 and to have the identity of Islam more ingrained into them. So I wanted to speak about one thing tonight, or it's a number of things, but it's the idea of our position within the family or within the community. And one of the Sunnahs of Yom Al-Juma is to recite Surat Al-Kahf. And Surat Al-Kahf is a protection against the dijab according to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And I've thought a lot about why is it that Surat Al-Kahf is the protection of the dijab? Does anybody have any thoughts that they've thought about? Like why this Surat specifically? Because we know there's aspects of the Qur'an that are beyond our comprehension, but there's an effect of the Qur'an that it could happen, whatever Surat you recite. So as an example to illustrate this, you know, when a person is sick and if they're going to do a ruqya, what are some of the a'ayat, they call them a'ayat or shifa, that a person might recite to encourage healing or to help healing? What's that? Surat Al-Fatiha definitely, there's a hadith of one of the sahaba doing that, but what are some of the a'ayat that specifically talk about shifa? What's that? A'ayat al-Kursi is a good protection, but there's six a'ayats in the Qur'an that specifically mention the word shifa. Healing, a'ayat or shifa, and there's, if you look it up online, you can find they collect these six a'ayats, and so some shi'uqh, if you go to them and you ask them to make dua for you, and they'll read these six a'ayats of what are mentioned in the Qur'an, there's no shifa, you know, about the asad. So they recite to do the ruqya, these a'ayats, these verses that actually have the specific mention of the word shifa. But one time there was a person, he came to one of the shi'uqh in Mauritania, and he said, sheikh, make dua for me, I'm sick. And so he recited the Qur'an, but he said, In their hearts is a sickness, and so Allah has increased their sickness. Okay, now if the entire Qur'an is a shifa, is a healing, then can you read this a'ayat for the ruqya of healing? Yes, it's part of the Qur'an. Now, traditionally people stick with Fatiha and the a'ayats of the Qur'an, but the entire Qur'an is shifa. And this is what the sheikh was trying to remind people to don't get stuck in, just because we traditionally as Muslims read the Fatiha or a'ayat al-Qursi or the six verses that specifically mentioned the word shifa, doesn't mean that the rest of the Qur'an does not have healing, like we can recite it for healing, does that make sense? Okay, so why was the reason, oh, so with this in mind, when we're thinking about surahs and kehab, as being a protection against the dajjal, what might be some of the reasons? Has anybody given thought to this? Just interested in... Okay, let's break this, yes, Mashallah, two things. One, there's the aspect of the hidden meaning as opposed to the apparent meaning. And just to clarify, do you mean by this, like we read it, we might think there's one meaning, but Allah has a hidden meaning and that's what He's affecting us with? Okay, so the brother mentioned like the interaction of Musa A.S. with al-Qidr, where he didn't know what was going on. And so there was an outward meaning, but there was something else that was happening in that. And then he also mentioned about the elements of knowledge and power, because some of those stories have those aspects. So the story of the men who went to the cave, and they were not prophets, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protected them because of their taqwa. And now a couple of things. Ustad Bishr is not here. He's one of the counselors, one of the parents here. Does anybody know brother Bishr Ta-raqi, Hafid of Quran, masha'Allah, and he's here. But we were speaking about this, and he was saying that one of the things that bothers him is that when people get too much into the ritual aspect without thinking about what's the purpose, they lose the meaning. So for example, he gave an example that he was coming out of Juma, and somebody was reciting Surat al-Kahf so fast, and he was reading it from the Musa, while he's driving his car, whether to get back to work or to go home or something. And so he's holding the Musa and reading Surat al-Kahf because it's Sunnah to read Surat al-Kahf on Friday, and then he backs into somebody and causes an accident. And that's like symbolic of, they lost the importance of the meat. Like what is the importance of reading Surat al-Kahf? Did Allah, through the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, did he encourage the recitation of Surat al-Kahf just to go through a ritual? Or is there something deeper there? And there's one of the Ulema was just reading his quote today, and he was criticizing how sometimes people focus on obscure elements of the Shari'an in terms of study, and they don't look at why was A'id and Fammud destroyed as a civilization? Right? Like think about why, what were they doing as a people that caused them to be destroyed, and how that can relate to our lives? Is that more important? Or to discuss some obscure matters of theological or Shari'a or fiqh debates? So it's about priorities. So one of the things that we have to do when we recite the Qur'an is that we have to look into what are the meanings of the Qur'an, and understand, try to understand what is it that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is teaching us through this Surah on this specific day. And when we recite the Qur'an, Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, his father's Abbas and he is Abdullah Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them, he said that the, well two, a couple of