 I mean, he's not going to hate us, he's the Pomaira and the fish terrace. And I bless all of you and your Tulfi and all that you do. She said the solution is in the house. So in the corporate world, they say 8% of success is being there. And then you build on the 92%. So just being there together, there is a Tulfi and success in our religion as well. In pursuit of knowledge, seeking knowledge. One of the things that's central in our religion is knowledge, because of the first revelation. The first revelation, Ekra is really one of the most beautiful part of the Quran. But it's not just the Ekra part, it's what happens next. So Ekra, Bismillah al-Bakir al-Ladhi Al-Khalaq, read, and the name of your Lord was created. So that brings back the reader back to the intention, why we are reading. And this is one of the things that, a couple of weeks ago, she had to talk about this concept of mindfulness. And a lot of the people in the West, they're doing mindfulness, but mindfulness of what? What are we being mindful of? When people are doing yoga, what are they mindful of? So if you don't have Bismillah al-Bakir al-Ladhi Al-Khalaq, if you don't read with the name of Allah, who is creating you, then you're really mindful of your nafs. You're really doing everything for yourself, for your ego, for your desires. But this, for us, seeking knowledge, Talib al-A'if, for you, looking at the Muslim, that it's an obligation for every Muslim to seek knowledge. Now, if you look at the Prophet's life, he said, Allah, don't make the sun go down on the day that I don't learn something. And he's a man who has more knowledge than any human being that ever lived, right? He has more knowledge. Yes, in Revelation comes in, but he wants to learn more because through learning, you get closer to your Lord. So, that we have not created a human being in the jinn except to worship us. What the scholars of Quran, they say, including the Na'abas, is li'abudun is li'a'rafun, that we have not created a jinn in a human being except to know us. And you know something through having the knowledge of that, right? So this is why the foundation of our religion is, the first thing you have to know is Allah. And then yourself, like these two, is foundational. So how do you get to know yourself or Allah if you don't go on the path of seeking knowledge? And the path of seeking knowledge, in Ammaledur the Allah who said, knowledge does not go after anybody. You have to go after it. You have to go seek Allah. This is why in our tradition, when you look at Sa'adi Shirazi, when you look at Imam al-Ghazali, when you look at every scholar that you look at, they travel and they went from man to life, even in the modern day. Look at all these people, the scholars that we have in the West. They went from here to Damascus to study. You know, converts from America went and studied years in North Korea, and years in Damascus, and years in Yemen. And the worst of condition, life, because you have to go after knowledge, because knowledge is not going to come after anybody. So knowing is foundational to our religion, because it's through knowing that you will always have this newness, because things can get stale and become all same old, same old. But, you know, what they say is only a philosopher and a child is always in the state of discovery. And that discovery is going to give you, is through knowledge. Discovery doesn't just happen when you discover things. It is through reading, and through understanding, and through calling people to ask them, what does this mean? What does this mean? And then, boom, it opens up. In that moment that something opens up, you understand what is a hadith? What is the verse of the Qur'an? It's a wisdom piece. It's a poem. Whatever it is, that is the moment of ecstasy of the mind. And your mind feels like this word they say in the Muslim civilization, they call it the light bulb. They say the light bulb, right? And that is for us, that is the light. It is an el-mur. Knowledge is light. And that's when knowledge is actually, because information is knowledge scattered. That's all it is. There's knowledge in the internet, but it's all scattered. Knowledge is when they become incestuous, they become what? That's knowledge. If everything is brought together, it's like you have a puzzle in all of the pieces on the table. That information, that's that knowledge. Once you put it together and you have the picture, that it becomes knowledge. And a lot of the people, they actually don't know how to put the pieces of the puzzle together. And that's the biggest problem that we have today is there's so much information out there that people are confused. And this is one of the traditions towards the end of time. People will be confused. And why is there confusion? Because there's just massive amount of information and not enough knowledge. Not enough people have put the big picture together so you can see what's going on. So foundation of our religion is to seek knowledge. Now, why is it so high? Why is it so high? The Quran reminds us, you know, are those, I think there's a slide here, in Surah 39-9. So are those who know, and those who don't know they're equal? This is a rhetorical question. That's why Allah doesn't answer it because the answer is any. Are those who know? Are they the same? No, of course they are not the same. So, Allah says, I have increased in rank those who are granted knowledge. So the Prophet SAW the preference of the Allim over the regular worshiper now you have to understand that the regular worshiper is a believer It's a person of paradise, but he worships Allah, she worships Allah five times a day, prays, fasts and Ramadan, listen, it's a worshiper. Is he not comparing an atom to someone, to a cafe? No, to a Muslim, an abid. He said, is that the preference of the moon to the star? This is an amazing analogy because here's the difference. The moon and the star, they give their light from the sun. Both of them. But the moon gives light back to the earth, right? So we can see our path and when it's full moon, you can actually see the, you can actually read if you're in a nice place, with the light of the moon, it gives back. Yet the stars, they keep the light for themselves. So an Alim, you know, an Alim is someone who not only benefits himself with the light, but benefits other people that are around him. So this is the beauty of becoming someone of knowledge. So Alim is the foundation of the Quran and the Hadith in our tradition. And there's not a place that you can come across that Alim is not there. Now, before we go to that, there are reasons why people study, right? But I think there's a slide at the end of it, but I'm just going to go through this. There's a, there's a, the purpose of knowledge, right? This is my thing, right? Yeah. Yeah, you can, you can go on, I'll go to your slide. Okay, you can go to the slide. Yeah, yeah. You can go ahead, it's okay. Yeah, let me just do mine and you can do yours. Yeah, there we go. Okay. So, so the habit. So here we are in this. I want to give the same slide. Okay. Knowledge. People, they learn from one of these three reasons. Either you learn for the sake of