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S3 E8: The Man's Role at Home | Doubletake
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Every culture has expectations for men and women about their roles at home and in society, but the line between cultural practices and religious duty isn’t always clear. The role of men is often reduced to being the financial provider for the home, but does this fully capture their responsibilities?
Are the roles of men and women in the home interchangeable, or are there distinct Islamic expectations for each? How can men balance these responsibilities to become ideal fathers and husbands?
In this episode, host Mohamad Zaoud talks to Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy, co-author of the Yaqeen Institute paper “Gender Uniqueness in Islam and the Significance of Fatherhood.”
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This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. Every culture has expectations for men and women about their roles at home and in society. But the line between cultural practices and religious responsibilities isn't always clear. As a husband and a father, I wanted to explore this subject for myself. I sometimes hear the role of men reduced to being the financial provider for the home. But does this fully capture my responsibilities? Are the roles of men and women in the home interchangeable? Or are there distinct Islamic expectations for each? And what are those expectations? How can men balance responsibilities to become ideal fathers and husbands? Welcome to another episode of Double Take, a podcast by Yaqeen Institute about the questions and ideas around Islam and Muslims that give us pause. If you haven't already done so, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you hear or want to share feedback, you can let us know directly using the link in the show notes. Today, I spoke with a Double Take veteran, Sheikh Mohammed al-Shinawi, about the role of men in the home. Sheikh al-Shinawi co-authored the Yaqeen Institute paper, Gender Uniqueness in Islam and the Significance of Fatherhood, alongside Dr. Tahir Khawaja. Sheikh Mohammed is the religious director at the Islamic Education Center of Pennsylvania, and he's the associate director of the systematic theology department at Yaqeen Institute. He's a graduate in English literature from Brooklyn College, and he studied at the College of Hadith at the Islamic University of Medina. And he's also a graduate and instructor of Islamic studies at Mishkah University. Most importantly, he's the first three-time guest of Double Take. Enjoy the episode. Sheikh Mohammed, Salam alaikum and welcome back to Double Take. Wa alaikum salam, Abdullah Murgatoy. Jazakallah khair for having us.
I feel we haven't met in person, but I feel like through this show, alhamdulillah, we've built a very good relationship. So good, in fact, that I feel like I can share a couple of jokes with you at the outset. Oh, no, a true litmus. Go for it. Bismillah. So at every Katb-e-Ktab, every Farah, I guess, or Union where the Sheikh comes and brings the bride and groom Islamically in Sydney, the Sheikh usually uses two jokes. One of them, I'll just say just to lighten up the mood, but the other one is actually the topic of our conversation today. So I'll start with the first one, and that is, and literally this happens at every ceremony, every ceremony, you hear the same thing, they say marriage or in life, there are three types of rings. The first one is the engagement ring. The second one is the wedding ring. And then the third one is the suffering. Never gets old, huh? No, trust me, it's old. And the second one is the engagement ring. And the second one that they use literally nearly at every single Katb-e-Ktab or ceremony is that they define gender roles in the household very, very clearly. And that is, they say that the man, now that you guys are getting married, woman, man, the man is the foreign minister. The man is the economics minister, and in the household, the woman is the interior minister. And sometimes they're generous and say, oh, she's also the education minister. And that is said literally at nearly every Katb-e-Ktab that I go to. And it gets me thinking, when I hear that, and I hear the clear, distinct roles of a man
and a woman in a household, Islamically, is that phrase or is that concept Islamic? Or is it just cultural for us here in Sydney? I'd like to know what my role as a man in a household is. And when a Sheikh says that I'm a foreign minister, I look after finances, I look after kind of the external affairs, I'm the breadwinner. Is this an Islamic concept? Okay, so the devil lies in the details, but we won't start by speaking about shaitaan, we'll start in the name of Allah. In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. You know, these things seem to be, for sure, cross-cultural, very wide. I've heard it in multiple languages, you know, the counterparts of this or its parallels. So in English, actually, if I can invoke some language here, they say the difference between a house and a home is, home is where the love is, right? So maybe it's a start from the ground up. And Quranically speaking, this is not wrong, but this is not the nucleus or the, you know, the innermost objective of a home or of the marital home. Quranically speaking, it's sakinah. And that's very profound, actually. sakinah is tranquility, sakinah is harmony. Because the Quran then goes on to tell us how to arrive at that sakinah in that same very famous verse that's at all weddings, right? In Surah Ar-Rum, you know, we granted you a spouse, we granted you a mate, so you may find this sakinah, you may dwell with them in tranquility, and we placed between you, here's the details, right? mawaddatan, love, wa rahma, and mercy. And, you know, that concept of there needing to be, you know, mercy to supplement and complement the love when things get rocky, the flexibility between spouses is extremely important. It's not like a hard, firm boundary, foreign minister, you know, and, you know, interior
ministry or whatnot. It's not really like that at all. Like we're all in it together, we're all carrying this load together, you know. Also, Allah says in the Quran, wa la tansawul fadla baynakum, that graciousness cannot be forgotten in marriage. Like it's huge. If marriage is really about, you know, like political chases or seats, right? Political offices, it's not a great analogy because it can be inferred from it like feisty negotiations. And that's the very thing that will ruin the sakinah for which the house and the home is made. So that's a part of it, flexibility and mercy and graciousness, and we're all in it together. You know, if one of us falls, we're a union, right? If one of us falls, we all fall. That is extremely important, Quranically speaking. And that brings me to your question that does it stop there, the Quran? No, there are also some roles that actually help the harmony of the home. There is like some sort of framework, there is some structure, there is some guidance. So it's almost like flexibility, warmth, we're swimming together in this orbit. It's fine, but it's still in orbit, right? You can't just spin out of whack and crash. Allah protects us through structures and guidances such as gender norms, right? The norms between genders are very helpful in that the framework Islam gives us. And of course, I know gender norms are very loaded. And you know, I can make any statement throughout this podcast. And people will automatically assume not just that they understood what I meant by that, but understood so many things about me, right? Pigeonhole me into like my political views and my candidates and my position on vaccines. It's craziness, right? But I do have to say like a disclaimer about gender norms is that Islam's framework on gender norms that orbit Islam sets is actually far more flexible, uniquely flexible compared to so many other systems historically, and even in present day.