things. One of the things he said is that the people who left their books, right? We hear this story in the Qur'an. They were given a guidance and they left the book. He said the people, the previous nations who were given a book by Allah and when Allah criticizes them for leaving the book, he said they're leaving the book was not through recitation. They continued to recite it until of course it was lost. But while they actually still had the book, they recited it but without understanding. That's how they lost the book. So they didn't lose the book when they forgot it or when they stopped reciting it. They lost the book when they recited it without understanding of what is in the book. Ibn Abbas also mentions that the Ahadith, you know, we hear about the end of times. One of the signs of the end of times is that people will leave the prayer, right? It's one of the signs of the end of time. People will leave the prayer. He said it's not that they will leave the prayer, is that they would pray and their prayer is not sound. So what happens in the psyche of the person? What's worse? A person who does not pray or a person who prays improperly in terms of change and getting to because the optimum situation is to pray properly and correctly and to read the Qur'an with understanding. So what happens with the person who prays but improperly? He or she thinks, oh, I'm doing fine. I don't need to change. As opposed to the person who does not pray, at least he or she knows, oh, I have to do something to change. So this is why it's very important for us when we're trying to bring the Qur'an into our lives that we bring it in completely. And this is where the element of tafsir comes in. And just, I think it was yesterday, there's a young teacher who studied these in Canada. He has a series of English translations of the tafsir of Surah Al-Waqa, Surah Yaseen, Surah Al-Kahs. And he's translated them into English. It's called Waseelah Press, W-A-S-I-L-A. And he put five tafsir together. So I encourage you as the men in your household to buy some tafsir that at least your teenage kids can start reading. And you can also read whether it's in another language, Arabic, Urdu, whatever language it might be that you're speaking, to read tafsir and to bring those lessons into the home so that it's not just, oh, we have to read Surah Al-Fatiha. Like I'll give one test that I gave to people is the vocabulary of Fatiha. How many people actually know what they're saying in Surah Al-Fatiha? Yes, it is a blessing to recite Fatiha. You get the reward of the prayer. But how many of us actually know what we're saying in Fatiha? And so that alone, if we cannot give to our children other than Surah Al-Fatiha with understanding, that's a huge goal just there because the entire message of the Qur'an is summarized in Surah Al-Fatiha. And there's a number of scholars that have written works and have pointed this out and have shown how this is. It's summarized in Surah Al-Fatiha. But getting back to Surah Al-Fatiha, so try to bring those tafsir into our lives and into the lives of our family with understanding. But one of the things that we see about Surah Al-Fatiha is that it's talking about power structures. The young men in the cave, the ruler was an unbelieving ruler and they left because they were oppressed. So there's a power structure there. Then they go for 309 years and then when they come back now the power structure is a righteous kingdom built on faith, iman. The power structure, even though it's sometimes presented as the test of knowledge Musa A.S. was shown, even though he has knowledge Allah SWT is giving knowledge to another person that he does not have understanding of. So it's a power structure of knowledge. There's different levels of knowledge. The Anbiya have a certain type of knowledge. The Rasul have a certain type of knowledge. The Muslims have a certain type of knowledge. The angels have a certain type of knowledge. And whose knowledge overrides the other knowledge? Or whose knowledge has understanding that the other side doesn't? And then we have Dhul Qarmayn Iskander. He's a righteous ruler. We also have the king in the story of the... If you look at Al-Khidr mentioned, there was three things. And one of them was the king who was Yehud-ul-Kul-Safi'in at-Nghasbah. He was stealing all of the boats. And so now you have another power structure there. Well, when the dajjal comes, one of the things that he is going to do, he's going to establish a ruling and a government that's going to encompass the entire earth. And so if we're thinking about the power structures that are going to be implemented by the Qur'an, the Surah al-Kath is telling us about power structures. And what is a healthy power structure? Iskander, healthy power structure, unhealthy power structure. The king who caused the young men to leave, who said, if you don't believe me to be your God, then I will kill you. So there's all these power structures there. So we have to be thinking about power structures and where do we fit into them? If we look at the Salah, the five daily prayers, one of the important things that we're learning from them is following a structure. Right? When the Imam, we're all following the Imam. So when we're teaching our children, when you're at home, you're the Imam in your house. But when you come to the Masjid, do we create our own other separate little Jama'a here? In fact, according to many of the Fouqaha, if the regular Imam who prays in the Masjid, if he's already prayed the Jama'a, that if you come in late, there's a difference of opinion whether or not you can have a second Jama'a after the regular