Allah, for the sake of Junia, or for the sake of your notes. That's it. Those are the three reasons that people learn. Whatever you do in your life, that's the three reason. There's not a fourth category. So, the first hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari, the first hadith in Imam Nauwi's 40, the first hadith that many of the scholars of hadith put on, as the first hadith is, Innamal, A'amal ibn Niyal, Wa Innamal, Iqul ibn Ma'namal. Family, he's not who Ila Allahi wa Rasulina. Fahiz, not who Ila Allahi wa Rasulina. So this hadith talks about something really beautiful, that your actions are rewarded by your intention. Right? And everyone will get what they have intended. Now here's, here's the, people don't know what happened in that hadith. Why would the Prophet ﷺ said this hadith? Then he said, If you make hatred for Allah this message, your hatred for this, for Allah this message. But if you make hatred for dunya, wa yuntyuha, or for nikah, to get married, then your hatred or your migration, is for that thing that you intended. This is about a man, who was in love with this woman from Qais. And he wanted to make hatred to get married with him in Qais. So when he got there, I said, Is his hatred accepted? He didn't go for the sake of Allah. He went in to get married with him in Qais. And that's why the ulama, they say, Had he made the intention that I'm going to make hatred for the sake of Allah, and I'm going to get married, his hatred would have been accepted in his marriage as valid, right? Obviously his marriage is valid, but the hatred wasn't for Allah, it was for Qumqais, his famous adhijr, Qumqais, the migration for this woman. So, that's the key that everything has to be done for Allah. In this society, when you would see, you know, there was an adhah, Sheikh told us one time, about, I think the University of Arizona says, for higher education, and they spent higher H-I-R-E. And I think they did it purposely. Like, hey, you want to get a job, when you finish your university and get mixed up money, come here. And the majority of the people, the young people now, it's very hard to get that out of their head. You know, with my own family, young people are like, don't study for money. Don't study a field that makes money. Study a field that will make you happy. What would you like to do? You know, so that's a big problem that we have, that generally young people, they want, doing young. How much money back is this field going to make? How much money going to make? How much money going to make? So, then the other field, the other reason is the nafs. Right? So, I want to become, you know, you know, just to show my uncle, that I'm going to become a doctor. So, it's just, they're doing for their nafs. Oh, that I could be respected, that I could be adjudged, that I could be this. So, it's either the ego, the nafs desire, or it's the dunya, or it's for the sake of Allah. So, that is the hardest part, to teach young children from a young age, that listen, learn for the sake of Allah. Get a job that makes you happy. What makes you happy? Like, when my son, he said he wants to do this, he wants to go to this field. I said, why? He said, it's helping people, and I like helping people. I said, go. And it's not a job that makes a lot of money, and it's a long time. They, I mean, they said, you can do it. I didn't say, hey, you can do something else, and make more money. No. He likes it, and the intention was pure, that he wants to help people. I mean, Allah keep that intention always, and I said, go for it. But, there are people that, I counsel and say, no, I want to do this. I hate it, but I want to do it, because it makes a lot of money. And that is what a problem is, that it's solely dunya. If you put a lot first, then you want to do things that Allah is pleased with. Allah is pleased with helping people. Allah is pleased with this job. Even if it makes money, or it doesn't make money, that's irrelevant. But you put God first, and you're seeking knowledge, and in that. So, now, um, let me go back to these. I think this word, I was supposed to do this. Okay. This one, right? Okay. So, beneficial habits. Bismillah. So, thank you, Medijan, for doing this. I didn't do this. She's been trying to buy this. That's why I'm just following, you know, um, that's, um, anyways. I have a problem. I didn't use it, because I said, I would look really bad in that. Hahaha. Uh, Actually, if you don't mind, let me go through my, my section, and then you can do this one, because it kind of flows. Okay, yeah. I designed it well. Hahaha. All right. So, if we go to, this slide, which we were looking at earlier. Yeah. So, oftentimes, and this is, this is, um, the theme of our school, which is, you know, truth, or you know, goodness, and beauty. And I'm sure you guys have heard these terms. Your student, your children might have come in and said, well, we're trying to learn, what is truth? What is goodness? What's beauty? And so, so, when we're seeking knowledge, one of the things that I told the students and the teachers is, when Harvard, for example, was first founded, there were no majors, right? The only major that they had was the answers to these questions. What is truth? What is goodness? And what is beauty? And how do we define it? And just answering these questions meant that, you could spend your whole life in a meaningful, meaningful purpose, right? Because if you're in search of the truth, you're going to understand that all truth comes from Allah SWT, from God, right? That all truth comes through revelation. That all truth manifests in Allah's creation, right? So like today, for example, we might have, you know, this non-binary, like, we can be man, we can be a woman. And then, there was a man who said, well, if somebody dies and they're buried and their bones are pulled out and you look at their DNA, that DNA is not going alive. You know what I mean? That's the truth. That's what I'm telling creative. And so, we want to make sure that we, we manifest these transcend, trans-evental values that our students know clearly what it means to be good. Because as I was telling, as I was doing earlier in our conversation, in today's society, vices are virtues and virtues are vices, right? If you are honest, if you are noble, if you're trying to pursue certain character traits in yourself, that mean that you are going to be of benefit, right? It's looked at as like something negative. Like, for example, if someone comes in and says, I want to, you know, open up a business that's going to help the poor in somewhere or do something like that, many of the people will say, well, how are you going to make a living out of this? This is not going to be a benefit to you personally, right? Catering to the nefs of our children and ourselves as well, because obviously we worry, but in reality, if the priorities are kind of shifted and we understand that we want our children to obviously succeed in this dinya, but we want them to succeed through virtuous acts. And like as I was doing just that, with the intention of actually serving Allah SWT and being of benefit, right? So making that core intention, when