So the concept of there being gender norms, we can't mean that like men don't cry, men don't exhibit emotion, men don't kiss kids, men don't help at home, change diapers, right? Men or women don't ever work or don't ever lead in any capacity. All of those parts, whatever culture they may be in, that would be impossible to just impossible to justify. But that doesn't mean there's like an unlimited flexibility. They're still in orbit. It's quite clear that men, Islamically, if you're asking, must spend, for example, on the family. Men must spend, right? Women must prioritize their home and their children. Those are Islamic. And that is the divine balance Allah set for us. All the other stuff, many times there can be flexibility, can be subject to cultural norms, that's fine. But the fundamental offices of man and woman, part of that, yes, was set by the deen. And messing with that divine arrangement is not like a harmless experiment. It can sabotage everything, individual, family, society, everyone. Jazakallah khair. So let's just say I was to write a job description. Normally in a job description, there's a section that says responsibilities. Islamically, what are the responsibilities? I mean like, not cultural, but Islamically, for the man and for the woman in the household. Okay, that's way beyond the scope of a podcast. However, you know, we are two guys on a podcast, right? And so, and you know, we both are donning some facial hair as well, right? And so, let me at least focus a little bit on the man here, because it might be an all or none, right? Since we're trying to get a little bit deeper than the superficial tropes and stereotypes or you know, cliches about what men do and what women do.
Men must be the ones spending on the family as an obligation. Sure, if a woman wants to contribute to the family, I would discourage it. In ordinary circumstances, in an ideal situation, in a perfect world. Why? Because Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala told us, you know, that men are the maintainers of the home because of, you know, Allah Azza wa Jal granting them this position and because of what they spent. And so, if he allows his wife to spend, he may actually be losing respect in her eyes. And many a times, we see this all the time. Like you want me to respect your leadership in the home and you're leaning on me to do so much besides the things that you can't do yourself within the home, right? And so, spending on the family as a matter of must falls on the man, right? And protecting the home as well. And Allah Azza wa Jal called the man a Qawwam. Qawwam is someone who protects and offers security and maintains the home. And you know, someone may say, okay, so if I'm protecting and spending, I'm doing my job. Yes, but it is not like, you know, in the abstract sense. You're not just there to protect, for instance, offer security from the elements, you know, whether give them shelter or from like some sort of physical violent assault. No, it's such a wider scope than that. Your commitment and your duty to protect your home, part of it is moral, right? You have to provide the right education for your entire family and the right environment for those morals to thrive, to be cultivated and thrive. You know, the sahaba, they are the ideal community. Imagine them going daily back to their spouses and their children, reporting to them the latest freshest Quran that has just been revealed or the latest practices of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, so we can begin to emulate and imbibe. Or look at the converse. The Quran actually gives us, you know, a crystal clear example of an unprotective husband,
morally speaking, in the husband of the woman who tried to seduce Yusuf Alaihi Salam. When he discovered it, you know, what did he do? He just said, Hey Yusuf, don't tell anybody. He was more protective of his reputation than he was of his family, morally speaking. Yusuf, don't tell anybody. And you say istaghfirullah. And then he left her there. He didn't provide for an environment where it would be easier for her to conquer that temptation and not fall back into it. And so that's moral protection. What else is there? Of course, it's emotional protection is huge. Emotional security is of the ways we must protect our family. You know, the concept of weaponizing intimacy, maybe this is like a buzz phrase or something, but the accusation sometimes leveled against Islam is that, you know, it is very emphatic about, you know, one direction of the relationship, the woman giving intimacy to her husband. And that language is, you know, disproportionately assertive. And I believe that's divine wisdom. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is protecting men and women from underestimating it. But it is a two way street, right? Fulfilling, you know, the desires of our wives is also of the way we protect them morally through emotional and otherwise. As a matter of fact, the Quran speaks about ila, like this is revolutionary. Ila is when a man tries to weaponize intimacy and swears he will not be intimate with his wife. The Quran says you take that back or else the marriage will be stripped from you and you lose all your rights and lose everything you've invested in that marriage. You know, the financial liabilities on the husband. And so ila for example, or even zihar. Zihar is an example of verbal abuse that the Quran came down to abolish. Like zihar is when someone says, you know, you're not fit basically to be my partner, physically speaking. You're like my mom to me. And so I just always say, imagine the Quran is coming down in this generation about a
man who said this and the woman came and complained to the Prophet and the verses come down and say Allah has heard the woman who comes to you with her complaint and those who say this have uttered an obscenity. And you're like reciting this in the masjid and that man is in the masjid hearing this and everyone's hearing it about him. It made a big deal. Even the Prophet said, la tadribanna wa la tukabbihanna. He told the men, don't just not hit. He's not just telling them, don't you dare raise your hand. He's saying, and do not tukabbihanna is to call them ugly. Don't even insult their faces. They are like men in that Allah created the human being in the most honored image, in his image, while putting down the theological discussion on what that means. But the honoring of even her face from being, you know, insulted, offensive language being used towards her, that's emotional protection. Lastly, I'll just say very quickly, circling back to financial protection, you know, providing for them. When Sa'd ibn Abi Waqas radiallahu anhu was under the assumption in his illness that this was his final illness, that he was going to die now. He said, Ya Rasulullah, can I give away all my money in charity? And he said, absolutely not. And he limited him to a third, meaning you must leave two thirds behind. He said, but I only have one daughter. Yeah, he said, it's only one daughter, like she's not going to need much. He said, no, it is better to leave her enriched with your wealth, with your savings, than to leave her behind, stretching her hands out to the people one day for someone else to provide for her. That's your duty. Imagine your duty even after you die, to think ahead, plan ahead for her. So big topic. And that's why I only honed in on that. No, it's a massive, massive topic. Jazakallah khair. And actually what sparked us even wanting to do this episode was your article about fatherhood. So I do want to hone in on that. But it feels like we can swim in many kind of avenues.