Imam. According to some schools of thought like Imam Malik, it's disliked, it's makroob. Now, why would it be disliked to have a second Jama'a after the regular Imam has prayed? What do you think? So that people don't start splitting away. Even if your intention is sincere, oh, I want the extra Ejab. If somebody seems like, wait a minute, brother, why don't you pray with the Jama'a of the Imam? Do you have a problem with the Imam? So inherently in the structure of our Masjid, we're teaching a lot of etiquette of what do you do when there's two power structures. So you lead your prayers at home as the Imam of your household. And this is actually one of the things that I was mentioning last week that one of the duties of the man in the household is to enjoin his family to prayer. What Mura Halakab-e-Sala, enjoin your family to pray, was tabir alayha, and have patience in this enjoining of the family. And in another narration of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, it's mentioned that the person who leaves the prayer is the one who allows his family to leave the prayer. So we may as the leader of the household, if we're leaving, if we're saying, okay, Alhamdulillah, I got the prayer down. I'm praying five times in my household. But we're allowing our children to not pray. Our spouse to not pray. That's the person who is Mubayya al-Sala, who's the person who has left the prayer. Does that make sense? So it's like the person who reads Quran, but he doesn't understand. But Abbas is saying, that's the person who's left the Quran. The person who prays, but doesn't enjoin his family prayer, he has essentially left the prayer. So that's why it's important to gather the family, to have the Sala in the home. That's one of the primary duties that Allah SWT has given the power structures in the family. There's multiple that are going on. But one of them, for the man being the leader of the prayer, you know, your wife is not going to be able to lead your children in prayer. Your wife can't lead your grown sons in prayer. So you as the man have to be the Imam and lead your, and get your family to pray. According to some of the Ulema, if you pray Fajr in Jama'a and Isha in Jama'a, it's like you have brought the entire night to ihya, to life, with ibadah. And you can get that edger, even if you're not able to come to the masjid by praying with one of your children or your spouse. So that's why it's very important, not only to pray and to enjoin your family to pray, but also to pray in Jama'a and to bring them closer. So what's that? About the... No, it's an itjdi had of one of the scholars because they were saying, okay, is there a hadith? I'll check on them. Is that it? Is it in terms of? Yes, sorry. It is a hadith. Yes. Yes, Sarah. Thank you. Thank you. It's a hadith. Well, if you pray in Jama'a, ihya, it just says, Jama'a for ihya and fajr. It just says Jama'a. It doesn't say masjid. What's that? Jama'a is according to some people, according to some scholars, just two people. You and one other person, that's a Jama'a. Aqallur, Jama'i, etneem. Linguistically in Arabic, if you said, you know, Ja'al mu'minum, you could have been two believers, okay, and they're the Jama'a. So this is one of the reasons why, well, let's look beyond. Like, what are we teaching our family in the structure of our prayer? It's very powerful. Even the lining up of the prayer, when we get, you know, you can have thousands of people when the iqama goes and to teach our children about the iqa, the process of the edan and the iqama, and then look at what's happening. Well, one of the things that's happening is that we're teaching our children about structure and prayer and rules. And one of the things that's happening now in our society in America, that your children are exposed to in the schools, in the social media, in the movies, is it's all about me and that's it, right? They don't look at the structures that Allah swt has placed. So let's take it one of the most important structures. The respect of children to their parents. That's essentially being removed and erased. If you watch a lot, if you allow your children to watch TV or movies, you need to sit and watch those with your children. If you choose, if you allow, you have to because there's a lot of messages and there's a lot of culture that's being transferred in those process. And if you're not doing that, you might say, where did my kids learn this? They're learning it from their friends. And so one of the other duties of as being the man in the household is you have to know who are your children's peers and friends and help regulate that. You have to help regulate that because that is influencing them. The media, the movies, even the books, there's a sister, one of the elders in our community, in the US American Muslim community. Her name is Dr. Freda Shemma. Has anybody ever heard of Dr. Freda Shemma? Look her up online. She's done a PhD in Curriculum and she has looked a lot at literature. And both from the Islamic tradition, she has a collection of Islamic literature, a collection of stories that you can, if you want your children to read literature from the Islamic tradition, she has a treasury of Islamic literature. And the other thing is that she has a list. You can find this list online where she says by age, what are good novels? Who has kids in here that just love going to the library reading books? Okay, every, they're going to be reading books and you got to keep up with that. And so she has a list and she's from the lens of a Muslim. What are the lessons that are being learned? So I saw her at this past Isnah and my daughter was with me. She