our children enter kindergarten, it's true. We want them to receive an education. We want them to become something, you know, profound and beneficial, but we can make this intention that we want them to tread on the path of Allah, right? In that way, if the outcome is that they become a doctor, a lawyer, a successful business person, you know, whatever field they go into, then that is of benefit. Like the Hadith that he just mentioned of making hijra for the sake of, for the sake of marriage or for the sake of, you know, Allah SWT, right? So as parents could have cultivating and understanding these and ourselves being able to define within our own words, using our own faculties to say, what is truth? What does that mean? And how do I define it? And how can I define it to my children so that they understand when they come with a fact that's, you know, given to them at high school or university or something like that, that I can manifest and provide the source for them and the reason for them to go back to that source. Same thing with beauty. Like we have a very skewed perspective of beauty in today's society, whether it's an architecture, whether it's an art, whether it's in the way that we construct things, whether it's the materials that we use for different types of things, right? It's all about the aesthetics of what we value and what we find valuable. And so if we are okay with like absorbing things that are not biodegradable, absorbing things that are not not only not pleasing to a love but destructive to the earth, right? We are in a way contributing to that lack of beauty, right? One of the things that I remember Shechemzah saying is truth is iman, right? When you, when you manifest and understand that sense of that Allah is one and the prophet saw the sum is, his messenger and then you go into like and then goodness is the practice of your Islam. So it's all of the outer actions that you do, your prayer, your salat, your being kind to your neighbors, all these outer actions. And then if you have those two things, your actions automatically equal to Islam, which is beauty. So everything that you do and everything that you produce and everything that you're able to create and everything that you think about your thoughts, right? And your, your being becomes beautiful, regardless of your physical appearance, right? So let's go to the next slide. So you go through these. And I know most of us know this because we experience this, but I'm going to go through these points really quickly because I feel like in order for us to be in the place of understanding the solutions, we should understand some of the ailments that we're dealing with. So like some of the things that we see as a, in a school and that are impacting children to a great extent are things like family changes, right? And I mean, I think you said for a dude because he's a community organizer because he deals with conflicts within families can probably attest to this, that our family structures have quite significantly changed. You know, and this is not about whether, you know, we're single family homes or, you know, both parent homes but the dynamics of the household of multi-generational homes of roles within the homes of all of the different aspects of things that we kind of looked at traditionally have altered, right? And so that in and of itself has a huge impact on the way that we're bringing up our children and on the way that we as parents are also feeling, right? Another major aspect, a lot of times people will say technology is the problem. I don't think technology in and of itself is an issue. Like a computer is not an issue. A robot's not an issue. A phone's not an issue. It's more of what we do with it. And so I would really identify that being on social media is a big issue, right? Being on these time kind of consuming, I know we had this conversation recently time-consuming apps which, you know, we're kind of scrolling mindlessly. I spoke to a teenager a couple of months ago where, you know, she's failing her classes. She's failing her university. She keeps dropping classes. She's been at university for, actually, she wasn't a teenager probably mid-20s. But she's been at university for many years and is not graduating and her mom asked me to talk to her. When I did, I found out that she was spending close to six to eight hours a day on TikTok, you know, and it's just this mindless scrolling, right? So that's definitely an issue. TV and movies, I mean, before social media and handheld devices, these used to be a big issue. We talked about the consumption of television today. Now we're like, let us go back to those days of television. We're all sat down in front of the TV and watch something. But movies, TV and movies, obviously amusing ourselves to death. But more importantly, nowadays, it's content issues too. It's reframing of our thinking around what's good, what's true, what's beautiful. Being busy, this culture of like missing out on things, right? We are all a product of that and that's why like Scolay is one of our big incentives for creating an iPhone test. Scolay is actually, it means leisure in Latin, which is the word that we get school from. So it's the concept of leisurely learning. When you're in a state of leisure, when you're in a state where you're not in a flight or flight mode, that's when your brain is the most receptive towards learning. And so it's very important for us to understand as parents that when we're keeping our kids so busy, when we're scheduling them for this class or that class and going from this thing to that thing, and we never have that sense of rest, right? That it's not benefiting us or them. And then being very out of focus as a society, like focused on appearances and focused on clothing and focused on like the things that are, you know, like the kind of car that we drive and the kind of jewelry that we have, et cetera, or even the kind of restructuring we're going to do to our bodies, right? Versus what's inside of us and really understanding that concept. And then reward systems. So doing everything for the sake of rewards. So like for example, I have to do this assignment so that I can get an A. I have to do this, you know, job because this is what's going to pay me. I have to do this and I have to do that. So it's mentality of like, I'm constantly getting rewarded and expecting a reward for the things that I should be doing. Versus I'm just doing this because wisdom is something that's going to elevate my status of the worst one, Tala. And wisdom is the thing that's going to elevate my status with people as well. Because we all know that at the end of the day, no matter what profession you might have, if you're not a person of wisdom, there's not going to be much respect within that system for you. So with that said, I do want to make just one point. Many of us grew up in societies where we weren't exposed to some of the things that our kids are kind of exposed to, especially when it comes to like literature, poetry, you know, reading certain kinds of texts, right? We didn't grow up reading, for example, the books, the classic literature books that our children are