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S2E4 - How to Pray for Your Children | DoubleTake

November 16, 2021Sh. Ibrahim Hindy

God has given us the ability to reach out to Him for guidance and support in all our affairs, and one of the most challenging of those affairs is parenthood. God does not expect us to fulfill our responsibilities on our own, and He has filled the Qur’an with examples of righteous parents and their prayers for their children.

What is missing from our lives when we neglect to pray for our children? What can we learn about ourselves from the things we choose to pray for? What can we learn from the Qur’an about the role of prayer in managing difficulties with our children?

In this episode, host Mohamad Zaoud talks to Sh. Ibrahim Hindy, presenter of the Yaqeen Institute video series “Keys to Prophetic Parenting.”

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Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi When was the last time we made du'a for our children? I mean real sincere du'a. Allah has given us the ability to reach out to him for guidance and support in all of our affairs. And one of the most challenging of those affairs is parenthood. What is missing from our lives when we neglect to pray for our children? And what's missing from our kids lives when we don't make du'a for them? Welcome once again to Double Take, a podcast by Yaqeen Institute about the questions and ideas around Islam and Muslims that give us pause. Remember to subscribe to the show on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. On today's episode, we're exploring how the Qur'an guides us to pray for our children. And our guest is Sheikh Ibrahim Hindi, presenter of the Yaqeen Institute video series, Keys to Prophetic Parenting. He's also the Imam of Dar al-Tawheed in Canada and serves as the religious director for Yaqeen Canada. I hope you enjoy the episode. Assalamualaikum, welcome to Double Take and thank you so much for taking the time today. Wa'alaikumussalam wa'rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Thank you so much for having me. So I'm excited about this episode specifically for two reasons. One, I mean as a host, you come across really interesting topics. So this is one of those. But as a parent, I'm a parent of two kids and also I'm an uncle of 31 kids. So inshallah, I'll be coming in as a student today. I'm looking forward to some of the gems. Jazakallah khair. Yeah, we're all students in this parenting issue. So Sheikh Ibrahim, you mentioned in your video series about parenting, you mentioned the story of a father who has two kids. One is kind of, you know, on the straight path for the lack of a better term and they're doing well.
And the other one is kind of a little bit difficult. And so the father is making dua for the one who is struggling or, you know, challenging him. And not so much dua for the one who is, you know, relatively stable and polite and whatnot. My question to you is because it sounds very similar to my scenario at home. What is there to lose if I'm not making dua for my kids? Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. You know, that particular story that I mentioned, and I still remember it to this day. I think one of the things about it is that it shows me that when we're not making dua for our children, what we're missing out on is probably engagement with our child. Like I think that not making dua for our child sometimes is a symptom of a bigger issue. And that bigger issue is not really being connected enough with our child. So in that circumstance, like that brother came to me and he's telling me, you know, his son is always getting in trouble at school. His son, he's worried about the friends that he's hanging out with and the kinds of people that they are. So he's always worried about his son. He's making dua for his son. But his daughter, he felt like outwardly everything was good about her. She's worshipping Allah. She wears hijab. But what it really told me was that he's not engaged enough in the life of his daughter. He doesn't understand what she's thinking. He doesn't understand the feelings that she has and the things that she's going through. So when all of a sudden he has these problems with his daughter, he, like it just came out of left field for him. And I asked him, like, are you making dua for her? He said, no, like he's not even engaged in the problems that his daughter is facing. And so sometimes not making dua for our children, what it's really telling us is that we're missing out on engagement with our kids and understanding and knowing what they're going through.