said, she, she thanked her. She said, thank you for putting that list together. I'm starting to read those books and each one she'll, Dr. Freda has actually mentioned what are some of the positive elements that are discussed through this novel in this literature and what are some of the things to be aware of? So she was, she was saying, oh, I was mentioning to her about an article that compared British literature with American literature. So think of some of the popular British literature. What are some of the titles? What's that? Harry Potter's at the top. What else? For kids' literature. What's that? Charles Dickens. What are some of his stories? What else? Moby Dick, that was a, okay, that, okay, but children's literature. Books, what's that? Giant Peach, right? All of his, the Charlie Factory. Okay, so we got the Charlie Factory. We got the Harry Potter series. What else? Children's literature. Mary Poppins. Lord of the Rings. Wayne and the Pooh, right? So now compare that with famous American children's literature. Name some of the titles. That they're teaching elementary kids. What's that? Tom Sawyer. Huck Finn. What else? Cat in the Hat. Oh, Dr. Seuss. Yeah, but I, okay, I think that's actually, you know, Cat in the Hat is, you know what's happening in the book, Cat in the Hat? There's an English word list called the Dolce's word list. It's about 220 English words that if you learn them, you can understand about 80% of the English language. You can understand 80% of the Constitution if you learn the Dolce's list. He took that and he wrote the Cat in the Hat book. The other thing is he said, he said, I took, he said kids hate morals in the story and they can smell them a mile away. So he hid the morals like, that's why it's so like fantastic and the kids like, they're lost and all this, but they're actually learning morals in the stories. The Cat in the Hat has a moral in the story. Respect your parents, right? You don't, you know, don't let strangers in the house. A lot of things. But he said a couple of things. He put in the Dolce's word list. So they're actually learning a lot of, like very rich vocabulary. They're learning phonics. It's also, he took previous literature for kids or like learned to read books. We're very kind of dull. And so he brought them to life with like, and it's like almost, he started his first book was 1937. So we're almost, it's almost 100 years ago. The kids are still reading them now, right? So about the morals and then the last thing was, can't remember the last thing. But anyway, okay, aside from Dr. Seuss, what, Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, what's that? Little House on the Prairie. So now think about those stories. Little House on the Prairie, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, Wind in the Willows. What is kind of the difference of the genre? What they were saying, this article was that American, it's all about the rugged individualism, hard work ethic, the Protestant work ethic, the pioneer spirit, right? You can see those in all of those books. In the British literature, fantasy, magic, you know, all of this stuff. And kids are more drawn to that. And they even broke down, they said there's three elements, flying, cozy places, and magic. If you have those three things in there, the kids will just eat it up. Think about all those books, right? There's always that cozy place that the kids get to go to. So, all right, so these are, so I mentioned this to Dr. Freda, and she said there's something else that's happening in American versus British literature. She said it's the structure of the family that's in there. So a lot of the American literature is divorced families. So, I mentioned, I said, I said, she said, I said, could you give me an example? My hatchet, anybody read hatchet or taught their kids? It's about a kid who, the airplane crashes and all he has is a hatchet and he's got to survive in the wilderness and the pilot, have you read the book? I loved it as a kid going up. The kid gets stuck in the forest, he makes his own hut, catches his own food, all of this stuff. But then she says, do you remember what happened at the beginning of the story? Like, why was he on the airplane in the first place? Because his parents were divorced and he had to go from his, one of his parents to the other ones. And at the beginning it also mentions that while his parents are going through the divorce, the mother actually already has another person and they mention that he, he saw them kiss. Now for me as a kid, I don't remember that. But she said one of, that they put this a lot in the, in the literature and if you look at the movie shows, I mean the like the, the series in American TV, what are one of the things? Split families. Think of some of like the famous, the famous movies. Who's the boss? I mean, this is kind of like, right? Remember? Divorced mother, divorced father. What's another one? They're full house, right? Where's the mom? A lot of them is split families and she said they're doing this because there's so many split families, they actually have to speak to the culture. But the other thing is, that what's happening in the media is that they're also influencing the culture. So I'll give you a couple of examples. Who remembers the I Love Lucy show? Remember? Lucille Ball and, what's his name? What's that? Ricardo, right? Ricardo. They were married in the movie in the series, the sitcom, and they were married in real life. So even though they're pretending, you know, the hugs, or actually they probably didn't even have hugs and kisses, but all of that, they're actually married in real life. So