Our Mercy to All & Particularly the Young is the Foundation of Faith | Sidi Hashim Mir

Praise is due to Allah. We thank him. We seek his help and we ask his forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil within ourselves and the evil resulting from our deeds. Whoever Allah guides, none can misguide. And whoever Allah allows to go astray, none can guide. And we bear witness on this blessed Friday that there is no god worthy of worship except Allah alone. and that Muhammad peace and blessings upon him is his last and final messenger. Dear brothers and sisters, this past week I was doing something that I had never done in before actually, which was trying to sleep train my four-month-old. And for those of you who don't know, sleep training is basically where you try to teach your baby how to fall asleep on their own. And the way you do that is sounds a little bit cruel. You take your baby, you put them in the crib in a separate room, and then you close the door and you wait for them to try to fall asleep. And if they start crying, you can't really interrupt or soothe them. You have to wait for 10 minutes before you can go in. So you let you have to listen to your baby crying for 10 minutes before you go in. And and the point here is to try to get them in those 10 minutes to learn how to self soo. So my wife and I did that for a period of about an hour. And after that, she just about had it. She was in tears and she's like, "Look, I can't do this anymore. We're not doing it." So, as I was thinking about this, as I and I was as I was as I was preparing for the futa, I was reflecting about how this hour of pain that we had to withstand for our for our child was so intolerable as parents. And as parents, we really want to do anything to protect our children from any kind of harm. >> And if we think about it, of all the things that we do to ensure that they're successful in this world, how does that compare to the effort that we put in for a punishment that's far more severe and everlasting, which is the fire of hell? Allahh says in the Quran, Oh you who believe, protect yourself and your families from the fire. What are we doing to protect our children from the fire of hell and make them successful in the life of the hereafter? And that's my topic for today inshallah. And when we think about this ayah, of course, it's very serious and we want to approach it with kind of the seriousness that it deserves. And so a natural inclination is, okay, this is a very serious punishment. So I'm going to be very strict and I'm going to say, you know, very regimented with my children. And there's no doubt that there is a time and a place to be strict and regimented with our children. For example, in a Hassan hadith, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam taught us that we command our children to start praying at the age of seven. And if they don't, if if by the age of 10 they're still not praying, we're actually taught to discipline them. So there's no doubt that there's a time and a place to be strict with the rules. But if we study the s specifically the aspect of the s where the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam interacted with children the overwhelming theme that you notice is one of hope and mercy and kindness and gentleness towards children. Even when they do things that would enrage us and to teach them a lesson we would you know teach them a lesson. We would we would show them to control themselves next for next time. Even in these instances, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam showed immense patience and mercy. And I wanted to share just a few examples of how the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam interacted with kids and hopefully we can learn about how we can be merciful inshallah. So one hadith we find in the of im Muslim is that Malik who used to be as we know in the service of the prophet wasallam from a very young age. One day the prophet sallallah wasallam told him to run an errand and so he goes out of his house and he sees some children playing and so he starts playing with them and he forgets about what the prophet wasallam told him to do and he spends hours and hours and finally the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam comes out he finds an And what's his response? You'd expect him to be furious because he needed something to get done and this child just forgot about it. Instead, he approached Annis with a big smile and he started laughing with him and playing. He saw that he was playing and he said, "Yeah, Unice." He didn't call him Anis. He called him Unice out of a tumor of endearment. He called him by his a loving name, a loving nickname that he gave little Annis. He said, "Yeah, Unave have you done what I asked you to do?" And he recognizes his mistake and he said, "Oh, I'm going to go do it right now." In this moment where he could have shown anger and frustration, the prophet wasallam not only controlled it and suppressed his anger, but he actually showed love and kindness even when he did something. Anis did something that disappointed the prophetam and rightfully so. Another hadith we find is one time the prophet wasallam was playing with who's his grandson and he went and kissed him and then a man comes by and he sees this and he says I have 10 children I've never kissed any of them and the prophet wasallam's response to this is whoever is not merciful to others he will not be shown the mercy from Allah subhana wa ta'ala. Dear brothers, if we expect the mercy, dear brothers and sisters, if we expect the mercy of Allah subhana wa ta'ala, do we show the same mercy to our children and and for that matter for everyone else around us? And another hadith and a lot of us will maybe resonate with this because we've all been toaw, you know, when we get ready, we're in the zone and we're like, I'm going to have an amazing night of. And so the hadith the prophet or the prophet wasallam once he started a salah and he had the intention of prolonging it but once he started praying he realized that there was a baby crying in the back. And so his response to that was to immediately shorten it because he was so concerned about the mother and how much distress she must be feeling at her her crying child. Now take that back to when that example when we come and we're ready to pray for a long night and then a child starts crying. What is our natural reaction to that? Is it h here's the kid again like I I'm so frustrated by this or is it I'll bear this test with patience and I will remember how merciful my prophet