going to be reading. So oftentimes we have a really hard time connecting with them on those stories, right? And those stories become very meaningful to our kids. Like I remember, you know, growing up reading books like Anne of Green Gables, right? Which is just full of so many virtues, like middle of the day and love and respect for orphans, respect for adults. I mean, it's just really, really an amazing, amazing book that formed my ideas of what it meant to be good in a sense. But my parents were very disconnected from that text. They didn't really understand that. And so I think it's so powerful for me as a parent to be able to utilize the texts that I read to read them with my kids and have conversations around things that are shared values versus things that might be foreign. So I know that if I talk to them about like, Saudi, maybe in their formative years, they weren't ready for that. But once they're cultivated, that kind of taste for rich language, that's when we can kind of get them into the smoke. So I think, masha'Allah, we can go into the habit so we can form in our homes kind of, you know, maybe that's the reason we can go there. And then definitely once you guys have, you know, listen to these habits, if you have other suggestions of things that you've practiced, we'd love to hear from you as well, masha'Allah. All right, so with that, show of hands. Okay. So habits of learning. The first one, yeah, learning is a life-along process. One of the things that Sheikh Mahdi Akbar said, he said, if you want to, if you study two hours a day seriously, you become a scholar in 10 years. So its consistency is the key to it. So, and then also, now we study, this is a big problem now. There's a, we had a class with Sheikh and he said that there was a, someone wrote an article about a large first home in, you know, two-world diagram of the other world. And he said, imagine he is in this beautiful forest and he goes and you see the straight of the roads and this home comes up and he started writing to, pshh, pshh, pshh, okay, hold on. You think that he would finish that? No, I didn't take so. Because your thoughts will go somewhere else, like literally if it breaks your thought. And I mean, I don't write home, I used to write homes in person when I was younger, but I don't, I haven't written in years. But about seven, eight years ago, I was in Medina for an hour, I was sitting in. I was doing some, you know, just relaxing and looking at the green zone. And I was there, I didn't know how long, maybe two, three, four hours, I lost track of time. And just seeing how beautiful the green zone is. And our home came, like literally it came. I had my notebook, I took it out of the pen, I started writing it down. It was just, I was trying to write as fast as it was coming before I forget. So I'm writing and I'm writing and this guy literally, some guy just put his face like between me and my notebook. And he's like, my John, just like, yes. Is it, you just start speaking, what is it, is this a poem you're writing? And he said, it makes you mean like really, what I'm writing in person and what not. I said, yeah, I'm trying to write. I swear, it's like the seven, six and a half lines and the stack that I don't even, it just, it just blocked me right after that. But anyways, it's, you know, it will come to destruction and the other stuff like she talked about it where really you have to have a place where you can study time. There are good times for memorizing and studying. Now, why did Steve Jobs always wear the same clothes? This was poor, right? He didn't have any money. That's what I thought. What about Zuckerberg? Why did he wear the same clothes all the time? You guys thought about it? So there's an article written why they do it. All of these people, they wear the same clothes every day. It's different, but it's the same clothes. They have like 30 of the same t-shirt, 30 of the same pants. So it's just ready. They just put it on. Because the best idea in your head is in the morning when you wake up. And most people, they waste those great ideas on, what am I going to wear? Oh, is this much matching or not? I'm going to put this. I'm going to put that. So all of those brilliant ideas goes into putting on clothing. So these guys have the same, they don't have to think about, what am I going to wear tomorrow? It's the same thing on every day of the week. And that's where they can come up with that brilliant ideas or dangerous ideas, whatever it is that they believe in. So really in the morning time, it's the best time to do memorization, to study. That's why a lot of schools generally start after fudging. They start studying and learning and reading and memorizing. By the time it hits evening, the brain doesn't have the same level of just like, no matter how much coffee you drink, you're still not going to be able to have like, you know, learning ability. The other thing is like a place where, you know, it depends on the person. So, for example, some of your kids are very disciplined. They can study even if the TV's on. Some, they're very sensitive. They're like, I can't study. So we actually had this exercise at the school where my kids used to go, I don't know what to mention their name. But, anyway, so what I told them, because I read this book and said, put them, the students that they can't focus, put them in a place that there's nothing in the room. So this is just a white wall. So they're sitting here studying and there's nothing, just a white wall drawing. Because some students, some kids are very sensitive. So you just have to create that environment so their mind doesn't waver. Now imagine the students are sitting there doing their homework, the phone is like this, laptop is like this, their Instagram is popping up every second. And they're like, ah, okay. Yeah, I'm doing this. Yes, I'll be there at 7 p.m. How are they going to do anything? Like how are they going to memorize anything, learn anything? Because their mind cannot be in two places at the same time. For the parents and for teachers and people who are interested in the subject, there's a beautiful book called The Organized Mind by Daniel Leviton. And he's the same guy who wrote the book, This is Your Brain on Music. But in this book, one of the things he talks about is that the way of, there's a technique in learning and there's a time, the best times, the best space to learn and also like how to make the best out of your day. Because we already have different days because some people work at night, they come home and they're sleeping for two and a half days. So for everybody, it's different. It's not that, you know. But one of the things that he said, and I don't know if it's here, we'll go to the library at the end. So, okay. One of the things that he said was very interesting. He has a whole chapter on multi-tasking because I did multi-tasking all my life. And my wife is the exact opposite of mine. She has, until she doesn't finish one, she doesn't go to the next. That's the start. She was raised in Germany. I was raised in Afghanistan. That's the difference. So I was like, do this, do this, everything at the same time. But