But more than that, you know, throughout the Quran, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions, you know, different verses about people praying for children or praying for their children or praying for Allah to bless them with a child. And in the Quran it uses the term or the verb or the noun even at times of hibah, right? Like, Rabbi habli min al-salihin, right? Oh Allah, gift me the child. The hibah is a special kind of gift. And so when you think of it like that, your children are a special gift of that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave you. And Allah didn't decree for everyone to have children. He gave some people and not others. So Allah gave you this really special gift. Imagine if somebody gave you a truly special gift and then you took that gift and you didn't really care so much about praying for it and taking care of it and it rusted and it got old and it got broken down. The person who gave you that gift would feel a little bit offended, I think. But this is a special gift that comes from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala which is your children. So being engaged in their life and in making dua for them and in being conscious of what's happening in their life and really being spiritually engaged with your children is something really, really important. I think that's the element that I wanted to get to which is the spiritual engagement. What if I am engaged and I'm playing with the kids, you know, dropping them off to school, hanging out with them, we're cooking together, we're doing a whole bunch of stuff. But spiritually, maybe I'm not that engaged. Like what am I losing if I'm not making dua from them? Assuming I'm engaged, assuming I'm kind of heavily involved in their lives. So that's the element of making dua and kind of whether it's waking up at night making dua or just after my prayer or in sujood or whatnot. My kids are not in the equation there. Like what am I missing out? Assuming I'm already engaged in kind of the general gist of parenting. And that's a really important point because spiritual engagement is incredibly important.
We can say, hey, I'm taking them for after school tutoring and I'm taking them for athletics and taking them for this and for that. But that spiritual engagement is so important. How many kids got all of these advantages and their parents took them to all these things. But because of something lacking spiritually, the child goes to the wrong direction and goes into the wrong place. So having that Islamic spiritual connection of making dua for your child is incredibly important. And, you know, we can go further from that because, you know, if you think of it as a parent, you can do everything right and your child could go down the wrong path. And Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala shows us this in the Quran with the example of Prophet Nuh alayhi salam, where, you know, his son rejects and doesn't join him on the ship and ends up drowning. And so he's a prophet of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, one of the greatest of the messengers. We can't say that he wasn't a good father. He for sure would have been a good father. He could have done everything right yet his child went down the wrong road. And this is something I saw like as I was researching this topic for the video series, I kept seeing how there are so many things that influence the human being, particularly as they're being raised. And you can do everything perfect as a parent and yet there's a peer that has influence over your child. Or there's, you know, some other issue that happens and changes the trajectory of your child. You as a parent are actually limited in what you can do. And for that reason, dua is so important because part of dua is, you know, you recognizing humility in front of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala that you are limited as a human being. You need Allah's help. You need Allah's support. And you can't do this by yourself. And even if you somehow did everything perfectly, if we can, you know, assume that's possible, even if you did everything perfectly, it's not enough. Because the person could still get every privilege and every, you know, piece of knowledge is granted to them and yet still choose the wrong path.
So as a parent, you know, making dua is basically ensuring that you're getting Allah's support as you're raising your kids. Look, I'm going to be very honest with you, Sheikh. Growing up, my parents made a lot of dua for me, and I heard it and I still hear it, you know, and I hear it often. Like they say, Allah urda alayk, they, after the prayer, they make dua. Every time I see them, every time I see them, they're making dua for me. I'm not doing the same with my kids. That's the honest truth. Like, I don't know if it's just not a habit or I'm not prioritizing it. But what did I get growing up that my kids are not getting from me? You know, like, what is it that I benefited from? Like, how did I benefit with my parents making dua for me? And then what's missing in my kids' lives? I'm being kind of very frank with you that that's the scenario I'm in. Yeah, and subhanAllah, that's a powerful one. And when I think about my relationship with my parents, that's also something that I think I feel where you're coming from. And, you know, I think it's powerful. One of the reasons, you know, we hear our parents making dua for us all the time and we kind of take it for granted. But the reality is that that dua might be sustaining us. That dua of our parents is incredibly powerful. There's a very weak hadith, so I don't really want to rely on it too much, but that it mentions, you know, it's mentioned in some books of the scholars. But that it says that the dua of the parent for the child is similar to the dua of a prophet for his ummah. Right. And again, it's a weak hadith, so we don't want to rely on it too much. But that concept of the prophet making dua for his ummah is generally accepted. And the dua of the parent for his child is generally accepted. And so how much good things came in your life because your mother was making dua for you? And do we really want to make sure that our children or, you know, have our children not receive that benefit because we're not in the habit of making dua for them? And that's something really important for us to think about.