So just to summarize, when I hear that phrase that the man is the foreign minister and economics minister, really what I'm hearing is, Islamically, my responsibility as a male is to provide security for the family. And that is four things, if I understood you correctly, financial security. So I need to be the breadwinner. And correct me if I'm wrong, yes, Sheikh. Emotionally, what I heard from you was protecting that emotional bond in the family, but also with my spouse. So that kind of under that comes intimacy and a whole bunch of things. So emotional security, moral security. So I guess my responsibility as a man in the household is to provide like a North Star in terms of education, in terms of ethics, and then physical security, which is pretty clear. They're the four things that I got from you. So that's my responsibility. I didn't hear in that the cooking and the cleaning and the raising the kids and dropping off the kids. And yeah, like, is that part of my responsibility? Shamil, that's a great question. Let me just say, because you reminded me of the paper, like the paper on gender distinction, right? And the experiment of fatherlessness or something to that effect with the title of the paper, right? The fatherlessness experiment, that these are also not separate categories. And that's extremely important for a person to understand. You know, when you speak about children, like the affection conundrum, like children, when they are emotionally starved, they don't get enough affection because their father is absent. What usually happens is actually a little bit different. So the father, or maybe not in that sequence. So the father is absent.
46% of fatherless homes suffer from poverty. Okay? They struggle financially. And so what happens when they suffer from poverty? Because the father is gone. Not only are they deprived of the father's love and affection, which they uniquely crave for, they crave for paternal love, research shows us, and maternal love. But on top of that, now the mother has to go out and compensate, and then they get deprived of the maternal love as well as a result. And aside from the mother, you know, coming home stressed from doing two full-time jobs because working mother is like a redundant statement in and of itself, right? So let alone when the hours when she's absent, not home, but you know, burnt out, it is a huge deal, right? As for the roles within the household, so I need to be very honest, right? In our tradition, according to the majority of Islamic schools of law, the household chores are actually not part of the marital contract. They're not part of the marital contract. How this actually showed up in societies is simply based on cultural norms, a lot of it. Cultural norms necessitated on people that I'm going to be working outside and you're going to be the homemaker. And that is why there is nothing fundamentally Islamic that says there can't be a mutual agreement between spouses that, you know, we're going to equally, we're going to co-spend on a maid if we can afford it, right? To take care of the house. The marital contract, you know, means that I am, and I know this sounds crude, but sometimes legalities when you're getting down to the bare minimums, right? It gets a little bit crude. That I have a wife and she has a husband. It is halal for us to be intimate with one another and that this woman has rights on me as a result of that. I must spend on her. I must protect her.
If there's children between us, the rights evolve further. And so taking care of the children becomes her fundamental responsibility and so on and so forth. But homemaking itself, serving in the home, is actually something that is not, it is not possible to categorize serving in the home, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as with these other fundamental duties, like a man spending, like a woman taking care of the kids, giving them, if they so please, their, their two full years of nursing and otherwise. Those are two completely separate things. We should be fair and say, you know, equal distribution of responsibilities. And that is why forget the maid example. If a man and a woman come to a mutual agreement that we're both going to be, you know, out and about and spending on the home and so on and so forth, without neglecting the children. Let's imagine there's no children. They're off in college already or they're not born yet. And we're going to take care of the dishes together, you know, one week on, one week off, or you're going to do the laundry while I vacuum. This is totally justifiable in light of Islamic law. Sheikh, Jazakallah Khair for clarifying that. Actually, you know, living in a society where there is a lot of gender fluidity, you know, men and women do similar roles. I do have the burning question of why can't the woman be the breadwinner, for example? And I'll circle back to that towards the end of the podcast because I really want to get to some of the key points that you wrote in your paper. And the first one is about the concept of paternal authority. I'm learning this for myself, but also I want it to be very, very clear. What do you mean by paternal authority or male authority in the household? It means you should make absolutely every decision if you're a man, especially if you're Lebanese, and especially if you have a death wish. No, I mean, yeah, obviously we all agree on that.
No one actually believes that paternal authority, and paternal by the way is like in a parental relationship, it means from fathers, right? But like male authority in general, what does that mean? And Islamically speaking, how do we, you know, help people not get triggered by authority because they assume does this lend itself to dictatorship, right? Authoritarianism, abuse of authority. And so like a man having absolute authority, you know, is unmanly, right? And unwise and un-Islamic. It gets shot down from every angle, like unmanly because it's already an insecurity when you feel the need to have to assert yourself, you know, forget lifting your hand, but like even having the last word in every conversation. Do you have an inferiority complex where you have to exercise this and be reminded and self-validate that I am? So this is just unmanly altogether. But also unwise because authority is like not a muscle, like the more I use it, the more effective it's going to become. I'm going to grow my authority muscle. No, human beings don't work like that. Human beings are like seat belts, as they say, if you try to snatch, you get more resistance, right? And so you want to be very wise with authority as well and use it sparingly, like you want to save your authority card for the major decisions. Because at the end of the day, Allah Azza wa Jal placed the man primarily to blame. Nobody gets blamed more than him. If the ship sinks, the family ship sinks, he gets blamed primarily above everyone else. And that is why, by the way, the authority is there because it's only fair. If I'm ultimately blameworthy, then I have to have, you know, a greater share of influence on the outcome than anyone else, right? That's the only reason it's there. And so you want to be wise and use it in a way that will give you the greatest outcomes. So unmanly, if you try to, you know,
overuse the leadership or authority card, it is unwise because it's not going to work. Pressure causes explosions. And then un-Islamic, that's the most important part because absolute authority belongs to nobody but Allah Azza wa Jal. Only Allah. Everywhere else, authority is relative, right? There's a gradient. Even within the family unit, when we say that children must respect the authority and leadership of their parents, when we say that children must respect the authority and leadership of mom and dad, yes, mom and dad, both of them, and or that the woman must respect the leadership of her husband, what do we mean by that? Like, let me start actually with children because children, I think it's a great like by greater virtue type analogy, مبابي أولى There is such thing Islamically as abuse of authority on your children even, right? So, for example, you can't tell your child to do something impermissible. You can't tell your child don't speak to mom or don't speak to dad or don't speak to your relatives because breaking the ties of kinship is a sin. It's not permissible. You can't tell your daughter don't wear hijab when she becomes of age. She's not allowed to obey you. It would be kindness to her parents to disobey them in that sense because they're carrying less of a load now on the day of judgment. So, if it's impermissible, you don't have authority there, but it's not just that even when it's unreasonable. Like if you were to tell your child eat this broccoli and they're gagging from broccoli. I know that the kids are going to like put this video on TikTok somewhere, right? They're going to ride this one out. You're not allowed to force feed some, they can't, it's unbearable. It's unreasonable to expect all human beings to have the same palates. Figure out another way to get those greens in there, right? A different green, try spinach. Or whatever else. Another example is a very relevant example is marriage. Like if you can't force, as Ibn Taymiyyah said, a child to eat something they can't bear to stomach and that's only going to be there in their body for a few hours.
