 So, a couple of weeks ago, I finished the series of lectures that we were going through the rights of the parents. And the topic that I wanted to kind of wrap up that subject before we move into the next subject is ikram or takreem, karam, the concept in Islam and in the Qur'an and in the hadith of honoring others, especially as it relates to family. How do we honor our entire family? The whole series of lectures, the book that we were going through of Sheikh Mohammed Moulud was about honoring the parents, honoring the parents, honoring the parents, all of the different ways that we honor the parents in the way we speak to them, in our body, the way we act around them, in our wealth, how we support them. And then at the end, there was just a very short point about how do we honor our children and the point that was made there was that parents are naturally inclined towards honoring their children, but children don't necessarily have that same inclination towards their parents so there has to be more specific, this is what you do, this is how you say and so forth, more rules that are given. But when we look at this concept of honoring and that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala honored the human being, wa laqad karamna bani Adam, Allah says in the Qur'an that He has honored human beings and in the same way that He has honored us, we have to then honor ourselves and respect the body that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given us, take care of it, use it for the proper purposes and then honor those people around us and do in the same way that we would expect the generosity of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to reach us then in the same way we want it to reach others. So as an example, one time there was a narration where a man came to Ibrahim alaihi salam and Ibrahim alaihi salam, his story in the Qur'an and a number of locations and also in the hadith there's a theme of honoring the guests, of honoring the guests and one example is when the angels came to give him the news that his wife would have a child, the first born Ismail alaihi salam or in some narrations it was Ishaaf alaihi salam, but when those angels came to give Ibrahim alaihi salam the news that his wife would have a child and then later on they would go to destroy the people of Qom Lut for the lifestyle choice that they had made, one of the things that you'll notice in the story is that before Ibrahim alaihi salam he didn't ask them would you like to have a meal? They came as guests, he went, slaughtered a calf, a fat calf, slaughtered it, cooked it and brought it to them and then placed it before them. And then he says, ala ta'a kulun, will you not eat? And they didn't say anything for Ojasamin khifah, then he got scared because he realized he wasn't talking to human beings, he was talking to angels in the form of human beings and he knows that angels come to the prophets only with very specific messages. It's either they're bringing wahi or they're bringing adab, they're bringing a punishment because before the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam we see consistently Nuh alaihi salam's people destroyed, the people of shu'ayn destroyed, the people of salih destroyed, the people of hud destroyed, all of this is happening. And as a side note, one of the rahmas, you know, when we read in the Quran that the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam is the rahmatin li al'alameen, when Allah sent him, he made a promise that he would never completely destroy a nation as part of the mercy that the prophet brought to the world. So Ibrahim alaihi salam seized them and he's afraid now, he kind of goes back and then they tell him the news, it goes to the story. The point I wanted to mention about there is that some of the adab, some of the etiquettes of honoring the guests we take from this story, one of the things is when the guests come, just the adab, the etiquette, go prepare something, don't ask them, would you like to eat, would you like to drink? Go ahead and prepare it and then present it and then you ask them would you? Because it's more likely that a guest, I think we've all been in both situations, we've hosted people and we've been the guests. We might not feel comfortable, we might be thirsty and we want to drink of water or we would like a cup of tea. Everybody's been in that situation, right, where you really would like a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, right? And you're just wondering like, are they going to offer it? Because I could really use a cup right now. And you won't ask for it and if they asked you, would you like something to drink or eat out of modesty? You might say no. But if they presented it and then they asked you, you're more likely to accept it. So it's kind of like it's your making it easier on the guests to accept your honoring of them. In Arabic it's called the qira, what you present for or the nuzul. In the Quran it mentions about the kufar as in their punishment. The preparation of the guest as they enter jahannam is fire. And it's an interesting way of presenting it. The nuzul is what you present to the guests. And so it's a kind of almost a sarcastic way of saying, oh yeah, you're going to be real, you know, Faduq, you know, Faduq. In any case, they're okay. So going back to Ibrahim, he's mentioned about, you know, we take him as a as a Qudwa as a guide for us on how to honor the guest. One time, a guest comes to his house and he presents food to him. And then he starts calling him to Islam because the person he finds out is a mushrik, associates partners with Allah and so starts calling him to tell heed to believing in the oneness of Allah. And the man refuses. He says, I'm not going to not going to do it. And then Ibrahim says, well, if you're not going to accept my, you know, becoming Muslim, then leave. I have