And that the concept of a parent making dua for the child does come up often in the hadith of our Prophet ﷺ. Like one of them is the Prophet ﷺ says to help your children be good to you. And in one narration of this hadith, you know, the Prophet ﷺ was asked, how do we do this? How do we help our children be good to us? And the Prophet ﷺ said that we forgive them their sins and we make dua for what is between them and between Allah ﷻ. So if every once in a while your child has upset you, you know, you be a little bit forgiving. We're not super disciplinary and we're always punishing them. You know, we have some forgiveness to us, but also making dua to Allah for the sins that are between the child and between Allah ﷻ. So it comes up often in that hadith of making dua for our children. And subhanAllah, sometimes I wonder in my life, like how much am I protected just because of the dua of my own mother? And I can't imagine like making, you know, depriving my children of that type of rizq. Because really when we talk about rizq, we talk about money often. But rizq is more than just money, right? Sustenance is more than just money. Dua is part of sustenance. And so sustaining our children with dua by asking Allah ﷻ to protect them, to look over them, to provide them mercy and protection, is something incredibly important. You mentioned in your series, so if I was, correct me if I'm wrong, but if I was to summarize so far, like the benefit of making dua for the kids. One, of course, it's an act of worship. Dua is worship. The other one is that we're recognizing Allah ﷻ as the source of help here. Without His help, subhanAllah, that, you know, we could be doing everything right, but the kids could still go astray. So Allah's help has to be part of the equation and dua kind of solidifies that. You mentioned in your series about goal setting. Do you mind kind of explaining to me what the relationship between goal setting for my kids and dua is?
Because that's something new to me. Absolutely. So one of the things we tend to overlook is the part of the function of dua, not the entire function, but part of the function of dua, is that when you're praying for someone, you know, I'll give you an example. Sometimes people come to me and they say, you know, can I pray for my sports team? Right. Can I pray for, you know, the New York Yankees or the, you know, Cowboys or something like that? I don't know what sports you guys have in Australia. I'm just curious. What's the answer? What's the answer to that one? So, you know, I tell the youth when they ask me this question, like, yes, you can, you can make that dua. But when you're making dua, you kind of have to prioritize, don't you? Because there's only a limited amount of time. There's a limited amount of time you're on earth. And there's a limited amount of time you're going to be, of things you're going to be praying for. So what's the greatest priority in your life? What's most important to you? Right. So when you start to make dua, you start to think to yourself, like, what is most important to me? What is important to me? What needs to happen? What do I need to ask Allah subhana wa ta'ala for? And in relation to our children, that's really important because, you know, you start to think I need to make dua for my child. And then you start to think, well, what's important for my child? What do I want for them? Where do I want them to go? What do I want their future to be? And those are really important questions parents need to be asking themselves. So dua is so important because just by engaging in dua for your child, now you start to think, well, I would like them to grow up as Muslims. That's something I need to pray to Allah for. They live and they die as believers. I need to also make dua for, you know, I want them to have sustenance for them to live and have a family and take care of their family. These are goals that I have for them. So you start to, you know, identify the things that are actually really important for you and for your child and what they need for the future. And you start making dua for these things specifically.