How can a parent have the right to say you must marry this person for the rest of your life when I can't bear to be with them? Right? So, if it's impermissible, no authority, even parent-child dynamic. Unreasonable, right? And also not purposeful. Like, because I said so is not a valid reason. Of course, the matter is not subjective. There has to be like, you know, what would most upright people say that obviously are Islamically informed, right? That's what we mean by reasonable. That's what we mean by purposeful. But if something is not harmful, but also not purposeful, you know, there's no benefit for you in it. Just stand on one foot for four hours, right? Even if you're not going to be harmed by that, there's really not much benefit in that at all. So you wouldn't have to obey. That whole long-winded argument I mentioned or examples I give about children. Now I want to say that the spousal dynamic is not a parental dynamic, right? At all. These are life partners. Allah Azza wa Jal gave the man the final say that he's going to use sparingly. Just to avoid decision paralysis, you know, like in our Islam, we are spared from the hard feelings and the indecisiveness when it's like a short trip. Like the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, you know, if you're going on a journey and you're three or more, pick one of you as the Ameer. Just one of you as the leader. That is mercy for all, right? And convenience for all. We know who's driving. Are we going to stop to pray now or later? Are we going to get coffee now or later? So just you keep it salient. If this is necessary for a few short hour trip, what about the lifelong marital journey with all of these like huge consequential decisions? And so it is authority, use sparingly for the sake of the marital journey, not at the expense of the marital journey. That's it. Nothing to do with like power trips and ego trips. And I said so.
I actually have a relative. Let's keep this a little lighthearted. So her husband gets upset at her because every time he says, because I'm the man, she like blows up in his face laughing. And and like we tell her like, like, just like, no, like, don't don't provoke him. I'm not at liberty to say where they come from. And we tell her like, you know, why do you always do this? She says, I don't know. It's just like every time he feels the need to say I'm the man, I just imagine like a grown man, you know, like Justin, like, forgive me, like undergarments and like socks up to his knees trying to like, you know, assert himself or, you know, it's like a caricature to her. And and I guess, you know, that's a part of it as well, that the negative personas and the stereotypes, right, some justified and some, you know, in people's lives sort of really makes them resistant to this concept that is actually a breath of fresh air. Right. When I say, you know, a tiebreaker is given to the husband on major decisions, they're hearing. So that gives him the right to allow his family, my in-laws to persecute me. Right. There's a lot there. And so it's very important for us to separate Islam from the Muslim sometimes. Okay. Fair enough. So if if we were to use male authority as almost like a tiebreaker, that's kind of the the wisdom, the concept. The more the more I hear you speak, Sheikh, I appreciate the role of of a male in the household. It's not just providing for the family. It's a whole heap of responsibilities that you mentioned. It's emotional. It's spiritual. It's being kind of like a moral moral guide for the family. I get that. But just I'm talking about the now I'm 34.
Just by nature of me being the breadwinner, I'm out and about. I'm generally at work when I come back. You know, by the time I I work out like this, there's not much time left to spend in the quality time. I mean, and my family certainly doesn't get the best of me because I get home tired and whatnot. And really, my wife does most of the heavy lifting in the household. She looks after the kids. She educates the kids. I might, you know, provide some moral guidance, but she's doing the day to day education. She's doing the pickups and drop offs. She's doing a lot. Past the cooking and the cleaning and whatnot. She also has a career that has been put on the back burner because of this as a priority. And we had that negotiation and I focused on on breadwinning. She focused on the kids. But by nature of her being in the household and playing kind of she's she's bringing it all together. Why is there why is she not the one making the major decisions on the household? Is that a fair question? Because it feels like she's the one who knows the the the details and what's under the bonnet with our kids. And our household. I'm the one out and about. Yeah, but who said she isn't? Like once again, as we said in the intro, like who said women can never lead in any capacity? I mean, did Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, not lead by every measure on the scholarship front? Don't all our women de facto lead in the domestic sense primarily, but don't they already, regardless of, you know, whether you're from the you know, the the old generation of the new generation, the east or the west. This is like known. Where do these interior minister and like foreign minister, where do these things even come from?