for a person coming from a religious, moral standpoint, you're like, okay, it's not that bad because they're actually married in real life. So that's one thing. Their bedroom was twin beds separate. They didn't allow them, like when they cut to that, that's how conservative American TV was. Lucille Ball and her husband Ricardo, they're married in real life. They're portraying a married, not a boyfriend and girlfriend couple. They're portraying a married couple on TV and the producer is still like, we can't show them the same bed together. That's how conservative, that's just the 1950s. Look at where we are now. One of the big switches, and I remember there was this, I was talking about this with a friend of mine and he said, yeah, there was one show growing up that my parents heard the theme song. She would, my mom or dad would come across the house to turn it off. And I said, what's that? Love, love, love. The kids watch, like with kids, I thought it was married with children. Remember that one? My parents, and as a kid, I'm like, it's just funny. No, can't watch that. Now as an adult, I understand why. So I was like, married with children? No, Simpsons, because my parents didn't like Simpsons either. And that's actually the creators and anarchists. So he's teaching, disrespect of parents is like candy to them, right? Sponge, what is SpongeBob teaching? Is it? Okay, yeah, there's a lot of like, foul humor and stuff like that. He said, no, it was Freeza Company. Freeza Company. John Ritter. Now he said, so I was like, hmm, I said I never thought about that. So I just started researching about Freeza Company. The producer of that sitcom, he said in American television, it was unheard of to show men and women who are not married, living together or boyfriend and girlfriend. It was just not accepted. He said he wanted to break the status quo and show not only two men, I mean two women living with the man, but the man was pretending to be gay, homosexual, because the landlord would only, something about like, I can't remember what it was. You can't be a couple or something like that. You have to be married, right? So they got around that by saying, oh, this is not a couple or anything. But so everybody thought, oh, it's just, it's just fun and games. It's a funny sitcom. But the producer actually has a specific intention on what he wants to change in the culture and make it normal. So there's all these powerful forces in the media on, okay, what do we want to normalize this? So let's just push that agenda. So now, what's that? Same thing today. It's the same thing today. But, hmm, oh, is it? Oh, now even on PBS, they'll have, it's a little one minute thing. PBS for kids, most of it about diversity in the family. So it was like a one minute thing, a clip. I heard it, my kids were watching. I was like, okay, let me see what this is. And it's like, oh, me and my family and me. And then it shows, it cuts, it shows to like a woman in hijab and a dad in a koofing. Like, okay, we came off as Muslims, right? It's like the Jefferson's moving on up to the east side. Well, now we're, we got like a cameo in the PBS thing for the kids. But then it cuts to my two moms and me, right? So they're like, yeah, yeah. Listen, you want to wear your hijab? Come on in. Koofing, come on. There's a brother. It's a funny story on New Year's. He went to a supermarket and the lady was, there was a lady looking for black eyed beans. You guys know what black eyed beans like? What are they called in Muslim? It's not food. What's that? Lubia, Lubia, Lubia. So I remember one, my mom's from Mississippi. One morning I woke up January 1st and my grandmother was cooking black eyed beans. It's a tradition in the South on New Year's Day they cook black eyed beans. And so this lady was looking for black eyed beans in the supermarket. This Muslim brother overheard her. He knew what the culture was. He said, don't worry, I have, because she couldn't find any in the supermarket. I have some at home. And so the lady said, look, the only reason I'm going to follow you home and get the beans that you say you have is because you have that As-Salam-Alaikum hat on. He had a kufi. But even that story is very powerful, right? A couple of things. The brother was representing his enslam in some form or fashion to where the other person knew he was a Muslim. And there were enough Muslims in society that have created like, look, if somebody's a Muslim, that's not just the average man. You're not going to follow an average, a woman's not going to follow a man to her house. Hey, I got some black eyed beans at home. Come on over, right? So why was I mentioned that about the, we're talking about the, what's that? Normalizing the behavior. So there's these powerful forces. We have to be aware of what's going on in society. What's influencing them? What's that? Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the diversity training. Who has to go through like microaggression and what is it called? Bias training. Anybody have to go through bias training, right? Subconscious bias training. Is that what it's called? But there's powerful forces behind those programs. Very powerful. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't, you know, go through those. I'm not saying that, you know, anybody, you know, that we should mistreat it. Well, of course, we're not going to do that. We're not going to mistreat anybody. But, or at least we shouldn't mistreat people. But the question is that what is, what's the lesson that's being taught to our children about those things? So you actually have to have these conversations with the children, with your children at whatever age and bring up these discussions. What do people think about this or that? There was actually one person who actually asked me to speak with their children about the whole LGBTQ issue. And this is a family that comes to the message regularly and they actually asked me, I mean, I'm kind of like exposing myself, but they said, just bring it up. Don't let them know that we asked you, you know? So I brought it up on one of the Kissel Salambiyat, you know, I was able to like, you know, go. And they were shocked. They're like, oh, that's Haram? These are middle schoolers. Coming to the message on a regular basis. So don't think that just by coming to the message, sending your children to program, that everything is being addressed. You have to have an open enough relationship and at every moment it could be, if you see something on a cartoon or TV or in their book, pause, stop. Let's talk about that. Let's discuss it. Remember the three elements that we talked about? That the Salaf said, as a parent for your children, you should have a companion. Allow them recreation, play, right? Be their companion, give them edit and be their companion. And sometimes all of those things are wrapped up into one. So is reading a novel recreation? Sure. Is watching a PBS program or a little TV show recreation? So you as the guardian and the family, the Wali, the father, the Imam of the household, you allow that. Here's some recreation. But at the same time, when something comes up that needs to be addressed, you can't just turn a blind eye and say, oh, they'll figure it out or, Alhamdulillah, it's not a big deal. No, press pause. And now your time is to have that edit with them, the tadeed. We have to clarify. It might be a theological issue. It might be a sharia, a fifth issue. It might be a character issue. And then thirdly, that companionship, you have to be building it up so that you have the rapport with them to be able to even have this conversation, right? It can't happen when they're 18 or 19. They're more connected. At what point does the child actually start incurring sin for leaving the obligations? 13, puberty. It's puberty, right? Once a person reaches puberty by Islamic standards, they are an adult. And at that time, actually, that's where the serious identity formation and they're making their own choices is happening. So we have to have these conversations as they come up. You know, I was mentioning about the disrespect of parents. If there's shows or books or anything that has like disrespect of the parents, that has to be stopped because it's a seriously negative influence that normalizes that behavior. And then we have to call it out and say, we don't accept that. So when kids speak disrespectfully to their parents or like they treat them like, I don't want that or give me a ride to this place. I'm not your chauffeur. And then in those, sometimes in those shows, the parents will be like, oh, okay. Like, you know, I saw we were at a hotel and they turned on something and just, it was a, the kid was like, the mom had picked up the kid's phone and the kid's like grabbing the phone, give me that, don't do that. And then, you know, they had turned it into a joke. It's like, what is being taught in that moment? This phone, which is not a right of the child that your parent is working for to give you this and now they're trying to do something and you're going to disrespect them in that way? I had a friend of mine, we were talking about this and he said he was at a Walmart and he saw a kid. He had picked up a video game or a CD and his mom said, no, he said, I want to buy this. She said, no. So he took it and he threw it and he hit her in the head with it. And then she just grabs her head and I don't know what his name is, but I'm just going to throw Timmy out there. And she's like, no, Timmy, I said, we're not going to buy that. Now, I know philosophical differences on parenting and so forth and you know, there's, but come on, right? Is that the way a Muslim man would respond? No. Was that? Yeah. Brothers, Eddie, you threw one thing when he was five and he's still scared. Yeah, because all it takes is one instant, right? And if you let it go, that's the part of the tech deed. If you let that go, what happens to the horse if it's not like, not necessarily broken, but trained. It's going to be a wild horse. That's why we have the wild mustangs. These wild mustangs out here in the West, they're not originally wild. They were domesticated horses, but they were left without edda tech deed. So they became wild and now you can't ride them unless they're trained again. So we have to be addressing those things. And then there was one more point that I was going to mention. Well, I'll discuss it next week, but we'll end with any question. Well, the point was about the structures and the power structures within the family and why it's so important to be teaching them, bringing them to the message and lining them up for prayer. Don't look at that as like a simple thing. It's a very powerful. When you teach them respect of elders in the community or when you teach them respect of teachers in the community, you're teaching them very powerful lessons and you're teaching them that in those times of turbulence when they don't know where to turn to, they know to turn to those healthy, righteous power structures and not the oppressive, the jolly power structures. That's what's going to happen because you're teaching them who to reach out to. This is the proper way. I was going to end on about the importance of the respect of the parents because one time we were presenting, we have one of