I realized after reading that book that he is right because he's a neurosurgeon. He said, there is no way you would be possible that you can do two things at the same time and expect a result of 100% accuracy on both. It's impossible. You're going to make a mistake on one and it's going to be 50% here, 50%. You're not there. You're not here, you're not there. And he said that you would never, ever accomplish something in a way that you're happy when you do multi-tasking. So one of the things that he said, he said most people have a lot of stuff to do. So you have, let's say you come home and you're like, oh my God, I don't want to get so much homework, right? So what do you have? I have six homework, mama. What do you have? I have math, I have English, I have Arabic, I have this, I have that, I have six homework. What do you have? You have like four hours to finish all this, two hours, whatever you do. So he said divide them into, say, okay, math is going to take about what, 10 minutes? Yeah, 10 minutes. Science is going to take about 20 minutes. Arabic is going to take about 25 minutes. So he said divide it into this one, two, three, four, five, six, and levels. So what you would do, you would start with the easiest one and the shortest one. So okay, back home and let's get that done. He said the moment you finish it, there's a signal that's sent to the brain. Accomplished, mission accomplished, success. The boost of energy will come. So now the brain is active. Okay, we did one, success put it down. Next, so you just keep going. This is that has a ripple effect if you do that. A lot of the people, they start with a, let me get rid of the hardest thing first and the longest thing. And they keep working, they keep working inside. Oh my God, this thing is 45, I'm not done. And they won't do anything else. But start with the shortest and get things done. So that's a really good advice that he gives in that book. So going to number two, the word blackout, you know, like this is very good, you know, I want to, you know, take this class, but you know this. The professor said in the hadith, he said, coulda woulda shoulda is from shaitan. Cut it and die. Shouldn't have died. You know, this is all from shaitan. So what's the stuff of shaitan? What's past, you can't change, right? What's past, you can't change. The future, you have no control over it. What you have in is in the present. Now, one of the things that you said that, you know, instead of saying, I have to, you say, I want to. I think they were from the barrier or gender. I'm sorry. There was a family from India and I think they were Muslim, but it was on New York Times or one of those magazines. But I don't read the magazine, but when people send me articles, I do read it if it's interesting. So somebody sent me to read this. So they went from, they were the corporate, they made money over there for like 10, 12 years. I have a couple of children in America. They sold their business. I don't know, four or six, eight million dollars, something like that. And they said, let's go back home and just live a comfortable life. So they left and she said in America, I hated the tasks daily. Oh my God, I have to pick the kids, take the kids. Okay, let's go Canada and drop them off. I have to go pick them up now. I have to do this. I have to do that. I have to do this. I have to do that. I have to go get groceries after. So when I went to India, she said, I had, she had like three kids. She said, I saw all of these children when I started driving into school, all of these children walking to school and it's 40 minutes walk, 45 minutes walk. All these kids like, you know, second graders, third graders that actually walking to their parents don't have a car. And then he said, they hit her that a lot of the people in there, there's a couple that came and they said, hey, we met for some years. We don't have any children. And she said that I changed my vocabulary for my half to do it. That I get to do this. That what a blessing that I get to take my kids, a half children, that I have a car. Now Allah has blessed me. He said that changed my whole life and I'm so happy now doing the same tasks. So it's all as Imam Nabi mentioned that hadith of the Quran, it's all in the intention. So once you change your intention, you change your speech now. What is to have an effect on you? And this is why we, you know, the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, man kana yuhmuna bi-llahi wa yuhmi al-akhir, fadyaqul khayran, awliyassmut, whoever believes in Allah in the last day, they say things that are beautiful and good or they keep silence. In other words, if you speak beautifully, you will actually become beautiful. And this is part of our tradition that say, now Ali, radiallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, ibn-ahmi al-malaghah, that are a jamaar or grijaf will be sunny. That the beauty of a man is in his eloquence. So the more beautifully they speak, the more beautiful they will be. And this is why, when a man has a Scottish, because they have beauty in their language, they're all beautiful. Even though if you look at them, some of you say, you know what, that is not, there's nothing about them that make them beautiful. They're not like a model, but because of the eloquence of speech, they are actually very beautiful, masha'Allah. So just not using those words, believe it to Allah, and you know, if you wanted to do something, do it, go for it. But you have to make sure. Rumi said that, you know, aim high, but also know your limit, because a hay cannot pick up a mountain. Aim high, but know your limit. A piece of hay cannot pick up a mountain. So everybody should know that, okay, I gotta aim high, but I gotta know what I can do. Right? So for me, I can't say, oh, I'm gonna become the president of the United States, because first of all, I was involved in it. Right? So that's why there is no other way. So like these are things that you would know like, oh, I'm gonna become like Mawlana Rumi. I can't even read his works until I died of finished reading the books. So there's an after my limit. Everybody has to know the limit. So we have to be real. So, so cognitive rational thinking. So now, from a young age, one of the things that's easy to teach children is logic. And people think it's very hard, because I have never seen any child who's not a master of logic. I swear to God, like I used to be stuck with my kids when I was in third grade. So I said, no, why can't we have it? Well, because, okay, hold on a second. Let me just think about this before I say, well, we're not gonna have a console again. We're not gonna have it. And my son said, why? So because, you know, it's a waste of time, but my cousin has it. And his father is your brother. I'm like, okay, hold on. They have, you know, yes, he's my brother and he allows it, but in my house, we don't allow it. And so what's the difference here from same parents? I swear, like I said, fourth grade, he's arguing with me why he can't have a console for his game. So they know logic more than we do. And that's why a lot of the parents, when they get upset at their children, is because