The fact that this is not leadership, it is leadership. In fact, put all that aside, the Prophet, peace be upon him, didn't he say, وَالْمَرْءَةُ رَعِيَةٌ فِى بَيْتِ زَوْجِهَا In the same hadith that says that the man is the leader of his household and he will be questioned about his flock. And he said, and the woman is the leader in the household of her husband. This is she is leading. And even, you know, when the husband comes home or even when he's outside, I don't want to act like the home or ideal parenting involves threatening. But the concept of the husband is there to support me, support my decisions. Wait till your father gets home. Being there, even if I don't use it, right? That is a huge part of it. And, you know, women lead and are best to lead in anchoring the home. They have a unique ability to do that. We need to appreciate this. And I don't just mean they must be stuck at home and like they have to deal with the kids and we get to deal with the world. You know, no. And it's not even just like it's anchoring the home even with the husband himself. Right. And even not just the husband. Like who really decides where we're going to land in terms of our social circles, who determines the friends of the family and, you know, which family's kids are a good match for my kids. It's mostly the mothers. All this is not leadership. The man, you know, I don't consider it a luxury at all. But, you know, when he's out and about leading in his face off with the elements, right, you know, in the external threats. And, you know, even some people ask why were the prophets who are the leaders of humanity males? Well, Allah Azza wa Jal placed males to face off with the external threats. I mean, all of the prophets were persecuted pretty much, weren't they? And forget persecution. Even dealing with a thousand faces, right? Perhaps, you know, men have a unique ability more often than not. There's exceptions to every rule to deal with a thousand faces.
You know, my wife, my wise wife, recently, she had to like deal with too many people, much more than she's used to in a single day. And then she came home that day and she was just like, SubhanAllah, I have no idea how you do it, Muhammad. She's saying like, I have nothing left in me for my babies. And I feel like I haven't given them their love today. Right? I'm not like that. I'm actually on the opposite side. I see her after I'm home for just an hour or two and her unique ability, right, to indulge even the children, right? I'm just like, SubhanAllah, how does she do it? They're my babies too. And this, I think, goes to your question, Sheikh, about like, why can't it just be the other way around? Because this would be a disservice to everyone. Like, our children would be far more emotionally unbalanced if you lock them with dad for more hours a day. I'm sorry. It's just that's what it will be. And also, our sisters will be far more distraught if we tell them you should be in the workforce just like everyone else. Well, that's not fair to her either. And then it's also not fair to her children. Like, number one, they're not going to get, you know, what mom can uniquely offer and dad will die trying. And at the same time, how come she has to go out and work when the man doesn't have to make babies? That's not fair to her by any measure. So everyone loses in this harmless rearrangement. Right? No, fair enough. I think I once heard you talk about, la samahallah, if there was a divorce that the female has automatic custody of the kids at a young age. Do you mind just talking to that? Because I think it explains Islamically the role of a woman and her responsibility to kids.
I know you said contractually, she doesn't have the responsibilities, like she's not forced in any capacity to cook and clean and look after the kids. But there are insinuations in our religion where she is responsible for the kids at the early age because she can offer a lot more emotional kind of support to them. Yeah, I mean, and this can be looked at from both sides. Like even after divorce, as you said, especially in the first seven years of marriage, custody belongs to the woman almost regardless. The first seven years of the kids life, you mean? Yes, even if she were a non-Muslim and we are Muslim, because this is really about a mother's warmth and a mother's nurture that dads will not be able to provide even if they wanted to. And this is why the man cannot even request the custody unless it's really one of those out of whack situations, right? Like, I don't know, substance abuse or maybe a threat to the child, an imminent immediate threat to the child's life. But otherwise, you can't even request it. Not just can't you request it, the mother cannot even offer it because the child is not a bargaining chip. And that's the whole thing in our age where like our egos are very obese and everyone's just thinking about themselves. And it's like tooth and nail bargaining, whether in marriage or on the way out of marriage. What about the children? The children are not a bargaining chip. The woman is not allowed to give up custody to the man because it's not her choice. There's a shared right here. The right of the child takes precedence over all. And so that right of the child will not be upheld, you know, as it should, unless they're with the mom. And once again, you look outside to dominant culture when people volunteer and opt for, you know, vacating their homes because, you know,
the capitalistic or, you know, consumeristic mentality says that making bread and making money is more inherently valuable, more celebration worthy than raising the generations of tomorrow. Now we have what we see all around us, right? The delinquency rates, the substance abuse. It is just it is it's tragic. And this is we're just God forbid. But we are just getting started, right? We've just begun a few generations of experimenting with this no harm, no foul experiment. We cannot, you know, even predict, you know, how consequential it will be, let alone stop it once the slippery slope begins to snowball. So, Jumaan, because I love your take on this topic. But just if I was to balance the male and female role in the household, what does a household lose without a father? And what does it lose without a mother? Because I know this kind of we've covered it briefly, but I feel like you have a lot to give in this in this area. I mean, as we try to capture and summarize in the paper, paternal authority and all that is lost with the absence or the uninvolvement of the father is one of the major losses and unique contributions of the dad where he involved. Right. The other one is financial security. And I gave the example earlier that when he is not around to provide, the mother gets forced into the double role. And then not only are they 46 percent under the poverty line, but the other 54 percent may be financially stable, but emotionally distressed and unfulfilled. So paternal authority and then paternal affection is lost and cascading into that would be maternal affection because financial security is not there.
So those three are a big part of it. The same way that mothers can offer, as we said in the paper, children something unique that not fathers can never fully match. Fathers also offer these three that mothers can never fully match. That paternal authority, that financial security and that paternal affection. Jazakallah khair. Very, very eloquent. And you mentioned affection quite often in this episode. One of the biggest criticisms I get from my wife is that I'm not affectionate enough. So I'm going to defend myself live on this podcast. And I'd like to understand from you where I'm going wrong. If you would have just subjected yourself to my flogging, you're what you are. You would have been husband of the year. She would have preferred that. So, Sheikh, I work. I've got two full-time jobs. I volunteer because I feel like that's my responsibility Islamically. I have to look after my health and I have all these responsibilities in the household, such as the financial security, such as the kind of moral North Star, such as trying to be present, such being entertaining the kids and then looking after my parents. Like there's a lot there and it's a lot kind of like responsibility, responsibility. And the biggest criticism, as I mentioned, is that I'm not affectionate enough. And I do hear of the Prophet ﷺ being affectionate. But where do I fit that in? And how does that even play a role when much of what I'm told is my responsibility is to be that authority? A part of this is like nobody's fault and I'm not going to toot your horn too much. I'm just going to give you a little bit of a pass here with this statement. And then I'm going to get on your case. Because you know, with the atomization of modern life, everything is just becoming, you know, the individual and at best the nuclear family.
