We need to have a family that Tells people to do the right thing And stops people from doing the wrong thing Each one of them performs the prayer Each one of them gives the zakah Each one of them obeys Allah And obeys His Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم When we achieve that within our family When we optimise And we maximise the potential Of every single family member To obey Allah To obey His Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم To perform the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer And the prayer one of the things that came to mind is the statement of Allah In Surat Al-Ra'id و لقد أرسلنا رسولاً من قبلك وجعلنا لهم أزواجاً وذرياً Allah said we have sent, we have certainly sent messengers before you and we made for them wives an offspring ومن هذا أريدك أن تأخذ من هذا الآية في سورة الرعاية أن تصميم ورائعها من السنان من أمبياء ومن السنان من السنان, إذا كنت تحضروا الأمبياء والمثال التي تحضروا الأمبياء والمثال من أمبياء والمثال ومن ذلك لأننا رجعتنا لهم أزواجا وظرية ومجردنا لهم أمبياء والمثال ومن ذلك اللعزة وجل قد تخبرنا about several families in the Qur'an now I'm going to ask you to pause the video and have a think about this one because I think this is something that a lot of you, إن شاء الله تعالى, would know the answer to so have a little think about this can you think of as many families and I'm not talking about individuals families that are mentioned in the Qur'an as possible I'm not going to mention too many I'm just going to come up maybe I'll mention three maybe for example or four I mentioned four إن شاء الله so see if you can how many of the four you can come up with and maybe you'll come up with some that I didn't think of as well families, whole families that are mentioned in the Qur'an pause the video have a think about that one okay so I'm hoping that you pause the video and have a little think I'm going to mention to you four the first one so here we have إبراهيم إبراهيم's wives حاجر سارا and حاجر we have the children of إبراهيم إسماعيل and إسحاق and then onwards the grandchildren يعقوب and so on and all of the prophets that came from إبراهيم including our messenger محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم who is from the family of إبراهيم عليهم الصلاة والسلام so the first one the family of إبراهيم the second one أعلى عمران the family of عمران now here I'm actually going to slightly cheat a bit and I'm going to actually divide the family of عمران into two because some of the scholars the majority of the scholars when they talked about the family of عمران they said it refers to the mother the father and mother of مريم عليهم الصلاة والسلام so that is مريم and her father and mother and her family and so on so they said that this is أعلى عمران these are the family of عمران but others among the scholars they said that the family of عمران refers to موسى the family of موسى so the mother and father of موسى and then موسى and his offspring so we can take both of them from that because both of them are mentioned in the Quran so we can take from that إبراهيم and his family and we can take from it موسى and his family and we can take from it the mother and the father of مريم and their family so that was three and the fourth one the family of our messenger محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم and indeed all of these are mentioned to us in the Quran الله عز وجل said إن الله استفى آدم ونوحا وآلى إبراهيم وآلى عمران على العالمين ذرية بعضها من بعض والله سميع عليهم الله said indeed we chose Adam and نوح and the family of إبراهيم and the family of إمران as we said the family of إمران could relate to مريم and it could relate to موسى over all of the people over all of the worlds ذرية بعضها من بعض offspring some of them from the others now بعضها من بعض what some of the scholars said about this is that they resemble each other in their أخلاق in their character and I thought this was really profound and it's not only تفسير of the ayah but I just thought it was really profound when you're talking about the Muslim family that if you have the right upbringing and you have the right kind of family structure in place then isn't the beautiful thing that the result will be the same and perhaps that is one of the things which is indicated by the statement of Allah ذرية بعضها من بعض offspring some of them like the others some of them resembling the others meaning that they all had that righteous upbringing they all had that beautiful family unit and so they all had those fantastic manners and they were all beloved to Allah from the people that we mentioned like مريم عليه السلام like we spoke about موسى and هارون like إسماعيل and إسحاق what do they share in common we look at the righteous family and the righteous family structure and those are all examples that were given to us in the Quran as for our Messenger Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم then we know that Allah قد كان لكم في رسول الله أسوة حسنة لمن كان يرجو الله واليوم الآخر وذكر الله كثيرة and that's in سورة الحزاب آية number 21 and we know that our Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم said in an authentic hadith he said خيركم خيركم لأهليه وانا خيركم لأهلي the best of you are those who are best to their families and I'm the best of you to my family so that just shows how important the family was to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and if we have to take the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم as an example then our family should also be really important to us as well and in this regard we have a hadith in which الأسود asked Aisha رضي الله عنها ما كان النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم يصنع في بيته he said what did the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم used to do when he was at home قالت كان يكون في مهنة أهله فإذا حضرت الصلاة خرج إلى الصلاة she said in the hadith is in Sahih el-Bukhari she said he used to be in the service of his family and when the time for the prayer would come he would go out to the prayer سبحان الله I find this to be such a beautiful thing such a beautiful beautiful thing that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم who we've been commanded to take as an example how important his family was to him is that when they asked Aisha what did he used to do in the house كان يكون في مهنة أهله he was serving his family he was looking after his family and if the best of mankind was commanded to spend time at home looking after his family then that's something that all of us can aspire to do إن شاء الله تعالى so to conclude this episode and to conclude this kind of introduction on the Muslim family before we go on to talk about specifically sort of marriage and the beginning of the Muslim family in terms of marriage I just wanted to sort of conclude with a hadith and this hadith came to my mind it's a very famous hadith it's a very long hadith but I just wanted to quote you a part of it and it's the hadith known as the hadith of أبو زر or the hadith of أم زر and this hadith talks about 11 women who came together to talk