they don't know logic, right? They think lies that you know logic in the beginning, but then if you don't practice it, you know, we, you don't build upon it. So they get angry and they say, because I said to them, they're smacking them back in their head, because you shouldn't, I'll handle it, I'll never smack that kid. So that's why I tell them, because I've never smacked you. You better be nice. So, so this is like, for example, you see something, you see something, you can tell them logically that, okay, listen, don't look at this advertisement. It's haram, like in, because a lot of the thing go, we're living like wherever Pakistan or that when we first moved to Pakistan from Afghanistan, it was a country, literally it was like heaven on earth when we talked about Islam. Like you didn't see anybody who's atheist. Like everyone from the bridge to the port, they were just sincere believers. And then in the masjid, everybody there masjid, where they were raised in the port. Like they're not practicing, the Quran would recite, they would just, they would just grab something and put it on their head just to cover it. Like they would not even have each other. Wallahi, I've seen it so many times. They would grab a tablecloth in a wedding and the moment you recite the Quran, they would put it on their, that is faith, that is iman. For those people who can say, listen, don't do this, it's haram, my sister, it's haram. We are living in a age that right now in Pakistan no halim is talking about halal, halal. Why? Because people don't even believe, there are all these crazy young generation that they don't even believe. And now, you know what the thought was? That make sure that if you do a niqa and the man doesn't take his Shah, they can't do his niqa because people got married, they were home and the girl was like, time to pray, I don't believe in no stuff. But because of that, the guy doesn't believe in prayer. He's not a Muslim. So now they're making people, we're in a different time. Yes, you guys are in a bubble. This is, we live in a bubble, but outside of this is madness. So you have to be very careful that you have to have some type of logic to teach them that okay, this is wrong based on this. This is right. You know, one of the taboo subject that people don't talk about, but unfortunately, you end up counseling these people who are addicted to photography in the Muslim community. But nobody wants to talk about it. You know, she comes to talk about this 12 years ago or as a date, they never, they didn't produce the thing that's, it's too out there, but like, Wallahi, after their talk, a woman came and she cried and said, thank you for talking about this because my husband is addicted and he's the mother of a Muslim. So this is over a decade ago. Imagine now. So there are, in part of all of that book pornographic, when she was there, on the stage, when she was talking about this something, doing a statistic of this foul thing in the Muslim countries. Yeah. Three of the top, three of the top five countries for download are Muslim countries in that time. So now it's probably even worse. So you have to be really connected and knowing that what's going on in the world. So being really logical with the children, understanding and not screaming and shouting, said, that's how it is. It is because you have to be able to explain to them where they are happy with your answer. And this one thing said, you said Nasser said, it was very brilliant. He said, they're asking, he, he, so one thing said, you said Nasser said, about, you know, when ISIS was introduced, he said, we had a generation of people when they came in and the boy would ask his father, who has created us? He said, Allah. And then he would say, who created Allah? And then he would say, oh, you become a kafir. Shut up. And then he would smack it on top of his head. And then he said, Baba, you know, you said Allah sits on the throne. Yeah. How does he sit on the throne? Just smack him on the head. Baba, you said Allah has a hand. Yabba, walk over and hear him. But what kind of hand he has? Is it like my hand? Smack him on the back of his head because he, the father didn't have the answer. He didn't know how to teach the child. He said, what happened? Then another group came in and then they have the AK-47 in it. These are the same children that grew up. And when people say something, oh, you say something against Allah, I'm going to shoot you. So it starts from a young age that you actually teach them. And these are not hard stuff to learn. It's not that it's impossible. Any parent can learn these stuff to make sure to tell their children in a way that they are satisfied. Now, time. People say, I don't have time. Sheikh Hamdi said, this is the greatest life human being has ever said. I don't have time because the only thing we have is time. We just don't have time management. That's all. So, the Quran says, save yourself and your family. This is the order. Save yourself and your family and then and then and then. This is the sequence. You know, Sheikh Muhammad said the first time he flew into NASA, he came on a flight. He said, they said, when in case of emergency, the oxygen mask will come down. First, put it on yourself. Then help the person next to you. They need help. He said that is Islam because a beggar cannot give up. If you don't have any money, how are you going to help somebody else? Right? So you have to make sure that you take care of yourself. So, what I call is me time. Me time is time for yourself. We all spend time for our children, for our parents, for our friend, for our school, for whatever it is. But do you spend time with yourself? Do you get 15 minutes a day for yourself? 20 minutes a day? Generally, they say, if you don't spend an hour a day for yourself, you're not living. And don't call it life. It's miserable. But at least start with 15 and go to 30. And those are things that make you happy because if your spirit is down, then you're going to bring that negative energy on your children, on your parents, on your friends, on your school, in the classroom. It's all going to be negative. Why? Because you didn't spend enough time with yourself. You didn't do something they treat you. Whatever it is, I have a friend who just sent me a video from Las Vegas. Good God. Convert. He found this thing. This is the African American Convert. Guess what his thing is? Persian fruit. That's his thing. He said, this gives me happiness. He just plays food every day. He said, I'll play one hour a day. And he said, every week he said, you know, I learned this new thing. He loves Montana. So, everybody has something. I like to do a walk and be away from everybody, going to this place behind our house that you can't even see any human being or cars or anything. It's just in a jungle basically. That's what I like to do. Some people like to go on a corner set and read a book. And whatever, some people want to put the headphone and listen to a falsely reading Sura Yasin. You have to find what makes you happy. It's mean time. I mean, don't, you know, let me say it's come as you are when you come to God. Don't put filters on. Don't put on, you