The dissolution of the extended family has forced us all into an overwhelming place. And that is why I encourage everyone to not, you know, accept being the martyr of over parenting. It's a thing, right? Over parenting. You basically, you know, do yourself in and you're not doing anyone a favor if you opt for this. That's what I'm saying. You know, the martyr syndrome, I'll do whatever it takes, then you burn out or you break down or you quit. You're not helping your kids or yourself or anyone in between. Right? If you go that route. And so community is hugely important. The Islamic village feel, even if, you know, partially reproduced through the Masajid, is very, very important. I just wanted to put that there because we are an anomaly in world history. And we've been accelerating so fast that we don't realize that if this is a crash course or not. And we've been, you know, advancing and replacing things so quickly. We also may not realize the amount of illnesses we're picking up, societal illnesses en route. And so we really need some pause and to reconsider how did we get here and how do we make the best of it. But balancing authority and affection, right? I think the question itself, like, reflects like this assumption, right? That there's like a hard separation. They call it like a false dichotomy in philosophy between any two subjects, right? So authority and affection, it's as if they're irreconcilable. And that's why we're asking the question. But they're not. Like, we're not Machiavellians, you know, Niccolo Machiavelli in his famous book, The Prince, without getting into it, right? He basically says, you know, it's better to be feared than be loved if you can't be both. And so this has nothing to do with us. Like authority in this context, leadership is a softer word. And I think language is important. There's nothing wrong with using the word leadership. What is it? It's principled leadership. It's righteous leadership.
It's within parameters as we explained. It's about, it's just about, you know, having to make, not the privilege, but the responsibility, as you said, to make the tough decisions, right? It's not about superiority complexes. It's not about authoritarianism. So many people talk about leadership nowadays, like in identity politics and like, again, the power struggles all around us, whether like internationally or domestically or individually. We talk about this stuff and as if it's like some, you know, amazing thing. It's not. People are fighting for something that they will never enjoy. Like whoever chases leadership will regret it. You know, if you'll give me like a few minutes to get on my soapbox for a second. Like you think I like being a leader? Like I'm a leader at the moment in multiple capacities, you know, like maybe in my community and my family and otherwise. I don't like being a leader anywhere. I don't like having to make the tough decisions. I don't like people having these unrealistic expectations of me, right? Like we really need a paradigm shift to think that authority is somehow like, you know, you're on cloud nine and you don't have time to be nice to the world and affectionate with the world. And you know, the Prophet, peace be upon him, said about authority, like leadership. He said, أولها ندامة أولها ملامة As soon as it comes, it brings criticism with it, endless criticism. Like whoever knows, knows, right? This is not a privilege. But let me just forget community and making tough decisions for the community, even making tough decisions as a leader for our families. Like my kids, you think I like being the leader of my children? Many aspects of this are emotionally difficult. I'm just going to be honest, right? You think I like seeing my kids' eyes well up with tears when I, you know, have to make a tough decision about enough sugar consumption or enough screen time or now is bedtime or, you know, we're leaving now from your friends or playland or something. I don't like doing that. I don't like having to be the bad cop, right? And same thing with our spouses. You think I like upsetting my wife?
You think I like getting home the next day after, you know, like a stressful day at work and to see that she is still hurt? And she's not hurt because I was vulgar. She's not hurt because I raised my voice. She's not hurt because I didn't consult her even on the decision. But because I was forced, you know, by virtue of reckoning, right? I'm going to be ultimately liable to be the tiebreaker to make that decision. And like I have to watch her and it's, you know, why do the hadith even say that women, you know, enter Jannah for praying their five, fasting their month, protecting themselves and obeying their husband. It's a huge pill to swallow, right? For any woman, any adult to have to accept authorities, right? And so to see her work through that, I wish I could make it easier for her, but I just sort of have to make the decision. Why do I do all this? It's affection. It's all out of love for my family to prevent decision paralysis that the conversation can't go on with ever, forever. But let me not speak to women because like again, I think we can have a part two and three, inshallah, coming up. Yeah, but we're men with beards. So part two and three will also have to address men more than women. Like I want to tell the men that many times men, you know, outsource these major decisions, right? Just to avoid conflict, you know, and sometimes it's selfishly, right? I just I don't want the headache or I don't want to ruin, you know, the potential for intimacy. Forgive me. I just, you want to just keep things moving, right? And it's not necessarily a bad thing always because the interdependency is a lot of times what keeps us together, right? There is a wisdom in that. We are interdependent. But sometimes again, you just avoid making the big decisions. You outsource everything. You check out basically, whether it's for selfish reasons or coming from a good place, but just you give in to the gatekeeping from the other party. And I want to tell you that if you love your family and you care about your family,
it's not really in anyone's best interest to do that. You're going to feel miserable, right? That I'm like worthless. And also a lot of times you may not realize it and you may not be told this that people in your family will lose respect for you. Right? For not making the decision, helping us out of the deadlock and moving things forward. And also I'll tell the men that, you know, many of us hinder, if I can call it the lubricant of our leadership, like the effectiveness of our leadership. What keeps the leadership wheel, you know, moving smoothly, keeping it oiled by, you know, not providing our family outside of those major decisions now, right? With the security they deserve, with financial, emotional and otherwise. So even authority, I just wanted to like say they are perfectly reconcilable. Many times they're one in the same, you know, out of affection and love for our family. We're going to just stomach it and lead even though we know and it hurts us to see others hurt by, you know, humans will always disagree. You know, we're moving here, we're going to this school. But I'm telling you that if you do it amicably and with mutual consultation and respectfully and this is in everyone's best interest for you to use your authority in that affectionate and principled way. But for the most part, for the most part, this is a very rare case scenario. Like how often are major decisions made? This is the exception, not the norm. More often than not, you're just back to being your gentle, agreeable, considerate, playful, affectionate, prophetic self, right, or pursuit of the prophetic self, right? The Prophet ﷺ kissing his grandchildren. This is so huge, so important for the boys, for the girls to get those expressions of love. A big part of our leadership in the home is getting served last, right? I couldn't snap at my boss. So I'm going to snap at my kids now.
