started looking down, right? Just because say na'amar came, not for Allah, right? But in that context was not harshness. Why? Because the general case was religiosity. And people within them had respect for deen. So if you're firm, people would return towards the normal expectation, to the norms. But in a context where religiosity is not the norm and respect for deen specifically or religion more broadly is weak, then if you're firm, if you're stern, it'll cause people to flee away from deen, right? Which is what the Prophet Salli Alayhi Alayhi wa Sallam said, fa bi ma rahmatin min Allahi l-intalahum. It is from the mercy of Allah that you were gentle with them. Wa lo kuntah fadzan ghalid al-qalbi lan fadda wa min hawlik. Right? Had you been harsh or hard, they would have fled from all around you. And this is the person with the best and most beautiful character. Had he been harsh, people would have fled from him. Says Allah swt, let alone anyone else. And this is why we find sahaba who used sternness. And some of them were very powerful, like Sayyidina Almar. Though his sternness was from mercy. But the Prophet Salli Alayhi Alayhi wa Sallam was never stern, ever. He was firm, right? He was firm, but he would never go beyond that. Because that's the asal, that's the basis, right? That's the basis. So one has to be careful. Particularly in the context we live in, you can't. Sturnness, they say our age is an age of encouragement. It's not an age of warning, right? Because when people don't have respect in their hearts, you know, deep respect. And that's not the norm, religiosity is not the norm. If you're firm, it'll be treated as if it's harsh and people will flee away. It may work in small doses in the short term, but long term, people are going to flee away. Right, so one has to be very, very careful about that, right? And the Prophet Salli Alayhi Alayhi wa Sallam gave us so many examples of that, right? A dramatic example is this Bedouin who came to the Prophet Salli Alayhi Alayhi wa Sallam, right? And was harsh to the Prophet, the story is long, right? Because he asked the Prophet Salli Alayhi Alayhi wa Sallam for money and the Prophet Salli Alayhi Alayhi wa Sallam he said, are you satisfied? He said, absolutely not. You've done me no good and long story. And then the Prophet Salli Alayhi Alayhi Alayhi Alayhi wa Sallam took him aside and gave him more and said, are you satisfied? He said, yes. And the Bedouin went in front of the Sahaba after and said, Muhammad has honored me as a good man and he left. When this Bedouin left, the Sahaba were originally very angry with the Bedouin. The Prophet Salli Alayhi Alayhi Alayhi Alayhi wa Sallam said, the example of me and you and this man is like the example of the owner of a she camel whose she camel is running away. So when the camel is running away, what did people do? Someone's camel is running away. What would people do? They chased after it. And what did that do to the camel? It caused it to run even faster. But then the owner told him, stop. Leave me to my camel. Okay. And the owner of the camel used sweet words and used some fodder and gradually approached the camel while singing and encouraging. And slowly the camel slowed down and then came back and the owner and the camel were reunited. I said, that's the example of me and you and this man. He said, had I left him to you, he would have ended up in the fire. And that's what happens, right? That if there's a family member who's slipping, who's struggling, who is not being religious, that's not the time to take them to court. I said, that's Haram. Who doesn't know that praying five times a day is not Haram? At that time, what they need, they need mercy. You have to be like the owner of the sheep. You have to bring them back. And it may take time. And there's many, many examples of that from the life of the Prophet of them. The man who loved his wife, but his wife had wayward ways. They didn't enjoy her company. And they said, of course, implicit in that is if you love her, maintain the relationship and gradually hope that things change for the better. Take the means of changing them for the better. Use wisdom. And you have to be, sometimes you have to be pragmatic. We don't live in an ideal world. People have mistakes, right? Even, you know, there's this one companion. He fell into misconduct with someone's slave girl and then with someone else's and then with someone else's. Right? And the Sahaba then, you know, and he was punished a few times for it. And the Sahaba were putting him down. Like, what's wrong with you? And they're putting him down. The Prophet of Islam heard it. He said, Like, stop. He said, Don't assist his shaitan against him. Me and the poor guy struggling, don't do things that will make it worse. Right? So you have to be very careful in these kinds of situations. Right? It's not about drawing the line. You draw the line short term, it may work. But will it actually cause the person to want to do that thing? No. Right? And sometimes if one doesn't know in those situations, one should consult. Right? There's many people. One of the problems we have, again, is that venting versus consulting. Right? Then the people go complain, oh my wife, stop praying and stop doing this and that. And you're not even actually asking for advice. And that's actually going against the sunnah. And it's actually a betrayal of the trust of marriage, for example. Right? But there, instead of venting, if you go take the practical means, one of reflecting yourself, how can I improve things? Right? So instead of reacting yourself, you say, how can I help make things better? And number two, if you're not sure, consult. Because for many people, you go to someone experienced. Right? Who is someone experienced in dealing with these kinds of things in the Bay Area? Hmm? Who? Imam Zayi. Imam Zayi, if