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Ep: 29: And Treat Your Parents With Excellence | Guidebook to God
What does Islam say about loving and respecting our parents? Explore today’s content to learn about the station of parents in Islam and how some of our pious predecessors cared for their parents.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Loving your parents, respecting them. Birr al-walidayn. That's usually how I like to translate birr al-walidayn, you know, being dutiful to your parents. Forget all that. I like to say loving your parents, showing them the love and the respect that they are due. Showing them the care and the comfort that they deserve. Being a person who is under their feet in acceptance of their direction and their teaching. All of that is congruent and in spirit of the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Did you know that whenever Allah orders us to worship nobody other than Him, that the very next statement, وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا and treat your parents with good ethics and manners, did you know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala invites us to having birr, which is to be opposite to what most other people do for their parents. Most other people are not kind. Most other people do not give time. Most other people are not generous with their wealth and their energy and their effort. Most other people do not call their parents each and every day. Most other people are those who if you were to ask their parents and if they were to be honest they would say, my heart is darkened towards them. I'm not happy with them. They haven't respected me as I deserve. They haven't appreciated the sacrifices that I've made. I've been a single mother trying to help my child and they haven't appreciated it. I've been a father who works all day, slaves all night to put halal income on the table. I drive a taxi or I'm standing in an operating theater as a doctor. I'm doing the best I can for my children but I come home and ask for something as simple as, have you prayed? Have you done the simple obligations of life? And the answer is disappointing. Moses, Musa alayhi as-salam, asked Allah once. This is recorded by Al-Imam Al-Dhahabi. He asked, he said, O Allah, man yujawerunee fil jannah? Who will be my neighbor in paradise?
And Allah said to him, innahu sallakh, it will be a butcher. Musa was surprised. Well, you know, Harun and Ibrahim and you know, a butcher. Who's this butcher? He's not even a prophet or a messenger of Allah. O Allah, arinee iya. O Allah, let me meet this man. Is he alive? And Allah says, yes, take this path, go down to this area, travel to this land and you will find a man who is preparing a meat that he has just slaughtered. That will be your neighbor in jannah. So Musa finds this man and is observing him from a distance, trying to find out the reason. What does this man do that will make him at the level of the one who speaks to Allah, the one who combated Pharaoh? What has he done to deserve such a high place in jannah? And after hours, he doesn't see anything significant. And as the sun is beginning to set, the butcher has packed up his shop and he's taken a little bit of meat with him. And Musa comes to him and he says, he doesn't know who Musa is alayhi as-salam. He says to him, I'm traveling through this land. Can I spend time in your home? Would you be generous? And the man said, yes, but I'm going to be busy for the first little while. So keep yourself occupied. Don't take it as a sign of disrespect. And when I'm free, I will tend to you and we will eat together. And as Musa comes to this man's very modest, small home, that's near a river, he sees that the man enters the home and has lit a fire outside it and gotten a pot of water heated up and goes into the home. And from a top shelving area, he brings down this large basket. And in this basket, folded up in nice linen, is this old frail woman. And the man carries the basket down to the river and removes this old frail woman from it and bathes her in the river, washes her clothes after, changes her clothes, sits her near the fire, combs out her hair, all the while the meat that he had brought with him from the market is being cooked.