Well, that's not very manly of you, right? A real man restrains his anger. Didn't the Prophet ﷺ say that, you know, the strong person is not the one that outwrestles others, but the one that restrains himself when angry. And same thing, not just with children. Even, you know, the Prophet ﷺ is the busiest man in the world, leading a nation, judge and educator and arbiter, assassination attempts unfolding on the regular against him and so on and so forth. And, you know, you would think that he does not have time, you know, in marital, in the marital counseling world, they call it turning to, right? Like you notice something, I don't got time for it. Whereas if you would just stop and say, what's wrong, honey, or one of those things, so many times that, you know, minimal emotional intelligence makes all the difference. The Prophet ﷺ, when his wife got extremely jealous that another wife was sending the food to the guests and she smashes the plate from her neighbor, like how dare you serve my guests? The Prophet ﷺ, you know, he did not have an ego. He did not have anything to prove to anyone. It's like, he didn't know storm out or put her in her place about like embarrassing me in front of all my boys or just, you know, his affectionate understanding self. And he said to them, غارة أمكم Your mother became jealous, meaning she's your mother, don't forget. And at the same time, it's natural, it happens, right? And so likewise with us, we need to understand that there have to be these practical, pragmatic expectations. Just when I say that women have the unique ability as mothers, you know, to tolerate what I would go insane trying to tolerate of, you know, hours with young gremlins on the ground, these little babies, it doesn't mean it's endless. No, by the time you come home, you're probably going to need to get served last and make sure everyone else is, you know, able to vent and able to relax and recoup psychologically and otherwise. That's part of being a man as well. There is so much here, so much here because it is not the exception. It is the norm.
This is how we should be operating. This is part of manliness. Jazakallah khair. Sheikh, usually we do get as men a lecture from the Sheikh when we do the Kitab, the ceremony, but we never get that lecture or, you know, piece of advice when we become fathers. Hearing you speak, I feel like you've got a lot to give around this concept of fatherhood. So we're going to wrap up soon, but I feel like I need to ask you this last major question, and that is in your mind, what is an ideal father then? Okay, so an ideal father, insha'Allah, leads by example, right, in their relationship with people. And more importantly, you know, in their relationship with Allah Azza wa Jal. And an ideal father loves to serve people or is committed at least, whether they like it or not, to serve people and they expect to be served last. And an ideal father, you know, is a protective one. An ideal male in the household in general sees himself as a protector of the house. A vigilant protector of the house, even at times when the house does not know that they're in danger, right? And that's what vigilance is about. You know, an ideal father, and this is, again, natural, continues to sacrifice, like the mother, to be honest, you know, even when people don't appreciate, you know, many a times we say, I don't feel appreciated, so I'm checking out. No, this is not the ideal father. This is not the prophetic father. And this is not even just purely Islamic. You do this because that's what fathers do. They sacrifice their egos and, you know, they risk being uncomfortable for the sake of the greater good.
And by that, they pave the way as much as they can for their families and the lives of their families. And as we gave in the example of the father, even for times when they will no longer be allowed, as one of my teachers said about like over-controlling parents, he said, you know, this is not anything but a bow, this fatherhood role, this fatherhood responsibility that you need to use to send your children into the world. Right? You prepare them for the world. So I think with job parenting, a lot of times, unless it's done for Allah Azza wa Jal, then you'll definitely get your worth in the Akhirah and quite possibly most of the time in Dunya as well. May Allah allow us to strike the bow properly. Sheikh, we've had you twice on Double Take before. And normally in the rapid fire questions, we just have this set kind of list of questions. But with you, we had to dig a little bit deeper. We'll start softly, inshallah, with a few basic questions for the rapid fire section. OK. But then we'll go into something a bit deeper, if that's OK. That's fine. So an easy one to start off with. What was the last book you were reading? I'm finishing up now Guy Eaton's King of the Castle. And what's that all about? And actually, I have to ask you, if you could be reading kind of a whole bunch of Islamic books, what do you get out of books like that? Well, he was Muslim. Yeah, but he was Muslim. He was Muslim. He was Muslim. He was Muslim. Well, he was Muslim. But my next book is, I forgot what it's called. It's here somewhere. Hold on to your children tight or something of this nature.
It is not Islamic, but the ethos, I'm told by educators, is very much Islamic. Anyway, Guy Eaton's King of the Castle is about moral accountability in the modern world. And it basically very deeply critiques the advancements of the past century and how they reduce people into the complexity and machinery of modern life, right? Big industry and all of that, and how this reduces people to the feeling of being just a cog in the engine. And as a result, you lose this sense of self accountability that, no, I'm God's agent in the world. I need to live a principled life, even if I don't see its fruits, even if I don't think it's anything but a drop in the ocean. No, well, the ocean is an accumulation of drops, as they say, and it's the only drop God's going to ask me about. And so I need to be, in terms of how I treat the ecosystem, in terms of how I treat my fellow man, and so on and so forth, principled and hold myself accountable, morally speaking. It's very profound, subhanAllah. Sounds good. You recently became the associate director of the systematic theology department at Yaqeen. That sounds very serious. What is that? And first of all, congratulations. Systematic theology is basically a very intentional approach at introducing or reintroducing the Islamic belief systems and paradigms in general, right? The world views in general to our audiences. And, you know, I would say it is largely grounded in the principle of us being much more in need of building what's absent than destroying what's present, right? We have to build out the truth and the good that is absent or not readily available, right? So much more than we have to work on deconstructing and, you know, demolishing the falsehood or the truth, the evils that are present.