you go to Imam Zayi, will this be something new that my husband's not praying anymore? He's not praying regularly anymore? He's dealt with it many, many times. He has experience with it. He has wisdom. Right? And in the Bay Area, you have many scholars like that who are people of understanding and wisdom. So you ask them, they'll help you make. You know? And then you follow up with them. Well, I tried this, et cetera, right? So that's the thing, that instead of reacting, you look at what is going to be an effective response. And in some situations, the right response may be that, well, this is too serious. Maybe the best thing is to get out of that situation. Because if it's beginning to affect your own dean and you've tried and it's not working, et cetera, but instead of carrying a heavy burden on yourself, consult. And sometimes it's the act of consulting. Your own asking someone helps you give you clarity and perspective about the situation, right? But be patient with people. Any other questions before we continue? Another of the, you know, one of the most volatile relationships that arise out of marriage. One of the most volatile or potentially volatile relationships that arise out of marriage. No relationship between two human beings. You get married and then a relationship arises that's very complicated. Oh, like mother-in-law, okay. Yeah, in-laws, right? It's very dangerous. Especially of all the in-law relationships, what's the most sensitive relationship? Life and mother-in-law. That's very dangerous. And it makes sense, right? Because the mother feels that she's lost her child because of that woman, right? And the wife feels unease, conscious or unconscious, that he's still attached to her. Food is one of the, you know, dangerous elements in all of this, right?  And never praise your mother's food because typically, like just common sense, whose food is likely to be better?  Your mother has been cooking since she was five, back in Hyderabad, right? So you've been cooking for 40 years, right? Like meal after meal. Or your wife who's never cooked and doesn't care about cooking. Your mother takes pride in her cooking.  Whose food is likely to taste better? Like, I mean, common sense, right? But what do you do?  Actually, one of my friends used to say that if you visit your mother's house, don't sit facing your wife. I could, she'll be looking at you. And if you're enjoying the food, it's a big problem, right? And actually he said, what he found was that be aware of reflective objects, both mirrors and other things. And you should be an advocate for segregation at that time. Why don't we sit in the living room? Let the women sit on the table. But even then give your back to where the women are sitting, just to be safe, right? I don't appreciate the food too much because you never know when she'll see you. Be careful. My wife actually, my wife's very practical, right? Because my parents live next door. So we go over two or three times. My wife appreciates my mother's food more than I do. She's like, great, I don't have to cook today. Very practical. That's as good to marry someone who's intelligent, right? So I was like, great, I don't have to cook today. We'll just go over next door, right? How do you answer a question that I like so much? Is my food better than your mom's food? No, what you do is you make forward investments. So my wife makes incredible dal. So I go out of my way to praise my wife's dal because that's one thing she makes far better than anyone else I know. I praise, and just forward investments of praise, right? Then she'll feel secure that, but in all seriousness, you have to be very careful there. In order to understand how you deal with family and so on, the first thing to know, what is the right of your parents over you, to start with your own parents? What's the right of your parents over you? You have to summarize it in one word. What do you have to do? Let's say your parents want something from you. What's your responsibility towards your parents? Respect, okay? Obedience, anyone else agree with obedience? Okay, respect, but if you have one right, the parents have over you, okay? Now this is, I don't like to initiate an argument, but I could defend it till the cows go home, but there is absolutely no text of the Qur'an or the Sunnah of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that commands us unequivocally to obey our parents, none. Whatsoever, there's no, I'll say it again, there's no text of the Qur'an, nor the Sunnah of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that contains a general or unconditioned command to obey one's parents. Actually, there's no command in the Qur'an to obey your parents, none. The only command related to obedience in the Qur'an is, is to, no, the only command related to obedience directly is not to obey them, which is, and if they struggle and strive against you that you obey other than me, then don't obey them. Yet keep their company in this life in all good ways, in the ma'roof. That's the only command in the Qur'an that has a'a related to parents. Don't say uf to them, that's not obey them, that's just don't be disrespectful. Exactly, all of that, that's what that's, that's upholding the ma'roof, right? Wa qadar rabbuka alla ta'budu illa iyaa wa bilwalidaini ihsana, your Lord, in Surat al-Isra, verse 23 and 24, your Lord decreed that you worship none but him, and that you have ihsan towards your parents. Wa bilwalidaini ihsan, what is ihsan? It's excellent. What is excellent? One explanation, what ma'hu al-ihsan? Bilwalidain, what is ihsan? What is excellence to parents? What is the Surat al-Isra, 17 Surah, verses 23 and 24? They say that the verse is a, what is ihsan? That's one of the strongest interpretations. The ihsan is that one or both of them reach old age, falata kullahuma uf, don't say uf to