know, a low act. Oh, for my meantime, I like to read Dostoyevsky's, you know, comic punishment because don't be intellectual. If that's your thing, then read it. But if that's not your thing, you're not enjoying it. Don't read it. Maybe you want to read a comic book. Whatever you like. Maybe you want to read a little bit of Iqbal or read, you know, in your room here, whatever it is. Or a children's book. What? Or not read. Or you want to sit there out, one of my friends, his thing is sunset. He drives like 10 minutes away from my house in the sunset. You just, this is my time. I just like watching the sunset when you tranquility relax at your home with full of energy. Find that thing that gives you energy, that makes you positive, that makes you happy. It's your time. Doesn't have to be with anybody. It can be with people that you love if you want, you know, sometimes you want to take your kid or something. That's fine. But as long as it's your time, something that you enjoy, enjoy. And then family time. It's very important. Daily is very hard. And the reason why it's hard because of the work schedule that every day you have on time. Those who can do it, this is the best thing you can do. 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day, after mom, after Tisha, after Fajr, after Doha. Find the time that everybody's home and free at that time. So that is done. So, or money was a Friday. Or Tuesday Thursday Saturday, whether or at least Saturdays or Fridays or something where you sit and it's family time. Let's sit down. Okay. Let me tell you a story. Depending on the age, tell the stories of the Sahaba, the Prophet, the Salaam, of this, of that. So you share something and then he asks, what do you think about that? Always engage your children. You be shocked the amount of what you get from them. So studying a second language or expanding the scope of your knowledge. So, you know, Jim Ruhm said that, you know, his life he always, he wanted to work at, he was working in a corporation. He was doing things that make the corporation better. Right? I got to work overtime. I can do this. He said, I guess at one point I said, hmm, why don't I just do things to make myself better? So he said, I start learning another language. Then I start reading books to expand my knowledge about, I want to learn about science. I want to learn about technology. I want to learn about human nature. I want to learn about grammar. I want to learn about this. So start reading me time for me. Right? And that's why he became like this, you know, a guru for a lot of people in a billionaire. But because he spent more time making himself better than making the corporation better. So spend more time making yourself better. Whatever it is, if you're not reading daily, you're missing out in life. I don't even know how people do. Like sometimes I go and there's no books. I get suffocated. I literally get suffocated. Because sometimes the conversations are not really something you can just grab a book and just go into the world. But they're books, they're homes that have new books which is, you know, I mean, I call it hell. I didn't want to go there. So you have to have books. We'll give back their library at the end in parts of it. So this one is small acts that are constant, right? And that's very important to do. Look, there's a beautiful person who says, is it that we have honored the utmost? He said, when you do a good action, it's like a cup of water that you throw to the ocean. That's your action for that. Okay, I did an action. You throw a cup of water into the ocean. Okay, did they increase or decrease the ocean with that action? I'm sorry. No, it's insignificant. So, but what happens? When you are stranded in a desert, dying of thirst, Allah will send that cup of water back to you. That's the secret of a small action that because you did it for Allah, Allah will make it priceless, even though it's worthless. That cup of water into the ocean is worthless. But it becomes priceless in that moment that you're dying of thirst, that you'll give your entire life for a cup of water. Allah will send that to you. So don't think that all is a small thing. The reason why it's not small is because you're doing it for double irony, right? The reason why it's not small is because you do it for Allah. And obviously, we talked about one thing at a time and not doing more than tasking. So, conversation. A lot of the places that you go now, especially if you're from your subcontinent around the sun, the conversation in households are literally, if you have any echo, it's suffocating. Because it's all about nonsense. It's about, he said, she said, you went to that wedding. What she was wearing. Have you seen this drama? Have you seen this movie? Ah, you got that new car. You got that new thing. It's all about things of the world that really has no benefit. Zero. So there's not, like I always tell my wife, she said, like we don't get a lot of visitors in our house. And when they come in, they just leave really fast. Because for them, it's kind of like, what the heck is going on there? And first of all, I tell them, you enter backbiting. Everything you say is backbiting. Just stop, like literally stop, please. So it's better not to have guests over, that get you into backbiting, get you into things that are haram. So that's the best way to do it. But unfortunately, it is, sedat al-Rahm, you know, just sedat al-Rahm. So you have to, sedat al-Rahm, you have to have it for some family, you know what I'm saying. But make it as quick and as efficient as possible. And try to start teaching your children from a young age, the family, especially I just don't know if I can write a book about how to raise children. It's called All the Mistakes I Made Raising Children. Alhamdulillah, we didn't make, it's not the mistake, it's the things we could have done. That we didn't do. Those are the things that, you know, when you send your kid to a small school, and this is a very good school because there's a homerun, you know, there's an offer right now to be, the teachers here are beautiful. And they're doing, but they would tell you, they'd be the first to tell you that you have to give them supplemental learning because they, there's no way that school can do everything teaching math, teaching akhlaab, teaching, it's impossible. You have to just come to that. You got, you can't just, okay, I'm done. Eight years later, my daughter, my son has to be perfect. I'm sorry, if you're expecting that, this is not paradise, and these are, they're not prophets or robots that begin, you know, reprogram everything. So you, the house, you have to really have gathering in the house where you talk, you have a system of teaching that they have to learn. Look, you don't have to learn, you know, you know, we had some stuff, I thought it would be, formal logic. You don't have to learn, you know, a master, akhlaab, at tahawiyah. You don't have to learn, you know, gail, hadith, and be a muhaddith, and be a mufassiyah. No. Just put, in the heart of your children, the law of Allah and His messenger. Anyone can do that. Just tell me your stories. Just tell me short stories, tell