no point in giving you food. And the man takes off, he leaves. And then Allah sins a revelation to Ibrahim, I'm saying, I have fed and sustained this person for 100 years, knowing full well that he associates partners with me. And now all you had to do was give him a meal and you couldn't do that. And so then the story goes, Ibrahim goes out, finds the man says, please, please come back. The man's astonished now, you know, Ibrahim had just kicked him out for not becoming Muslim. And then he he finds him, you know, completely changed. And he explains, I just got revelation, my Lord, did deep he reminded him that's not that wasn't proper, especially for you in your station of a prophet. And so then then the man himself, he's taken and he becomes Muslim. But the point of that is that, is that sometimes, you know, so you have we have these two stories, we have Ibrahim and he's showing the the angels that come and then sometimes, you know, it takes over sometimes we forget what we should be doing the higher road that we should be taken. And reminding ourselves that if in the same way that we want something from Allah, we should be able to give out the same thing. So sometimes when people hold grudges, I remember one time, somebody told me this story that there was a person that was really just holding a grudge against somebody. And somebody came and says, Why can't you just forgive him? Won't you just let it go? He says, No, I'll never forgive him. And I think we can all relate, you know, we either know somebody who holds on to a grudge, and that almost becomes a part of themselves. Or maybe we've done it ourselves for days, months, weeks, we just hold on to it. And the problem is, it becomes, if we hold on it to it too much, it becomes part of our identity. Then we then we think that Oh, this this this unforgivingness is actually part of who I am. And then it makes it that much harder to to let go. So this person said, Well, don't you want a lot to forgive you? Yeah, of course. And then he realized, well, in the same way that the person was telling me said, in the same way that you want a lot to forgive you. And to not hold anything against you, because Allah could say, Look, you did this. Angels take him to the Hellfire. I'm not going to forgive you. It's not emotional for Allah. It's not like how we are humans, we hold onto things out of emotion. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is completely different than his creation. Laysa Kamidli he shaped. So he doesn't punish a reward out of emotion. It's not like human emotions like what we can comprehend. But he has rules set up. If you do this, you can have Jannah. And if you do this, you will go to the Hellfire. So if we come to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, he's he has the in his justice, he could put us towards the Hellfire. But at that point, we would want a lot to forgive it. And in Ramadan, which is coming up, one of the things that we ask, Allahumma inna ka aafu'un to haibu al-afwa. What's the difference between maghfirah and aafu? Forgiveness and aafu. It's a, you know, sometimes we ask Allah to forgive us. And sometimes we ask him Allahumma aafu'anna or Allah pardon us. And they said the difference between it is the maghfirah, it's like when when a person is presented and and it's discussed and it's known and he says, Okay, I am now forgiving this person for that sin. So everybody knows what that person did, but he's forgiven. But the people still know what he or she did. Aafu is where Allah pardons it and no and it's and he's not even he nobody is told about it. So on Yom Kliyama or the angels are removing it from the books. It's come it's it's sealed. It's hidden. It's like, what is it? You know, when people before they 18, if things happen, what do they call that when the their records are sealed or expunged? Yeah, so it's expunged from the records. It's redacted. It's come it's like it never existed. That's aafu. So it's even a higher level of of what we're what we want from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. There's even a hadith that, you know, on the day of judgment when our books are presented and may Allah make our books full of good deeds and forgiven for all our bad deeds. There's some people that they will present their books. And then Allah will tell the angels, keep the book closed, give the book to the person says, you know what you did. I forgive you for what was wrong. Go to Jannah. No Hesab. No, no accounting at all at all. So that's what we want from Allah. We were asking for that. So while we're crying and turning to Allah and asking for that for us, now we turn to our fellow human beings. How do we interact with them? So in the same way that Allah's honors us, he gives us food, he gives us clothing, he gives us the ability to work, he gives us all of these things. And so just like Ibrahim, you give to that person, you give out of Qadam pure true Qadam true generosity is not contingent upon anything. And that's where the parents are coming in, right? They give to their children, even when their child is is is yelling at them as well, I'm going to feed you, I'm going to clothe you, I'm going to you know, that's that's what a human being does. That's how that's part of how Allah has honored us. He's put that within us to give to other people. So if that's, that's what we want from Allah, we want the honoring and the generosity from Allah, then we turn and we should have that same attitude in the same way with the forgiveness. So so part of honoring when we when we interact with other people is to meet them where they are and to respect, to respect who they are. So when people would come into the the the the the Majlis, the gathering of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he wouldn't treat them as if this person doesn't have any history, a blank slate. Now I'm going to impart