was and I will follow that example and be rewarded doubly for that. One time the prophet wasallam took a child in his lap and this child started urinating in it on him. And so the prophet wasallam rather than getting angry or immediately reacting he waited and then he put he moved the child and he sprinkled some water on it and cleaned it. And this is one of the reasons that we learn that the you know the pee of a newborn is actually you can just wipe it away with water. It's not something that you know you have to go shower and stuff. These are count there's countless examples of the mercy that Allah the that prophet sallallaihi wasallam exuded and we would expect that you know one of the most strict things that we do is the salah. >> Literally anything that you do during the salah it could invalidate it. You talk it's invalidated. You laugh it's invalidated. you have to be you can't move around too much. All of these things, right? And it's, you know, sort of designed to be very focused and little room for anything else except for the worship of Allahh. And even in this most strict act of worship, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam taught us there was this child and you know there was no one taking care of her. So he would actually pick her up while he was praying when he was standing in the and then when he would go for s he would put her down and then he'd pick her up again. And that's another way that we learned that we can have this mercy even when we're praying in this most kind of strict act of worship. We can have this mercy towards children. And we find time and time again the prophet wasallam had this kindness and mercy and that's really what transformed the character of the youth around him. And if you think about the success of Islam, it is because of the amazing accomplishments of kids that were sometimes 13, 14, 15 years old. And these people the one superpower they had was that they were in the influence of the prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam. They were not only taught that Islam is a religion of dos and don'ts and that's it. You follow these rules and that's what how you live your life. But they actually started to embody this deepseated love for the prophet and this deep-seated love for the religion. And they were so close to the religion through this that they wanted to do not just the the bare minimum, but they really wanted to excel in their dean. And so our goal as parents and as elders to youth should not just be to teach them haram and halal. It should be to want them to like really do more than that. Really be the ambassadors of the faith. Now I don't have enough time to go into all of the examples, but I would encourage us all to read about some of these Sahabah and refresh our memory. You know, Maliku. All of these people spent their youth with the prophet of the prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam and they were so moved by his character and to the point where they loved him more than anything in the world truly even more than their own parents. I'll share one story before I move on, but I would encourage you all to just read up on these. So, for example, we we all know his story. He came from a very affluent family and he was known for his, you know, scented perfumes and his rich fabrics and his clothing and all of this stuff. And just after interacting with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he was so moved by his honest and true character, his sincere character that it inspired this love, this love that really conquered his entire heart. And nothing of his previous life, of all of the wealth that he had was enough to sway him back. His mother tried his mother tried very very hard to get him to renounce Islam and she she even imprisoned him in his own house but still he would refuse because the character of the ofam was so precious to him that it just transformed his character. Another example is he was kidnapped and enslaved when he was visiting uh when he was traveling with his mother and you know through a series of exchanges he eventually ended up under and she gave him to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the prophet his immediate response once Once he got zade was to free him and he freed all the slaves and he said look you you're free to do whatever you want but in the little time that he got to know the prophetam can you imagine he had years and years where he was taken away from his family and he was a slave and when he get when he gets his freedom what's his immediate response is I want to stay with the prophet I don't really care about going back to my parents his parents his dad after years and years of searching even found him and he goes to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and he says look I love my son and if we finally found him I'm willing to give you any money you free him and the prophet wasallam said look let's call zed and let's find out what he really wants if he wants to go with you I'm not even going to take a didham from you and when zed is brought in front of his father and he's told look you're you're free and you're able to go back to your parents he said no I want to live with the prophet of Allah because I love him so much. Can you imagine like what living in the household of the prophet wasallam could have been like for him to want to not even go back to his own parents? And they tried. They begged and pleaded and he still said, "No, I know that my mother is distressed by this, but I love my love for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is greater than anything that you could offer me." Dear brothers and sisters, this is I give you just a few examples of the prophet's mercy to especially towards children. And if we read the time and time again, all we find is examples of how loving and caring and nurturing he was. And through that, especially with how much he respected the youth and gave them their and their honor and how much he respected them as not just, oh, you're just a child, you're going to be told, you're going to do what I tell you to do, how much he trusted them even sometimes to lead battalions. This is really what transformed the youth from just a generation of people that you know are just looking to abide by the rules and sort of live by the land of the law and move on to a generation of people that really wanted to give their lives and souls and everything they had for the benefit of Islam. I pray that Allahh inspires us to be like the prophetam with our children and he inspires us to bring about