a story about the prophets. So from a young age, of the awliya, like, I would do a story before they go to sleep, until they were like, until they keep me out of their bed. I literally, at the time they said, ah boy, don't come, you know, I'm like 15 or 14, but I would go now, tell them stories and of the awliya and of the prophet salam. Just like, just to spend time, like with your kids, you know. So tell them stories and just, in the second thing, constant reminder of Torah. Essential to do these two things. That, hey, we make mistakes, we are human beings, but you can make Torah, Allah forgives. Constant reminder, Allah forgives you. When you go to Allah, just ask forgiveness. Just Allah will forgive you. Anything you do, you made a mistake. Just don't even tell your parents. Go to Allah first. Make sure you go to Him. And that is, that was the essential part of our faith when we grew up. That was essential. Like, I grew up, like, Torah was the foundation of what I was taught at the house. And that really helped me because when I was lost in the West, I did, if I didn't have that teaching that I could come out of this madness that I'm in and Allah will forgive me, I would have never came out. You can ask your husband, like, we went to college together. I would have never came out of that because there's no, then I knew that Allah will forgive if I make Torah. So a lot of the people, a lot of the young people, the reason why when they start sinning and get disobeying Allah, they don't come back because they don't know Torah. And nobody told them about the, remind them from it constantly and tell them the stories. There's a beautiful book called Keshav Mahdi, it's translated in English as well. And it has all these stories of those people who made Torah and became Waliah of Allah. That's why I told Awliya of what I did in Akhtar. It's translated in English too, a selection of it. There's a lot of books about still the story of those people who made Torah and they become saints of Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So that's in the back of their heads and when they make the mistake, they know how to rectify and come back. So one of the things that I really would love to see is no music in Akhar. Alhamdulillah, I stopped listening to music like I don't even know how long to go like I don't even know who's who are the singers. The singers of the west that I know is Michael Jackson. So he was like, what? Yeah, that's the last person I listened to. So I just don't know who's who. Don't play music in Akhar unless it's Anashin. Now, I gotta say one thing though, if you're going to put your children to learn something like music, send them into classical piano. I know that some people might have a different opinion on these stuff, but what happens when they learn classical piano and I know a few people who did that, they will not listen to pop music. They will not listen to this one because the pop music today is all, is, is, is haram because it's all foul words. There's no, there's no clean pop music anymore. It's all rap music, heavy metal, everything has foul words. So you can, you can't listen to those things. But if they are doing classical piano, they will go in that Mozart and Beethoven and they're listening to classic. They can't even listen to these things. So at least their ears are protected from the haram. So that's something you can do. So don't, enjoy, don't have music. Unless there's some use of a magazine and these artists, they're good, especially for young kids to memorize those songs. There's a lot of beautiful songs, there's songs with 99 names of Allah that they can memorize. I've memorized the 99 names of Allah with that song in the sequence because I couldn't do the sequence. I memorized the 25 names of the prophets with a song that a Turkish Mustafa Gülüş Dugdu, he did this and you know, Adam, but he did this new one with little solace. So it's just, but it's a rhythm and you can memorize it in sequence all the way to the prophets around the 25th. So anyway, that I'll mention in a moment. So dinner time, you can talk during dinner, obviously good thing. The only thing you can talk that's prohibited by religion is death. So don't talk about death during dinner or during food because it's not prohibited. You're supposed to lose your appetite when you talk about death. So that's the reason, like how could you like eat and talk about it? It becomes, it's supposed to be something really to wake you up. So in 10, you know, we talked about this. Wow, I'm done. Beneficial Council. Okay, I talked about that. Beneficial Literature. So I'll say it and then you do your thing. So literature, there's a lot of beneficial literature in every language. This is probably the greatest book in the Western civilization that you can teach, learn and teach your children. Obviously, this is not for little kids. What did your daughter read this? Like what age? Maybe eighth grade? Yeah, but she's ahead of her time. So she doesn't. So I would say that 10th grade would be like a good time to start this, like, you know, for an average person. Some people in 11th, 12th grade, honestly. Some people like first year of college. But if your kids are like, most of them are small and may read a lot, it's good to start like, you know, 9th grade. Like when you start high school, it'll be good. This, but a lot of these, you can teach your children in a basic language and tell them, like, they'll have to learn the fourth level of reading. Just teaching the first level. They need to be there. Just learn the first level. This is how it is. Your eyes are moving. So there's a lot of technique that it teaches you in this book. This is also, the community college, this is part of the curriculum in freshman year. So it's really nice books, the beautiful book. My daughter's reading it now. I give it to her two years ago. So she's reading it right now. That's good. Better late than never. So in any case, there's a lot of literature in English language. The classics are beautiful. Then you can read that, you know. Some people might have a different opinion on this issue, like The Good Gatsby, Captured in the Rye, all of those books, you know, like we read it in high school and I still remember it had an impact on me. But all of those books are really good in English literature. Now, for parents who are readers, I would highly recommend people who read novels. Just a lot of people read novels. If you read novels, do not read modern novels. It's a waste of your time. You'll regret it. Because the thing about novels is you can't get it out of your head. That's the problem of novels. Once you get it out of your head, you can't get it out. It's like pop songs, right? Shakespeare, the reason why they keep pop songs is because they keep popping in your head. But I went to a... I was in Toronto and I went to this restaurant and they were playing 80s music. And every night I had it memorized. I'm like, can you stop, please? It's driving me nuts. So anyway, it's good literature. Yeah. I think we're going to start right now. Okay, let's go pray. Pray and then come back for a question and answer challenge. Okay.