And then as you prioritize these things, you know, our dua for it to be meaningful, it has to come from a place of conviction. Right? وَدُعُوا اللَّهُ وَأَنتُمُ مُّقِينُونَ بِالْإِجَابَةِ The Prophet says, make dua while you have conviction that Allah will respond to you. So if we're making dua from a place of conviction, you know, it needs to be sincere and really deeply, you know, entrenched in our hearts. And so thinking of that, if someone were to make dua and they said, Oh Allah, give me a job. I need a job. Please give me a job. But then they're sitting on their couch all the time. They're playing PlayStation and you know, they're just not, you know, writing the resume. They're not sending the resume to different companies. They're not trying to calling their contacts and trying to network with people. Is that dua sincere? Is it coming from a place of conviction or not? And so for the dua to really be sincere, for Allah to respond to it, for it to be coming from a place of conviction, there needs to be a tie for action. Right? We need to be striving with our deeds to have that goal achieved. Right? And so if you want your child to be a good Muslim, you need to make dua for it, but it can't stop at the dua. Now you've got to ask yourself, what do I have to do to, in terms of action, to ensure that my child does grow up as a Muslim? You know, do I need to enroll them in classes? Do I need to ensure that there's, you know, an imam who's speaking to them and teaching them Quran? Do I need to make sure that they have friends that are Muslim? What is it that I have to, what are the actionable items I need to do in order for this dua to be accepted and for it to really be coming from a place of sincerity, that I'm actually working towards this goal, I'm working towards, you know, this dua that I'm actually making. And so that's incredibly important. I think sometimes parents, you know, they say this, I just want my kids to be good Muslims. And then, you know, okay, well, what are you doing with your kids? Like, where do they go after school? And it's like, well, you know, they do their homework. Maybe they have after school tutoring.
You know, maybe they take piano lessons or something like that. And I'm like, well, it sounds like, you know, what you really want for your child is for them to do well in school and maybe for them to, you know, have a good resume for college or something like that. That doesn't, it doesn't sound like, you know, being a good Muslim is like really that big priority in your life. Otherwise, you would have actionable items of what you actually want for them. You're having them memorize Quran, you're having them learn about their deen, you're having them do X, Y, and Z to help ensure that they become good Muslims. So Sheikh, you mentioned Nuh alayhi salam and his relationship with his son. Are there any other prophets in the Quran or any other stories in the Quran where dua for children is, you know, front and center? You know, subhanAllah, the Quran has so many different stories of the prophets or the righteous people making dua for their children. That is actually quite striking because, you know, a lot of the dua we have in our daily lives as Muslims comes from the sunnah of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Or if it's mentioned in the Quran, there's one dua in the Quran. But when it comes to children, it's often repeated. There's so many different ad'iyah, so much different dua from different prophets for their children that, you know, we could probably talk about this one topic for such a long period of time. There's a few that are interesting to me. So one of them, for instance, Prophet Ibrahim alayhi salam, he makes dua multiple times for his children, his offspring. One of them, that he says, Oh my Lord, make me established upon salah and my children as well and my offspring as well. Oh my Lord, accept our dua. What's interesting about this dua, he's asking for Allah to make him established on prayer, right? And he asks for himself before he asks for his children. He could have said, Oh Allah, make my children established on prayer and me as well. But he reverted it, it's make me established on prayer, my children as well. And what it shows us is that, and this is something reflected constantly in the Quran, by the way, we have to do things ourselves for our children to follow.
So if I want my children to be established on prayer, I do need to be established on prayer myself, right? And so he starts with himself, Oh Allah, allow me to be established on prayer and my children as well. And then what's interesting is as we know from the story of Prophet Ibrahim alayhi salam, is that, you know, what did he do with his child? What did he do with Ismail? They built the Kaaba, they built literally the Qibla of where we direct our prayer. He built the first masjid, which is the Kaaba, right? So it wasn't just dua, there was action behind it as well. And that's something that's incredibly important for us to think about. I think of other dua in the Quran, we have, you know, the dua of the mother of Maryam, for her child, Imraat Imran, that she makes dua for her child. We know the long story where she's making dua for the child in her womb, and she's dedicating this child for the temple. And of course, as we know, at that time, you know, most of the rituals of the temple were done by men and not by women. And she's expecting that this child in the womb is going to be a male, but instead Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala caused it to be a female and it's Maryam. And so the mother is disappointed, but she still follows through on this vow that Maryam, you know, goes to the temple, worships Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala. And of course, she becomes a symbol for all of the women of humanity. She becomes of the best people in humanity. And SubhanAllah, that's such a powerful story. And the dua that she makes is also quite powerful. Because one of the things about it is that sometimes, you know, parents have expectations for their children that sometimes don't come to fruition in the way that they expect. So you expect that your child is going to be really athletic and really strong and powerful. And then your kid is actually, you know, really academic and they just want to read books all the time. You know, what's wrong with you? Go run, go, you know, play sports and they just want to read books. Well, okay, what you expected didn't happen, just like what the mother of Maryam expected didn't happen. Did she just give up and say, well, she's a girl, khalas, she can't do anything. She can't, you know, be in the temple. She can't lead the prayers.