Because you knock one down, even in terms of like doubts, right? You knock one down, another one jumps in. But once you have truth there, then you become immune to an innumerable number of doubts. That's awesome. That sort of thing. You published two books recently, mashAllah. When the Stars Prostrated, co-authored by Sister Rania Busnaina and The Prophet of Mercy, peace be upon him, co-authored with Sheikh Omar Suleiman. Do you mind giving us a pitch on both books? So When the Stars Prostrated is about two to four reflections on every verse in Surah Yusuf. And essentially, it is an exercise in Tadabbur, right? Tadabbur is deep reflection on the Quran. Our last podcast together, right? Checking behind each word. And so we were trying basically just to help people get a feel, like a demonstration of Tadabbur being possible most of the time, at least in the examples we use, without even grasping linguistic nuances or the original Arabic or otherwise. It's just how to do this, right? So small example, Yusuf, peace be upon him, they open the door. You know, she says he tried to rape me and his shirt is ripped. And so the reflection is sometimes never belittle someone for what they're wearing. Sometimes it was actually their dignity that caused them to appear this way. They refuse to beg for money or they refuse to give in to immorality. Right. They refuse to steal, that sort of thing, to help us draw parallels through Quranic reflections. The other one was the first paper, I think I wrote for Yaqeen, along with the help of Sheikh Omar, hafidhullah. 70 Moments of Moral Greatness is what I think the original title was.
All these times that our Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, you know, transcended and took the higher road in the face of hostility and enmity and hatred and insult. And it was almost like me and Sheikh Omar are saying, let all those people that keep recycling accusations against the civility and the compassion of our Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, gather, you know, all they can. Those five, ten old used out, you know, texts, many of which are weak ahadith or decontextualize the hadith and otherwise. And let's drown them out with the opposite. Let them show that, you know, with the weak and the authentically misinterpreted, there's still so much more to disprove and, you know, rip a gaping hole in your accusatory narrative about our Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. So it turned out to be more of a faith booster and solidifier and, you know, a means to draw people closer to loving the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, not just simply disarming those who try to criticize him or demonize him, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Sheikh, you're not too active on this. I'm not too active on social media, which is a good and bad thing, which is a good and bad thing. But when you were active in 2017, we found nine photos of horses. And then in 2016, we found another picture of a horse with a verse from the Quran. My goodness, who are you working for? How much they paying you, bro? Who sent you? No, I'm paying the person working for them. I'm just joking. So horses, we thought we'd, you know, light a spike a bit. You clearly have some feelings for horses. Do you mind explaining why? My feelings for horses have changed. Okay, tell me.
I actually just became allergic to horse hair. Past three, four times I've come near horses, my eyes sort of like really react. And it was very sad for me, alhamdulillah. I'll ride in the corn in Jannah, if Allah allows me. Assuming you weren't allergic, you clearly, you know, love horses. Yeah, growing up, I used to love horses. I used to like get like robbed by these like horse stables because I'm in inner city New York. And like no one really, there's no like outback. So they would charge us like lots of money to put us on this like silly trail and stuff. Walk us through the park for 40 minutes. But I mean, anyway, those, yeah, I actually remember, I remember posting those. They were just like exceptionally beautiful horses. Just some nice photos with the horses that had like extra long hair or extra like, you know, brilliant color patterns or whatever it was. And the reason actually I looked it up is because I was translating a research paper for AMJA, the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, about beauty. And so it was actually a fiqhi discussion about like the beauty parameters for women, cosmetically speaking, and otherwise what they can do in their home, what they can do outside and what they can't. And so the preface, Dr. Hatem Al-Hajj, actually, he was writing in the preface that, you know, seeking beauty is a human need. And Allah said, there's the verse, right, about horses, وَلَكُمْ فِيهَا جَمَالٌ And you have in them the opportunity to enjoy their beauty. So they're not just there to carry you. They're not just there to, you know, propel you in the battle ranks or, you know, in wartime. They're actually there for your, to take in their beauty.
And so he said, building on that, now this human need is extra accentuated and extra present in women. And he, you know, suggested or argued to justify this that that is why, despite it, you know, detracting from the availability of the currency and despite it potentially, you know, hurting the hearts of the, you know, the poor, gold was still allowed for women because they have an extra need for beauty, an extra, you know, sensitivity to aesthetic. It was just very profound, just as like a philosophical preface to why certain rulings about beauty cater to women and men aren't, you know, given those concessions. Man, anyway, it's too deep, too deep for me. I usually just post and just say, SubhanAllah, and that's the end of it. Well, the ayah, I just never stopped at the ayah, so I went and looked up horses to further appreciate the ayah. Sorry for the long-winded answer. JazakAllah khair. One final question and we'll wrap up. What's one thing you'd love your kids to remember you for in their early childhood? I don't know. I really don't. You know what I do like dream about a lot though is those moments, my kids having those moments after I'm gone maybe, that I'm having now about my father, which is difficult to talk about, but there are so many things that click, you know, like they say that, you know, certain things, you know, when I became 30, I realized my father wasn't so crazy. When I became 40, I realized he knew a few things, that sort of thing. I believe Mark Twain said something to this effect. And so there is all these light bulb moments that are happening year after year.
Oh, that was done in love. Oh, this is why it happened. I was such a jerk, you know, and Alhamdulillah, I pray to Allah that I was like decent, you know, with my parents growing up, Alhamdulillah. I never had a rebellious age with them, maybe snuck a few things behind their back. But of course, within you, you're just critical. Young arrogant self is critical and you learn only decades later. And so many a times when my kids don't understand some tough love or otherwise decisions that you have to make as a leader, going back, I guess, to our topic, I imagine like I hope, you know, they realize one day, regardless of whether I'm here or not. JazakAllah khair. You had to kill me with the question, right? No, it was good. It was good. Thank you. I wish we could speak more about it. BarakAllah fik for the work that you're doing. And we look forward to even more output in the department that you lead at Yaqeen Institute. Once again, JazakAllah khair for your patience. And we look forward to the next episode, inshallah, next season. Amin wa yaakum. JazakAllah khair for your time.
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