wisdom upon him. And what he would do is he would find out about that person. Tell me about your people. Tell me about what you've experienced. And then even when he's teaching, you'll see this in a lot of the hadith, you'll see he doesn't just tell people things. He also asks them questions. Don't we see that? And haven't we seen in a lot of the hadith, the Prophet's asking questions? Well, if he's asking questions, what does that mean? This in the modern now in the modern literature of education, they call this the student centered approach. So we have this, you know, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is teaching us this. But what the shift is, is in the education, is it a teacher centered approach? Or is it a student centered approach? The teacher centered approach is the sage on the stage, the teacher is just teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, and not respecting or not giving any weight to what the student brings into the classroom. So now, and some of you who have your kids maybe in school now, do your kids tell you that they do a lot of group projects? Yeah. And for do you notice like from your schooling, the shift, like we didn't have as many group projects, we didn't have those, right? So what's the what's the difference? The difference is, is that on that teacher centered approach, the understanding and education is that Oh, the teacher has all the answers. The teacher has all the wisdoms, the teacher has all the right answers. So all the student needs to do is just be quiet, sit still at your desk, don't move, take notes, listen, and ask questions, you know, for clarifications from that wisdom of the sage on the stage, they call it. But the student centered approach is more of a guide on the side. The teacher is respecting that each student as they come into the classroom, they're respecting what they're bringing into. They're bringing in their own personal experience. They're bringing in maybe outside learning, right? Every student is different. Now, I'm using the language of student and teacher, but you can apply this in your home as a parent. You can apply this as a friend when you're interacting with your friends, you can apply this in the workplace where it's not just kind of the sage on the stage where the person is announcing all of the truth that there needs to be said and not taking and seeing where people are. And part of that, so when I started reading about this, I said, Subhanallah, this is the Messenger of Allah, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Wouldn't we say that that when we read his Seerah, it's not all about he's just giving, it's like one way conversations. Sometimes he is mentioning things. Sometimes he's listening to the conversations of his Sahaba. Sometimes he's listening and then approving or even a smile. He might hear them have a conversation. He might see them interact and he just looks at it and he smiles. And in that look and the smile, he's taught us a huge lesson. He's saying, I'm approving this lesson right here. And so when we talk about the sunnah, there's three elements. There's his speech. There's his actions and there's his approvals. So we always think, oh, the sunnah is the hadith, something he said. Yes, true. It's something he said or it's something he did or he saw somebody else do something and he approved it. And that approval could even come in. He didn't say anything. And so when they read the hadith, they call this taqir, basically it's called tacit approval. So it means he accepted it. So what's happening in that taqir? What he's seeing is that he's saying this person or these people from within themselves have come up with something that is haq, is a true statement or a true action and I'm accepting it. Either by saying follow this person, like in the situation of one of the Sahaba where he asked them, would you like to see a man of jannah? They said, yeah, he said, look at this man. And he didn't say what he did, right? He didn't say. So what did one of the Sahaba do? He wants to find out what he did. He followed him home and he asked him. He said, the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam pointed you out and said that if we want to see a person of jannah it's you. What is it that you do? He said, I don't know other than the fact that every night before I go to sleep, I forgive anybody that has anything against me. Like if I'm owed anything by anybody, I just let it go. I forgive them. Now look in that simple interaction of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. What does he do? Basically in like in a modern, it would be the teacher giving the student a project. Here, I'm going to give you a project. Here's your hint. That man has something. Now when that Sahaba got up and he went to look for him and he's now more motivated and he's interested in learning and he finds it himself and then that's the other thing too. The fact that he figured it out on his own, imagine how he must have felt as a talib ul ilm. The word in Arabic for the student of knowledge is not a, you know, Dari's ul ilm. He studied knowledge. It's talib ul ilm which would more be translated better as what? Request or seeking. Yeah, requesting as talaba or seeking. So it's a process that you have to actively do. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam could have easily said, if any of you wants to go to Jannah, forgive people. Man, that's it. But he included his Sahaba in the process. Now that Sahaba then goes and he narrates and so we get the whole story. But look at those people. He affirmed what that, that man, something that man is doing and maybe he just figured it out on his own. We don't know that part of the hadith. Like how did that Sahabi take as a practice forgiving people on a nightly basis? And then the other Sahabi saying okay I need to figure out what's going on and goes and follows him. So what's going on here when I look at it? The Prophet is honoring those people by respecting their individuality, by respecting what they can figure out. He's honoring them. He's respecting that. So how do we do that in our homes with our friends? When we have conversations with them, when we talk, that's why it's important to get feedback and to ask and to have conversations. Recently I came across a diagram of what a good group discussion should be. And I'll give you, I wish I had a board to draw on, but if you could just imagine these three circles. So the first circle is kind of what I'm doing here. I'm sitting over here and I'm just talking. And so all of the points are just going out this way. There's no two-way. Okay, so that's one circle, one group. The next group is where maybe I'm having a conversation with two people over here and then two people over there are having a conversation. That's not really a group conversation, right? The third circle is where me as the facilitator in the group, I'm not saying anything and somebody else takes over the group. Anybody ever been in a haleqa where it's taken over by somebody else? One of the attendees takes over the haleqa. So that's also not the healthy. But the healthiest one is where people are having, where the directions of the conversation are crisscrossing the circle. Can you imagine those four circles? So the best one is that where the conversations are going up. All four ways. Now when you think about the stories that you've read of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in his mejadis, in his gathering, doesn't it seem like it's the fourth one? Because he would sometimes have, he would say something and then another Sahaba would respond and then another Sahaba would respond to that Sahaba, then they would have a conversation. Then the Prophet would, you know, affirm that and then he might mention and so it was this group dialogue. So now how can we bring that into our homes, into our businesses, into our teams, our management teams. If we're on a job, whether it's a laborer job, contractor job, whatever it might be, it has to be two-way conversations and across that group so that we can have more of a Sunnah group, group dialogue. So that's something I just wanted to mention about the, about respecting, respecting what the individual brings into the classroom or into the group. So to give you an example today, one of our groups, one of the boys groups, and he just shared this with me, it was the fourth and fifth groups, they were going to talk about a very serious topic, the topic of death and it's on our minds as a community here. Locally we missed, we lost somebody, a very dear member of our community here a few weeks ago, Sister Najaya and her father Abdul Haq is here, if you haven't given him condolences please do, and to the family they were very regular part, his wife and Najaya's mother is one of the regular teachers here, and so it's, it's affected the whole community in terms of you know, we're grappling with this, we're missing somebody very dear to the community. And then, and then just in general, so the topic came up of death and how to cope with it, and so I had asked actually in preparation for this Halaqa, I asked some mental health professionals, I said how can we talk to the youth about death, because we do want to have this conversation, you know, it does, we want it to be normalized in the sense that it's part of our conversation, it's not to where we hide it and we don't talk about it, and then you'll probably, has anybody ever talked with an adult and the discussion of death came up and they're like please, please stop, don't talk about it. Anybody ever met somebody like just a raise of hands? Yeah, some people? So there's adults who in that sense for, for us as Muslims we would say they haven't matured enough to be able to have that discussion. So how do you develop that maturity? Well we see the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam has mentioned, he says mention it in your gatherings, mention, mention death so it becomes part of, of, of you know the normal conversation, we talk about life, we talk about birthdays, we talk about graduations, well where is it that we normalize the discussion about death? So I asked one of the therapists, I said okay we're going to bring this discussion into our youth halakha, how can we, we bring it up and one of the advice that was given is that don't start off just talking about it, ask what they know about it. And so that's this, this, this idea of rather than just giving the counselors over there just okay here's the talking points, that's what you need to talk about with the boys, this is, this is what you you know ask them and so I just asked one of the groups and he said the fourth and fifth graders he said it's been the most mature conversation of the entire year where they just really took it very seriously and they each shared something and they were sharing something very personal of how they dealt with it and even as fourth and fifth graders they had a very mature way of you know about speaking about that and so what that shows is a couple of things when they came into the room they don't need to be taught right like if we had looked at us okay they you know obviously so we're we wouldn't be doing a couple of things we wouldn't be respecting them maybe some of the books that they've read because a lot of even novels they have the discussion of death anybody ever read this book bridges bridges of terabithia or bridges to terabithia anybody familiar are you familiar with that it's a it's a I won't give you a spoiler but it's a good book to to have that conversation with like maybe ten years or ten years nine years and above kids it's it's a novel it's fiction but it brings it up in a very real way so so whether it's their reading about it