She can't do these kinds of things. No, she still found a way for Maryam to be engaged with Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala, right? And so if your child is, you know, totally into academics, you know, maybe engage them so that they can study the deen more. Maybe engage them if they like to read books, to write things, write novels that are interesting for people and bring them closer to Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala. We see this with our Prophet ﷺ. For instance, his cousin Abdullah bin Abbas was younger. The Prophet ﷺ multiple times made dua for Allah to give him knowledge. Anas ibn Malik was a young child who lived around the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet made dua for him to be wealthy. Now why did he make this dua for this child and this dua for that child? And the scholars say it's possible that like he recognized Ibn Abbas was very scholarly, very curious, wanted to learn things. So the Prophet encouraged him towards learning about the Quran and learning the interpretation of the Quran. And he notices Anas ibn Malik, you know, has good interactions with people and like to deal so he tells him, you know, may Allah give him wealth, may he be like a good businessman, right? So the Prophet was not, you know, trying to churn people or churn these children against, you know, the strength that Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala gave them. But he utilized what Allah Azawajal gave him. You know, if Allah had given the mother of Maryam a boy, he would not have churned out as great as Maryam became. You know, Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala says we chose her from amongst the people of humanity. Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala chose her. So you know, when your child, you know, you want your child to go into medical school but instead they're interested in the arts and reading books. You know, what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did is he encouraged Ibn Abbas to learn about Islam instead of learning about genealogy or learning about, you know, cattle and agriculture. Learn about Islam. He kept his strength and directed it in a way that would be most beneficial for the Ummah and most beneficial for him and his relationship to Allah.
Your child likes the arts, get them to write novels that bring people closer to Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala. And so those are some, you know, just amazing lessons that you can gain from looking at the dua of the righteous people in the Quran. Okay, Sheikh, I'm gonna put you on the spot. You're the religious director of Yaqeen Canada. And so I want you to hit me up straight. I'm gonna pose a couple of scenarios here. And based on your research of prophetic parenthood, tell me what I need to do in these scenarios. The first scenario is that imagine my kid is not a victim of a bully, but is a bully himself or herself, and is bullying other kids and is rough with other kids. And I could see this kind of heading in the wrong direction. What do I do? And what's the role of of prayer during kind of this scenario? SubhanAllah, it's really a tough questions. I think, you know, SubhanAllah, this type of question, first of all, we need to be making dua for compassion for a child, for a child to learn compassion, for them to learn empathy, asking for Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala to gift them with rahmah, right? This is something incredibly important because if the child, you know, is bullying other kids or treating them badly, this is something that they're in need of, they're in need of rahmah, they're in need of empathy, of understanding what other people are going through and sympathizing with that. So I think that's really important, first of all, for us to be making dua for them. I think also, you know, when a child is engaged in bullying, sometimes that's a sign of something is missing in their life. They're missing attention or they're missing something from their parents or from their teachers that they're lacking and that we need to look into it. And so there needs to be a broader exploration of why is this child acting this way? Why is this? Where is this anger coming from? Where is this lack of attention coming from? What can we do in order to remedy it? So it's always important to dig deeper and to dig further as to why the child is acting in that particular way. Okay.