And he's combed out her hair, dressed her, washed her clothing, hung it up. And Musa is watching from a distance intent on, wow, what is happening here? And finally, the man takes some of the meat and begins to chew it up and begins to feed this woman. And every time from a distance, Musa sees that this woman is eating and enjoying the meal. He sees that she's saying something, but Musa is too far, alayhi as-salam, to hear it. So afterwards, the man wraps her up, bundles her up, recites some prayers with her, kisses her and loves her and entertains her, and then darkness has fallen. He puts her up in the shelving again and she falls asleep. And then he turns to Musa and he says, this is the remainder of the meat. Let's enjoy our meal together. What's your name? Where have you come from? And Musa says, no, no, no, no, before all that, who are you and who is this woman? He says, innaha ummi, this is my mother. And Musa alayhi as-salam says, your mother? He says, yes. He said, kam min sanatin, how many years have you been serving her in this way? He says, liy'aashri sineen, it's been 10 years that I've been entertaining her in this way, cleaning her, looking after her, bathing her, feeding her, nurturing her, and I haven't gotten married yet because I wanted to be the one who serves her. I didn't want anybody else who comes and would distract me from her. So I've given my full attention to her until Allah makes it easy. And he said, I wanted to give her all this love. So Musa said, I saw that when you feed her, you've chewed the meat. And then he goes, she doesn't have teeth anymore. So I feed her. He said, well, what does she say when you feed her? I saw every time you feed her, she says something. And the man said, every time I feed her, she makes dua for me. And Musa said, what's the dua that she makes? He said, my mom, every time I feed her, she says, Allahumma ja'alnuhu ma'an nabiyyin.
Oh Allah, put him in the rank and in the height of the prophets of God. So Musa alayhi as-salam wept. And he said, fa-innaha lithalik, it is because of this that you will be my neighbor in Jannah. And Musa lets him know that he is the prophet of Allah. Musa, and SubhanAllah, it's such a beautiful, beautiful statement from the seerah of Musa alayhi as-salam. I want you to consider the power and the beauty of the dua of your parents. The power and the beauty of doing what other people don't do. This is birr al-walidayn, doing what other people would not do. Caring in a way that other people would not care. There's another story that al-Imam al-Dhahabi in al-Kabair, in the book titled The Major Sins, describes a man who was a sahabi of the prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasalam, that he was ill. And the sahabi next to him sat with him and said, qul la ilaha illallah, it's your final moment, you're about to die. Say la ilaha illallah, but he was unable to say it. And they came to the prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasalam, Bilal comes and says, oh messenger of Allah, he's unable to say it, we keep telling him, but it's as if it's on the tip of his tongue, but he's unable to say la ilaha illallah, we're fearful for him. The prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasalam, said, bring me his mother if she's alive. And the mother comes to the prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasalam, and he says, kayfa haal ibnuki, how is your son? She says, kathiru s-salah wa s-siyam, he prays a lot, he fasts a lot. He says, no, I don't ask you about how he is with Allah, I ask you how he is with you. And she said, inni saakhita, oh messenger of Allah, I was upset with him, oh messenger of Allah. So the prophet says, ya bilal, ijma'il hatab, Bilal, gather lots of firewood, and burn the house down with him in it, for it's better for him to die in punishment in this dunya than in the akhira. And the mother, she heard this, she says, oh no, messenger of Allah, wallahi, I swear to you by Allah, I have forgiven him for what he has done and how he wronged me. Oh messenger of Allah, I forgive him and I love him, oh messenger of Allah, I want for him a high place in Jannah.
And the prophet said to Bilal, go check on him, and by the time Bilal came near his home, they could hear him from outside the house saying, la ilaha illallah, muhammadun rasool Allah. Your life, the light of your life is your connection with your parents. Honor them, love them, earn your reward through them. Abdullah ibn Umar, as a narrator in Sahih Muslim, he saw a man carrying his mother in hajj. Imagine, this man came from Medina, on foot, all the way to Mecca. Three weeks journey on foot, carrying his mother, performed all of the hajj and the tawaf and the sa'i. He did all these things and he turns to Abdullah and he says, can you believe I've carried her all this way? Has this repaid her for some of the kindness she showed me? And Abdullah ibn Umar said, wallahi, the pain of her delivering you in your birth has not yet been equalized by all of the service that you have done. May Allah honor us with the honoring of our parents. May Allah give us birr al-walidayn and make us from those who will receive it from our own children. If you are young or old, nobody is more significant in your connection to Allah than your father and your mother. And your mother is more important in this regard than your father, even though it pains me as a father. Wasallilahumma wasallim. Wazid wabarik ala sayyidina wa nabiyina Muhammad. Sallallahu alayhi wa ala aalihi wa sahbihi wasallim. Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. It's your brother Yahya Ibrahim.
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