whether they're thinking about it maybe they had a pet who passed away maybe they had a family member who to pass away maybe they went to a that's why it's so to me when I go to any Geniza and we you see the families who bring their children to the Geniza that's that's huge you know we don't know what what effect is happening not all learning happens in the in the message or you know from behind a microphone in front of a person speaking it's a lot of that is that those those experiences that you're that you that you that you're part of their lives and taking them to the cemetery having a conversation with them in the car about it talking about it when when the news of something something happens and so when we ask the question what is it that you know about this topic we're honoring that individual and then we're honoring the primary teachers of those children which are the families so this is you know a testimony to to what you have done as family members in preparing your children and talking to them about that they can have this mature this mature conversation so I wanted to leave some time for for questions and just end on that the concept of of honoring the the individual and what they bring and this can go in into so many different domains even if it's in a if it's in a tech company if it's at a hospital if it's a college when you're when you're working with other people when you're studying with other people if you respect what they have you'll also you know by honoring them people like to be honored with a good meal and so forth but they also like to be honored with one of the most thing the thing that Allah has honored us the most with even though yeah food is part of it in fact one of Ibn Abbas said that ayah of Laqad Karamna bani Adam we have ennobled human beings be and Ja'alna lahum aidin yakuluna biha that we have given them hands that they can eat so part of it we don't even think about it but if you look at most animals when they have to eat what do they do they put the most honorable part of their body the face right the face is the most honorable part of the body they have to put their face in their food horses cows mice dogs cats whatever they have to put it down maybe there's a few exceptions you know to that rule anybody ever seen like I guess what's that oh squirrels yes squirrels giraffe oh yeah giraffe don't have unless they're eating from the ground but if they're eating at the top but I one time I was in Mauritania and there was there was a national geographic there's one of these nature shows going on and so they showed some animals that were that we're eating and then the person we were eating we're actually eating in a plate and they were they were watching this nature show and then one of them he's just looking at the animals he's like what I got Karamna bani Adam you know like we have ennobled bani Adam but there but the ennoblement that Allah has given us comes in many different ways and one of the biggest things is our intellect and our language Rahman al-Qalqa l-insan al-Lamahu bayan how many times does Allah tell us in the Quran one of the things in the creation of Adam al-aslam wa'alama Adam al-asma he taught Adam language to where the angels didn't have that in the Rahman that he has taught you communication bayan is even more inclusive than just just than just speech so if you're speaking with somebody and you actually honor them by saying well what's your opinion on this your spouse your child your friend your fellow student your student your teacher you know to have that people will feel honored and I think we can all share you know understand from our experience and being treated like that and and I remember as a fourth grader my favorite teacher was not my home school my homeroom teacher he was another fourth grade teacher or sorry fifth grade and I wish I had him but one of the things that really like I think now going looking back he used to always ask me oh hey Rami how are you doing and I used to like learning facts like you know little interesting science facts and so it's like you've got anything else to share and I would tell him and like wow that's a me and I it was a genuine interest there was things I was telling him you know I could tell he wasn't just like kind of being what is it called where what's that word where they just patronizing me yeah what were you gonna say oh just he wasn't fake he wasn't patronizing me he was actually wow like I remember one time I told him I said did you know that people used to think that elephant skulls were Cyclops skulls because the hole for the trunk is kind of high and it looks like one eye because the the eyes for the elephant I think it's smallest on the side so people would find elephant trunks and they'd be like oh this is proof that Cyclops exists so I told him that he was just like Florida oh I can't believe but it was in one just one of those little kids science magazines that I had but that to me now looking at is like he honored me by what I brought into that conversation and so now our question is for us how do we do that how do we do that with our children with our friends with our co-workers employers employees and so forth and I want to give a few minutes to for for any questions that anybody might have either about this topic or any of the previous hala cause that we had about bitter wali day and honor you I took 50 minutes you know or maybe not 50 minutes 40 minutes half an hour any questions yes I like them so now we're after all I'm not nice to meet you thank you oh very good question so the question is about Ibrahim alaihi salam and Azar and Azar who used to make the idols and what was the material that they made the idols from because you know was it a lot of idols that they have people working for them what you know what was it in terms of the idols I don't know I'll have to look at the tafsir of that I can