And then what happens on the other side where my kids are going to school, they're not bullies and they're not victims of bullies, but they're just behind, like they're really academically poor. And this is not to say that they're athletically amazing, at which point we would kind of focus on that area, but they're just, they're just behind generally speaking. Yeah, SubhanAllah, I think a beautiful dua that can be made here is the dua that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala instructs our Prophet to make. And there's no other dua in the Quran that Allah instructs the Prophet to make it specifically, except this one, which is, رَبِّ زِدْنِي عِلْمًا So something to teach our children is this dua that my Lord increased my knowledge. And so this is a beautiful dua to engage with. And of course, to ensure that we support our children if they're not doing well academically to try to ensure that we find them tutors or we ourselves dedicate more time in order to be able to support them, inshallah, achieve those goals. Okay, Sheikh, the next scenario is my kids just don't enjoy my company. I try my best. I got him a PS4. I bought him a rabbit. I don't know, man, what else do I need to do? But they just don't enjoy my company. You know, SubhanAllah, I do get this question often. Usually I get this question from parents of teenagers, teenagers just don't want to listen to them. They don't spend time with them. They just go to the room, they close the door. They just want to play PS4 and not really engage with their parents. And you know, SubhanAllah, Allah has blessed me with four children, but the eldest is about 10. So I don't know the teenager experience yet. But I was speaking to some child psychologists, and this question came up. And what was interesting is that in their research, they found that children, even teenagers, that the main thing that teenagers want from their parents is their time and their presence. And so sometimes when a child, you know, especially in those teenage years, they're not listening to their parents. It's often, it's a symptom of the fact that the relationship has been strained a little bit. Right? So how do we deal with that?
You know, their advice is just spend time with your child, sit with them. They don't want to talk to you. They're just sitting there not talking to you. No matter what you ask them, they just won't respond to you. Just sit with them anyways. Right? You can watch a movie and watch it with them, right? If they're playing PS4, pick up the controllers and play with them or sit there and watch them play. Right? Just spend time with them. Over time, you know, whatever ice is between you and them will start to thaw, and they'll start asking you questions, they'll start responding. And you'll inshallah be able to reset that relationship. But I think just your presence, just being around them is important. And even if they're telling you get out, I don't want to talk to you, leave, don't listen to them and just stay with them. And it's important for us to do that in order to, you know, rebuild the lines of communication between us and our children. Jazakallah khair. Final scenario. You know, many, many families, unfortunately, are broken and they see themselves in scenarios where the kids are between, you know, the father's house and the mother's house. And there are kind of other relationships that are even more strained where maybe the father doesn't see the kids at all or very often and vice versa. What happens if I don't get to see my kids as much as I want to, for whatever reason? What would you advise just generally, but then also what dua would I be using? You know, subhanAllah, it's a very difficult situation. And I would say, you know, just constantly ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as a Rabb. He himself is the Lord. And you know, when we talk about children, we talk about tarbiyah, raising them. Allah is the Rabb because he's the one who raises everyone and everything. And so ask Allah azza wa jal to be the one to, you know, raise our children, take care of them and to protect them. But you know, there are parents who see their children every night and they don't take advantage of that time. They just get home and they sit on the TV and they watch, you know, sit on the couch and watch TV.
And, you know, they don't engage with their parents. And even though they're around them a lot, there's no quality time. And so even if you're not around your children as much as you want to, and you know, circumstances of life are making it difficult for you to be around your children as much as you want to, make the time that you do have with them count, right? Make it quality time. Don't make it just time that's wasted that you're both sitting looking at your phones and no one's communicating and nothing is happening. You know, take them on a hike, take them to the masjid, have conversations with them, find opportunities for you to be able to really connect with them. Those things are important. And if you have multiple siblings, you know, multiple children, try to isolate them, spend alone time with each one of them, because that allows for a deeper connection. The siblings are no longer competing with each other for your attention, that you can speak to each one on their own. Those are things that are really important. And I think that, you know, really we found this like quantity of time is not as important as quality of time. So make sure that there's quality time with your child, you're engaging them in the worship of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, you're spending time talking to them, you're giving them advice, you're giving them wisdom. If you do that, a short period of time will have the barakah of a long period of time. Final question before we get to the rapid fire. And this is kind of a bit of a weird one. So imagine my nine year old niece comes to you, Sheikh, and says, Sheikh, my parents are not making dua for me. At least I don't hear it. And I heard your series. And I know that I'm missing out on something. Because my parents are not making dua for me. And I want to go and hit them up and tell them that they should be making dua for me. My question to you is as a nine year old to Sheikh Ibrahim Hendi.