the things that I do is we have a outreach for the prisons and we have a distance learning course. Well, one of the courses that we teach is the rights of parents. And it's an amazing transformation happens. There was one brother, he was in San Quentin on death row. He never met his father in his entire life. He studied that book. He wrote a letter to his father. Almost his therapy said, I never met my father. My father's not alive, but I'm going to write him a letter because, you know, just to talk about his feelings. So we were in front of the parole board hearing and they were asking us about our program because it's throughout the California prisons. And so they said, well, how are your religious programs setting up these men and women to better their lives? I said, as an example, we have the rights of parents program, which is teaching people about the proper way to respect the parents. And the first power structure that your children are exposed to, it's not the police. It's not the president. It's not the government. That's all abstract to them. It's your, it's the parents. To them, you're the Khalifa. You're the Khalifa. You're the, you're the police. You're the, you're the, the, the father. You're the, you're everything to them. It's like one time, my brother, before I had kids, my brother said, sometimes he feels like a mayor in a city with a bad gang problem because there's thefts. There's kidnappings, right? He took my stuff. There's graffiti right on the wall. There's fights. There's alliances. You have to navigate this. And then when I had kids, I'm like, oh, this is what he was talking about. Like, yeah, you really have to, and then you have to be judicious. Last week, I was mentioning about how the Khalifa should have people out in the society to get criticism of him. And you as a parent, you should understand what your children really think about. And maybe you need somebody else to, to say, hey, how's it going in your family? And then get that information for yourself. Well, another thing is the Qadi. One of the things about the Qadi that we can bring into our house is the Qadi has to give equal time to both children, right? And I'll speak more about this next week, but about the Sunnah of being fair with your children. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, be fair with your children in giving and even in kisses. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, even when you kiss your children, has anybody ever like shown a lot of affection to one kid and the other kids like immediately? They're like, why can't I? Who's a parent like has that, right? Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Leading battles, leading families, telling us like even in the kissing of your children. So we're teaching our children the power structures and so that's why it's so important to have a healthy power structure at the home in the family and the proper understanding. So what I said to the board of parole, I said a lot of these men and women, their problems came about because they have a disregard of power structures in society. You know, forget the police. That's actually another word, but I can't say it in the message. You know, forget the police, forget the government. It's oppressive, administration, government, conspiracy, all of this stuff. And so it causes a person to have so much spite and resentment towards the government that they will break the law just to spite the powers that be. And this, I mean, I've heard men who did this, they would instigate fights with the guards just because they are the representatives of the power structure. So I said, to bring balance back to that power structure, we have to start in the home and teach them what does it mean to have a healthy power structure in the home. So the rules of Bidur-Lawri-Den as taught through Islam can help remedy that. So that's one of the benefits. And this is why it's so important for us in our homes to have this, to have a healthy parenting and family structure because you're preparing them for life. A lot of what happens, a lot of things that, you know, their strengths and their weaknesses are coming from the Karbiga in the homes. So that's why it's so important for us to really take it seriously. And next week I will talk about some of the, the different parenting styles and what is more conducive to a healthy family. Then I want to talk about a few, a few like actual examples of where this, like case studies. I know we went over time, but if anybody has a question that we can end on. The question was, his five-year-old daughter got very scared of like the ayah, the dukkah, the dukkah, talking about Yom al-Qiyamah and how do you navigate that while your children are learning Quran? You know, while they're memorizing Quran. One thing that I would say is that in the traditional Islamic education method while the children were younger, it was more focused on rote memorization. Rote memorization. And then later as they develop, you incrementally add in the discussions. And one of the things that happens is that young children, they cannot think abstractly. They think in concrets. And so, and how are they relating? So for example, one time, the way I found this out through experience, even before reading about it, was I was teaching my niece, and she was probably about five. I was teaching them the book. It was actually a children's book, Muslim children's book, but it was a story of Yusuf al-Islam. Very colorful, you know, so, so we're going through that. But then at one point, she got traumatized. I mean, I don't know, long term. She's like, what do you think that was? What's