get back to you next week inshallah and does anybody has anybody heard anything about that the actual material I haven't but I mean no I know in that period because we know they're from the area of modern day Iraq so the Babylon Babylon area they were making idols very tall idols sometimes out of stone the specific idols that Ibrahim alaihi salam they were making not him because Ibrahim never made the idols himself but they were being made at the time their specific material I don't know I'm sure it's mentioned in the tafsir I'll look it up but whatever it was it could be broken by an axe so we know that so it's not necessarily maybe like a hard stone or because Ibrahim went into the room and he smashed them with the I guess an axe you can break some stones you know but he was able to when they went out for their festival he was able to destroy all of the idols except for the big one and then hang the axe on the on the big one but I'll look into see what exactly the material was but over over time you know the materials ranged from at the time of the Sahaba sometimes they would make it out of dates they would make it the idols out of dates so it's like a edible idol and if they ever got hungry that eat it so I guess that would be like a sustainable idol creation you know they're not using synthetic materials but they would make them out of wood they would make them out of pretty much any material human beings unfortunately you know they can easily get sidetracked an interesting point about like the making of idols is the story of Innuha alaihi salam at his time there was a certain number of idols that they used to worship and they had specific names Yahooth, Wa Ya'uq, Wa Nasra you know and some of the other names that they had so they used to worship these idols with those names but now when we look at the tafsir we say where do these come from the names of those people were actually human beings who lived and walked and were actually good people believed in Allah and did good actions of righteousness but the trick that shaitan played on them when he came to them he wanted to get them because that was very close to the time of Adam alaihi salam so it was there you know kufr and this belief was not as widespread so he wants to get these people to to disbelief so how does he do it the first generation after these very very good people pass away and their you know their communities afterwards mourn them he would say you know what you should do you should make images of those people so that you could remind them you know like a picture somebody might have right so to make a picture at those time it was an idol so make a picture and then make sure everybody knows their names and then you can you know whenever you feel sad you can go and look at the statue and it reminds you of that person so then he got you them used to that because it wasn't something that they had previously done then he started saying bring them offerings of food you know if you really want to show your honoring to your to your dead loved ones bring them these honorings of food so then they would do that now you put that and in a couple of generations five six seven generations down the road people start forgetting why it was that they did this in the first place and that can happen very quickly there's a joke I don't know if it's true or not but there was a lady and she learned to cook with her mother and then when she got married she married a man and she said when he would bring a chicken home for her to cook she would cut one leg off the chicken put it in the freezer and cook the rest of the chicken and he said why do you do that why don't you just cook the whole chicken she's like no that's the way I saw my mom do it and that's the way you cook a chicken you cut one leg off and you put that in the freezer and you cook the rest of it it's like that doesn't make sense so the next time he saw his mother-in-law he's like you know your daughter-in-law is doing this you know cut the leg off the chicken and she's like and says that that's how you taught her how to cook a chicken she's like no she doesn't understand we only had one pot that wasn't big enough for a whole chicken so we had to cut off a leg so that it would fit in the pot and I would put the rest in the freezer you know cook it separately that's the only reason that we did that but she took it on like that was like you know taabudi like that's how you do it now imagine if that had maintained a few generations pretty soon they would like you know it's shirk if you try to cook the whole chicken you know together and that's how like bid'ah can happen so that's what you know shaitan was banking on the bid'ah he's like okay look you just get this into them a couple generations pretty soon the game of telephone especially and intergenerationally they're going to forget the original reason and then pretty soon by the time of nooh alaihi salam they are it's full blown shirk they are they are considering these idols they're gods they have the name of the original people but it's full blown shirk and idol worship and that's how shaitan plays with us but very good question I'll look into that inshallah yeah oh yeah oh you googled it shirk google ibn yahoo yeah wood and stone wood and stone yeah yeah sorry he had brother in law course yeah so the question is how do the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam honor the non-muslims and was there a line that he ever drew with them I would say if you look in the the the the seerah literature and the hadith he honored all he honored people he honored animals there's beautiful stories of how he how he took care of animals they even spoke to animals and honored them and so forth so I would say that honoring happened to everybody and there was no there was no division now would he give preference to his family which is just normal you know he would