a generation of youth that transform the religion in the same way that the prophetam was able to transform ours. Alhamdulillah. Dear brothers and sisters, one of the reasons that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam loved kids and in general humanity so much was because he'd been through so much loss. At a very young age, he lost both of his parents. So, he never knew what it was like to grow up with a mother. Throughout his life, the seven children that he did have, he buried six out of seven of them. Can you imagine for for the parents out here, can you imagine just even having to deal with the the death may Allah protect our children of one of your children? He dealt with six of them. How would that person not have mercy? >> They witnessed their most beloved children passing. >> Many of us are here today and the only reason we're here is because of the duas of some elder, some parent of ours who made dua and Allahh accepted and he gave us the gift of haya. And I was, subhan Allah, I was talking to brother Munir about this just as I was entering. Mashallah, we're having good problems of parking in the mosque, which means that our congregation is growing day by day. And the as he talks to these interfaith leaders, rabbis and Christian priests and all that, they say just wait, we were also on an upward trajectory. Then everything comes crashing down. Now our churches are empty, our synagogues are empty. I pray that Allahh protects that. But the way that we protect that, number one, is recognizing the gift that we have. Far too many of us, we take Islam and we just pass it on as if it's a cultural thing. It's like, okay, yeah, my my grandparents did it. My parents did it. I'm just going to pass it on. Do you understand the gift that we've been given? And are we grateful to Allah subhana wa tala? And if we're great, we're fortunate enough to have children of our own who follow the message and who've been granted the same gift of iman. Are we grateful about that or are we just kind of yeah, my parents did it. I did it. My kids are going to do it and they're gonna It's not by accident. It is a huge blessing. And I want to remind us of how great of a blessing this is through just one ayah of the Quran. we find in surah where parents are presented in the in in the most dire of predicaments which is that they have children that have left the faith and they don't believe anymore and you see the raw emotion and the desperation that these parents have and then you realize what we've been given and we take for granted every day inshallah if we have kids that are that have iman Allahh says These children, they schooled their parents. They say enough with you. Are you warning me that I'm going to be brought forth from the grave when many generations had already been, you know, passed before me? What is this nonsense is effectively is what they're saying. And the parents the parents cry to Allah subhana wa ta'ala and they warn their children pity for you have faith surely Allahh's promise is true and the child responds but the deniers insist this is nothing but ancient fables Allahh brings about this really vivid scene of can you imagine being in the shoes of these parents what they would give for their child to turn back to Allahh to be granted haya they would literally give everything that they have down to like the last shred of clothing down to the last dollar of wealth that they have just for one thing for their kid to say with iman with withlam else and we've been given that for free inshallah with our children. How much do we cherish that and how much do we go down in sujud after hearing these ayats? How much do we sujud and thank Allah subhana wa ta'ala for this immense gift that not only we've been given but we've been able to transfer on to our children and what's Allahh also contrasts this with the example of believing children in the same surah in the same passage in Allahh says the example of a believing child He says, "My Lord," the the child says, "My Lord, inspire me to always be thankful for your favors which you blessed me and my parents with and to do good deeds that please you and still righteousness in my offspring. I truly repent to you and I truly submit to your will. Look at the contrast between children who have rejected the faith and those who have accepted it. The ones that have rejected it have this arrogance that I know better. Who is Allah? They have all of these. And the children who accepted it, not only do they humble themselves and they're thankful, but they they they make dua for their parents, they make dua for themselves. and they make dua that they're able to do what their parents did, which is carry forward the religion through their children. In about 50 to 70 years from now, you know, this mosque is going to be empty of us and it's going to be filled with the next generation. And there's only a few handful of things that when a person dies carry forward as good deeds. Otherwise, your books are closed. There's no more addition subtraction and one of those things is our children a righteous child and that is our everlasting if we have progeny that carries forward that is the ultimate achievement. So dear brothers and sisters we've been given this immense gift and we have this serious responsibility. We literally have examples of other faith communities that are laughing right now saying, "Look, we were here once and we saw that our churches get empty. We saw our synagogues get empty. And it's really up to us to decide whether that's going to happen in the next generation with our children. Whether the religion of Islam is going to keep growing or slowly our children are just going to pass it off and and reject it. May Allah protect us." I pray that Allahh allows us to be a great role model of mercy and of forgiveness and kindness like our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and we're able to transform our children's character through not only the rules and regulations of Islam but by showing them how merciful and how kind we can be and we're we're commanded to be. In fact, I pray that Allahh protects all of us from the evil fate of a child who disbelieves. And I I pray that Allahh grants us and all of our children and all of our progeny to come haya until the end of times. I pray that Allahh inspires love and fear in their hearts. And I pray that Allahh inspires us to make dua for our children frequently and he accepts those duas. Oh Allah, make our children the coolness of our eyes. Make our progeny a source of eternal even after we pass. adding if