about their husbands and actually I only wanted to focus on just what أم زر what she said what she said about her family and how she described her family because I think it's just such a beautiful description of what a family should be like so I just thought if we quote this hadith it would be nice because she talks about all the different parts of the family all the different parts of the household and how amazing they were to her and then the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم approved of it as we'll hear at the end so it has a real value to us in Islam and in terms of Islamic teaching so Aisha she said to the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم قال تلحاديت أشرة زوج أبو زر فما أبو زر أناس من حلي أذني وملأ من شح من عضضي وبحجني فبحجت إلي نفسي she said أبو زر so she's talking about her husband or her former husband she said أبو زر how can I tell you about أبو زر he made my ears heavy with jewelry and he made my bones heavy with fat i.e. he gave me plenty to eat and I was so comfortable that I even put on weight and that was something beloved at that time among the women that if a lady she put on weight and it meant that her husband really took care of her was really looking after her and really took care of her so he made her ears heavy from jewelry and he made her bones heavy from the weight that she put on and he made me happy so I became content with myself she became so content about because of the wonderful way her husband her husband her husband try to أبو زر she said وجدني في أهل غنيمة بشق فجعلني في أهل صحيل وأطيط ودائس ومناق she said he found me among a group of shepherds on one side of a valley or a group of poor shepherds and he made me among a people who had houses and camels and lands and grain in other words he took her from a difficult situation where she was quite poor and he gave her everything that she could have wished for she said فعنده أقول فلا أقبح وأرقود فأتصبح وأشرب فأتقنح she said when I'm with him I speak and he never finds anything wrong with what I say and I go to sleep and I wake up after the morning has come in other words I sleep in as much as I want and I drink until I am content that's how she described her how well a husband treats her and then she went on to the other members of the family she said أم أبي زر فما أم أبي زر the mother of Abu Zar what shall I tell you about the mother of Abu Zar ركوموها رداح وبيتوها فساح she said her cupboards if you like I don't know whether the right word for ركوم is to say cupboards but her vessels her containers are always full and her house was expansive in other words he didn't just look after his wife he also looked after his mama cupboards were full the house was big and beautiful ابن أبي زر فما ابن أبي زر فما ابن أبي زر then she goes on to talk about his son she says the son of Abu Zar what shall I tell you about the son of Abu Zar مضجعه كما سللي شطبه ويشبعه ذراع الجفره she said that his bed is like an unsheathed sword or like an exposed part of the the palm in other words you know he he lives in a very simple way and he's satisfied with only the the ذراع the forearm of the sheep of the lamb so he eats just a little bit and he sleeps in a very in a very simple way and that was something that was beloved of them that he raised his son to be a strong young man to be someone who's not sitting at home with his feet up doing nothing lazing around raised his son to be a strong young man who was content with little who's just a little bit of food sufficed him and that was a sign of you know that kind of indicates his strength and that he was he was beloved to his mother and to his father she said بنتو أبي زر فما بنتو أبي زر the daughter of Abu Zar what shall I tell you about the daughter of Abu Zar طوع أبيها وطوع أمها ومل أكسائها وغيب وجارتها she said that she was obedient to her mother or obedient to her father and obedient to her mother and that she filled out her clothes meaning she was well proportioned she filled out her clothes and again that she was well she was looked after and she was the jealousy she caused jealousy from her core wife so he describes even the daughter of Abu Zar was amazing she then says جارية أبي زر فما جارية أبي زر the servant of Abu Zar what shall I tell you about the servant of Abu Zar لا تبثوا حديثنا تبثيثا ولا تنق ولا تنق قثوا ميرتنا تنقيثا ولا تنلأ بيتنا تعشيشا she said the servant girl of Abu Zar what shall I tell you about the servant girl of Abu Zar she doesn't spread and disclose the things that we talk about and she doesn't squander our possessions and she doesn't fill our house with rubbish and then the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم when he heard this description of Abu Zar the Hadith continues but I just wanted to quote you that because the way that Um Zar describes the whole family how amazing the whole family was Abu Zar was amazing his wife was happy his mother was happy his children were amazing even his servant was amazing he had such an amazing household the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم when he heard this story from Aisha رضي الله عنها he said to her كنت لكي كابي زر لي أمي زر he said to her that I am to you like Abu Zar is to Um Zar so the Prophet affirmed that that is a wonderful way for a person to be and it's a wonderful description of a wonderful household so I just thought that's a nice thing to finish the discussion with while we're talking generally about the Muslim family without getting into the specifics but just to talk in general about the family just to have that kind of idea of something that was told to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم about that family where it seemed like every aspect of the family was really amazing you know down to the children the husband the wife their relationship the mother and the son and his relationship with his mom and even down to the people the servant girl that was working in the house that the relationship between the family was so amazing and the household was so amazing and I hope in شاء الله تعالى we will come back to this hadith perhaps when we talk about marriage to talk about some of the other benefits that we can take from it in شاء الله تعالى so that concludes our general discussion just introduction if you like to do with the Muslim family what we're going to do in شاء الله تعالى is we're going to start at the beginning because the beginning of a Muslim family is as a word is marriage so we start by talking about marriage the girls behind marriage the kind of things that people should bear in mind go on to the rights of the husband the rights of the wife and maybe some of the issues that crop up in marriage and how to solve them in شاء الله تعالى all of that is coming up as part of this short course from المدرسة الأمرية on the Muslim family in شاء الله تعالى أنا الله عز وجل نوز باست والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين السلام عليكم if you're enjoying these videos and you'd like to keep up to date with all of the courses we're going to be running make sure you head over to amauathome.com