but we even see one one very good example of how he honored somebody is his uncle Abu Talib he had a lot of respect for him a lot of devotion to him to the point that when he passed away when Abu Talib passed away it was one of the three things that caused the amul huzun the year of sadness it was the death of Khadija radhullahu and who was his wife a Muslim the first Muslim the first one who believed in him his like just to think of like Khadija and who she is she's one of the her passing was one of the reasons of amul huzun the year of sadness then taif and just imagine you know the the the treatment that he received in taif that was another reason and then the death of Abu Talib and so just the fact that he had that much emotion for Abu Talib passing even though he wasn't Muslim shows you that he had a lot of respect respect for him but there's other there's many other example I would just say like kind of in as a summary conclusion the the line that he would draw would be if the honoring cause any type of respect to the shirk or the kufr that they represented so them as a human being he would honor them and respect them and treat them you know with care as an example the the prisoners of bed that's actually an amazing example when the prisoners of bed at the first battle this time they were taken as prisoners the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam told the people because they split each of the captives up some people went to someone house to another house they were kind of you know and he said feed them like you feed your guests and feed them before you feed yourselves and your family now you tell me if a here's a here's a mushrik who's who came out that day to kill you and your people and yet he's saying now there in our hands treat them like a guest like a guest and treat and feed them before you feed yourselves and feed them the best of food so that to me is like you know he's honoring that now but if it came to any type of honoring that would honor their shirk he would he would not do that so I think that would be the line that that I would say just in summary and I guess one more question I know if anybody has to to leave to pick up their kids you had a question we have come yeah yeah yeah oh yeah very good question yeah so the question was whether Hasid was saying that his kids went to public school and they said one of the frustrations they had is that there would be sometimes in every class one person who kind of takes over the class and I think we've all experienced that you know whether it's school work family gatherings and there's a saying the empty can rattles the most so sometimes like the loudest people the people who don't have anything they have like lots of say and our politics is a proof of that I'm gonna come to your question because it's really important go ahead oh yeah it's not taking over the class like an even the evil villain and he's gonna take over the class it's just like instead of the teacher talking that one kid is just like talk talk talk talk talk keep talking so he's like that's what he means that's what I mean by taking over the class but what I would say is a good point yeah you said that the people are taught that their opinion matters and so the imbalance in that which would lead to tyranny this is where the the term comes like the tyranny of democracy like if you let everybody speak then it becomes a then it becomes a tyranny because now they're gonna be saying things if it's not balanced so what has to be what has to happen is there has to be pushback so if you if somebody does say something you know there has to be room and that's where the facilitator comes in so when I was talking about that group the facilitator the teacher in this situation or maybe one of the other students in the classroom or the parent it's just like hold hold on one second now we're gonna have somebody you know respond to that and they have to they have to hear that pushback and that's what's important for for healthy dialogue that you know people present opinions and then they're they're pushed back if we don't have that if we say okay we want to prevent all of these opinions from getting out into the the arena then we don't really know where people stand so I'll give you example there's people who sit silently and listen Sunday schools year after year after year and the teacher never engages them and then when they get into high school they're like you know what I don't believe in Islam whoa how did that happen you know but maybe if some of those those little inklings of doubt had come up in a in a in an environment where you know not saying that this should it should have but either in the family or in that place so it's like okay that's what you want to say and then you respond to it and then they start like working it out it's worked out rather than waiting for them to get to a situation where there's no where everybody's got everybody's gonna say okay yeah your opinion matters and you can say whatever you want and freedom of speech and freedom of thought and so on and so forth so I would say yeah that's not healthy of just one person takes over the the conversation there has to be that pushback but the only way we can have that pushback is we have to we almost have to take a risk and allow that platform and somebody might say something to push back does that kind of answer yeah but thank you for mentioning that take one more question and we'll break you mean our forgiveness of people the concept of forgiving is an obsession of blaming the other person for how you feel and the third one was replaying a grievance story in your head again and again oh wow yeah yeah yeah but he also mentioned that what forgiveness is not and he said forgiveness is not necessarily reconciling a relationship yeah and I feel like for most Muslim scholars that I hear from they don't really define