that? Being whipped? In the jail? But from the Qur'an's story. I don't know. I think that's a detail that might be... What's that? When the brothers threw their brother in the well. Right? I mean, imagine as a child, thinking like her older brother is like, you know, she looks up to him, and like the story's talking about brothers throwing the brother in the well. So the child's like, now other kids maybe five, and maybe they can take that. So it really depends on the child. What I would say about that, you know, some people say, I've heard people say, oh, don't teach young children about jahannam, the hellfire. I asked my sheikh, I said, should we teach our little children about jahannam? He said, yes, why not? You know, they should begin. Now, we don't necessarily, like some of the ahadith about the hellfire, they're pretty scary, right? There's one, there's one hadith that talks about wail. And wail is a, is a, like, wailunlil muqaffifin. Some translations is like, wo, or, you know, like, beware to the wail, according to one of the hadith, is a place in jahannam, and this place in jahannam is a valley that the rest of jahannam seeks refuge in Allah from that valley. And in that valley is a well that the valley and the rest of jahannam seek refuge in Allah from that. And in that well is a snake, that the well, the valley, and the rest of jahannam seek tawwud from Allah from the, like that, the fierceness of the evil of that. And that snake is called wail, and that's wailunlil muqaffifin. So now you can present that to children, right? Like, maybe we just wail a little bit for them all there. I know there's kids in. So I would say, like, something like the ayat, like the jahannam and so forth, just incrementally. So yes, one more question. So the question was about the Islamic adults, when you're an adult, but like culturally, they might not have that maturity. And it's true. There's some societies by the time people are 12 years old, they're like sailing ships across the Atlantic. In this society, because they have a manufactured teenage years, and it has to do with just the advent of medicine, the average age in America, the average age of death was at the turn of the century, 1900s, was I think 50 or 55. So what does that do to the psyche? And before that it was 27. For the majority of human history, the average lifespan was 27. So when people talk about like, oh, why does Islam allow people to get married at nine years old? Like, I shut up the law. And well, when somebody's av thinking that they're probably going to die when they're 27, you know, and you still have Aboriginal societies that operate like that. That's why sheikh, what does sheikh mean? It means a person who's 60 years old. That's a sheikh, like the elder of the village, like that was a miracle. And so, yes, there's an artificial childhood. There's an extended medical event. A lot of things that are happening now that like children are not reaching that adult maturity that they would have in the past. But technically, by Sharia, they're still responsible at that age. Now, maturity-wise, yes, I agree. Because of our societies, you know, our children, like if a person's mature at 12 years old, should we allow them to get married? I'll just ask this group in here. Would anybody allow their 12-year-old son or daughter in this room who, by Sharia, has an adult to get married? I don't think we would. That's consensus. Just like, you know, maybe 500 years ago, if it was a group of men, we're like, yeah, 12? Yeah, sure. Because her sister, you know, passed away when she's 25, you know. She's going to be a mother and a family and so forth. That's, you know, it's the mentality of the thinking. So in our society, yes, we have maturity. But there's also a delayed reaching of maturity to where people are still, like, playing video games when they're 30 and 40 years old. That's unheard of. We can't get into a lot here, but I don't know if that answers your question. Like, by Sharia. So, you know, even if you say, okay, my child is not as mature at 13 or 12, you still have to be, now, be serious as a parent. Say, no, you have to pray now because if you leave the prayer, it's haram now and it's counted against you. Yes. We can go into that. That's a good one. I think I'll start on that one. I'm 15. Islamically, I'm an adult. You don't have to worry about me. Just like, yeah, try living in the Bay Area. You got, just ask them, say, oh, so now you have your own apartment? Or, you know, or I'm going to charge, you know, I'm going to charge you rent. You know, we also have to be able to like tell them what are their rights and their responsibilities because a lot of what we offer to our children, we don't have to. So I'll go into that more, but I think that's a good point. Like a 15-year-old, yes. Oh, can they lead prayers? So there's a difference. The question is, can they lead prayers? For the male children, there's a difference of opinion whether a child who is not an adult, who is a subbie and not a valet, need grown men. Some of the Fouqaha of the Medahab said yes. Some said no. At your home. At your home? It depends on the fit. Like in the Madaqi school, they cannot. I believe in the Shafi'i school, they can't. I'm not, the Hanafi school, no. Okay, so they can't. So what I would say is maybe, you know, it depends. The family is going to use the family to make the decision. If there's a valid difference of opinion, study those differences of opinion and then make your choice. But maybe train the child to where, you know, once your son is valid, though, I think he should be encouraged to be deprived. Okay. I'm just going to say that.