What am I missing from my what's missing in my life, when my parents are not making consistent dua for me? SubhanAllah, so I would send them this podcast, and I would make dua for them. But I would also, you know, encourage you that you know, SubhanAllah, when we look at the prophets of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, our Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam was born an orphan. We look at Prophet Musa, his father is not mentioned. We look at Prophet Ibrahim alayhi salam, his father as well, you know, is not a believer and is fighting him and so on and so forth. And so, you know, in those cases, you know, what did Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala say about Musa that we, you know, are raising him under our eyes, and we chose him for ourselves. And so sometimes, you know, the lack of engagement from our parents, in a way frees us up to connect to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala at a deeper level, as Allah Azawajal shows us these examples of orphans that become the greatest of prophets. And so, you know, everything Allah has decreed for us in our life is for a purpose, and there can be for a benefit. And for our parents are there making dua for us, it's a beautiful blessing. And if they're not making dua for us, well, that could be a blessing in its own way, either encouraging you to be a better parent when you grow up and you get older, or also, you know, encourages you to find a deeper connection with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. So whatever happens to the believer in the end of the day is still good. And we find ways to make the best of it, alhamdulillah. JazakAllah khair. Sheikh, we're going to finalize this episode. We're going to finish this episode with a couple of rapid fire questions. I think this is the first time you're in the hot seat for Double Take, inshallah, many more episodes to come. But I'm going to just get straight into it. I mean, you lived in Egypt. You lived in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. You're in Canada at the moment.
You would have seen your fair share of reciters of the Quran. Who's your favorite reciter? And there's always this kind of battle between, you know, Saudi version sheikhs and reciters and the Egyptian one. So who's your favorite? So I'll get disowned if I don't say the Egyptian reciters. So I'll just say Abdul Basit. But you know, subhanAllah, lately, I very much loved a lot of the North African reciters. Like I believe Sheikh Abdul Muttalib, you can find him online as well. A lot of beautiful reciters in North Africa and Morocco and Tunisia and so on. Okay, that's interesting. First time I hear that. What's the last book that you were reading? The Happiness Advantage. I forget the author's name, but it's a very good book about, you know, helping us with resiliency and, you know, answering a question of are people successful because they're happy or are they happy because they're successful? And it's an interesting book for those who want to read it. If you could have dinner with someone who's passed away and it can't be the Prophet, who would it be and why? It's a good question. Let me say Imam Shafi'i. Just because he is a polymath and his knowledge of, you know, they say that the Arabic language ended its formation period at the end of the life of Imam Shafi'i because of how powerful he was in the Arabic language. So yeah, I'll go with Imam Shafi'i. Easy. A couple of hairy ones. What's the most common complaint that you hear from parents about their children? That they don't listen to them. Yeah. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. And what's the most common complaint that you hear from children about their parents?
Also that they don't listen to them. And if you could give young adults who aren't parents any advice about preparing for parenting, what would you tell them? One thing. Choose your spells carefully. And if you had unlimited resources to put together the ultimate service for Muslim parents, what would that be? Oh, that's a good question. I don't, I don't actually know the answer to that. Okay, I'll do one last one. If a parent comes to you and says, my children are older and I feel I didn't raise them well, what would you say to them? I'd say take advantage of the remaining time that you have. Try to rebuild the connection with them. Make dua for them often. Try to repair any damage to the relationship that might have happened in the past. Just do your best. Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala is the most forgiving. Even if your children can't find it in them to forgive you or to turn the page, Allah Azawajal can. And so, just do your best and place your trust in Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala. Sheikh Ibrahim, JazakAllah Khair. For those of us who haven't watched the series about prophetic parenting, make sure that you go to yaqeeninstitute.org. BarakAllah Fikh Sheikh Ibrahim. I mean, she's like Walker.
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