what forgiveness means because when I look at the story of him and the Prophet was told that she converted to Islam and he heard that he said that's fine the short the short he heard that she's Muslim we didn't want to meet her so I feel he created a boundary yeah where it's like that's fine like he was so deeply hurt by that he was not bound to say Masha Allah yeah yeah yeah no Islam and like you know welcome her to like his inner circle or something so I feel there's a concept of boundaries we talked about but yes taking care of your feelings not obsessing over it but I feel like all these are the concepts the better to say what is the question was and again anybody that has to leave especially to go pick up the kids please feel free but the brother was saying there's a book by somebody you said at Stanford Berkeley oh Luskin yeah I just looked it up I'm gonna buy it forgive for good that talks about and so you said there was three main concepts that he talks about forgiveness which the third one is it's not about reconciling reconciling a relationship it's also about dealing with the emotion or not replaying the emotion what was the first one oh yeah not re not exaggerating the right so you can't control the other person you can only control yourself and you're only your reaction to that person so it sounds like a very interesting book and I agree that there's not there there really isn't a lot of at least in readily available material for people to hear the Islamic concept of forgiveness and you mentioned the story of the people who had assassinated the uncle of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and when he heard that they had become Muslim he's like okay alhamdulillah they're Muslim but he doesn't necessarily really want to have the interaction because these are the people who murdered his uncle and you know desecrated his body so it doesn't mean that a that the forgiveness is kind of like yeah forgive and forget there's no you know there's nothing and I would I would add a couple of things you know the point that you're saying that he's mentioning about letting go of that emotion it's it's it's also very healthy for yourself so when we forgive other people we're actually doing more of a Sadaqa and a charity to ourselves than we are to that person and and the the the right that we have over them on Yom Al Qiyamah because and there's another book where a person he developed a non non non non surgical non medicinal method to reverse heart disease and he just he does it in three ways exercise routine diet routine and then meditation and a big part of his meditation is letting go of these resentments because he said every time we replay that situation of where somebody harmed us or somebody said something to us the same you know when you when you get disrespected insulted by somebody your body has an it has a reaction right and there's stress hormones that are released and it taxes the system and so people who are constantly in that situation they get sick more they age faster you know there's a lot of like physiological effects and he said that every time we think about those situations as well the body mimics that original response and so we're flooding the system with like cortisol and other stress hormones so he said you're actually doing yourself a benefit by just letting those things go so there is that element and and at the same time though in my little be mentioned he says when we talk about forgiveness he says this is for the person who's not consistently and continuously harming people this is for the person who harmed recognized in dead and they they're asking for forgiveness whereas what would happen if we had a habitual harmer a habitual abuser and then they do something oh you're forgiven I forgive you for the sake of Allah if we keep doing that what is it going to do for that person reinforcing they have a name for it's called enabling right now they say enabling so Imam al-Qurtawi says you know where the Quran says what and ta'fu khayron lakum that when you to pardon a person is better for you he says this is only in the situations where it's like a one-off situation the person made a mistake they're they're they're remorseful or even if they're not remorseful it's still it was a one-off thing but it's not that they're habitual he said if they're habitual no you demand you're right and that could be in the dunya and it could also be in the Akhirah and sometimes but it's sometimes for some people they need to be like woken up by that reminder of what's to come in the Akhirah I had a friend who in Mauritania he walked into a store and some some guy was smoking a cigarette and just kind of like you know making fun of these two students who had come in from from the badia from from the countryside it's like oh yeah you guys are you know some of those religious students and so forth it was it was joking it was humiliating them and saints frustrated he looked at him he says I'll see you on the day of judgment and that person he said he liked his cigarette dropped and he was like like it it took it it shocked him now for a believer you could say that right because that shows that they have enough belief that like oh yeah that's right there's a Yom Kriyama if I hurt somebody else so so it affected him but he wasn't like oh brother it's okay I forgive you because he's like oh yeah he might have like continued in the in the in the humiliation but by him saying so Haraka Yom Kriyama I'll see you on the day of judgment it stopped him so it is a balance and I say it's situational I'm going to read this book and there's a couple of maybe I'll make that a topic next and if anybody reads anything about forgiveness or like how we can have a more more of a framework to where it's not just like as Muslims we forgive and we forgive whatever no there's some details let's fill in those details inshallah