them. And it's a given. One or both of your parents reach old age, either they will be annoying, it's a given, it's a Quranic promise. It's not, there's nothing unstated, right? There's nothing conditional. If one or both of them reach old age, like it's if, then, right? So what's that? When they reach old age, it's inevitable that either they'll be annoying, you'll be annoyed by them. But in either case, do it to them. Nor rebuke them. But rather, say to them, noble words, noble words meaning words that are respectful, right? Waqfidlahuma jana'ha zunni min ar-Rahma and lower to them the wing of humility, out of mercy for them. Waqfuma kama rabbiya ni-saghira and say, oh Lord, have mercy on them and they raised me when I was young, right? That is the Quranic command. What is, what's the meaning of the Prophets? All the way, the emphasis is too early, right? Big, righteousness here. How did the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, define righteousness? He defined it, he said, al-bir, something. What is that something? In the hadith in the Forty-Naui. Al-biru, something. What is that something? Any of you know the Forty-Naui? He said, al-biru khusnu l-khuluq. Righteousness, al-bir, we have al-bir towards righteousness is good. So what is your responsibility towards parents? Once I got myself in spectacular trouble because I had to give khutbah at a university and I didn't have a lot of experience giving khutbah. Right, so I knew how to give the khutbah but you also have to know your audience. So I was like, okay, I'm going to university and people tend to be distracted. I'm going to, so I gave this really, today I'm going to talk about the greatest myth in Islam about not extremism, not about it. It's about the myth of parental obedience. Suddenly all these people started looking up and I made it quite dramatic and I defend what I said but it was not stated probably with the most wisdom. After this uncle came up, as soon as I finished prayer, I said, as-salamu alaikum, as-salamu alaikum, my dear brothers and sisters, don't listen to this man. The Quran says you must obey your parents. As-salamu alaikum, we must obey your parents. He switched off the mic and he kept shouting. Said, this is wrong, the Quran says obey your parents. It doesn't say it anywhere, right? Sunnah says obey your parents and they're like, take from me, uncle, exactly. But it actually made the point to the whole khutbah that it doesn't say that. If you look, you won't find it. What the Quranic command is, ihsan, excellence. It's haruf, right? Uphold that which is good. It is bin. It is gentleness and respect in word and action and in response to their words and actions. Now it is very possible. There's no necessary relationship between bin, between righteous conduct and obedience. It is very possible not to obey, but with righteousness. And it's very possible to obey without righteousness, and without good character. So for example, like I'm a total slacker, right?    Even she has back trouble and hand trouble. But, you know, if she's done everything she could do on her little plot of garden, she'll go and take care of like this, like some elderly people anywhere, she'll be taking care of their garden.  I actually just, because she always keeps cleaning out. There's no one messing the house. Now it's just my mom and dad living in the next door to us. So I'll deliberately, like, you know, I'll have a package of like supari. So I'll just put it between the policies. It's just, because I know that the next day I'll go, so why did you put that there? And now she's like, so I found what you said. I know I'll tuck it in somewhere and within 24 hours my mom will find it, right? And, you know, it's just like, so what happens? Like, you know, if let's say your parents tell you that, beta, wash my car at 8 a.m. on Saturday, do you have to do it? And of course, should you do it? That's a different thing. Yes, of course you should. But it is possible to uphold beer and not listen. He said, I'll do my best dad. Or okay, dad, and you know, you know that dad, that there's cricket games going on this time. You don't know exactly when the game is, but you know that either a game will be going on or your dad will be asleep because you stayed up all night watching Pakistan get beaten up by whoever beating them up this time, right? And you don't know the schedule, but you know, he won't be awake. And he's not going anywhere at 8 a.m. on Saturday. So what do you do? You get up late. Why don't you still wash the car? Hey, or are you just apologizing? Oh, I'm really sorry, I'll do it now. Like whenever he asks, so just give me 10 minutes, I'll do it. And you give him a big hug or whatever, you make him chai, but you don't argue, right? So that's you. Your younger brother who's more Americanized, I kind of like my younger brother. And not my younger brother, I trained him, he does. And you give me permission to mention this. My younger brother, who's 12 years younger than me, he's done so much more for my parents than I've ever done, or my sister, for that matter. But he'd always be in trouble with my parents. Cause like, he's like a Canadian kid, right? So he'd do whatever they say. Like, you know, my dad asked me, for us, we run out of bread, can you go pick up some pita bread from the supermarket? I'd be, could you make some roti? Like, I miss your roti, right? And I wouldn't do it. So it's possible not to listen, but with wisdom, okay? My younger brother would be like, why can't you guys keep a shopping? They're like, what's this? Like, how come I have to always, and he'll be hot and popping and complaining. He'll go get it, and he'll be like, he'll call and say, do you guys need anything else? And, which is actually a really nice thing to do, right? So he'll not just listen to them, but he's like, obedience plus, right?  Cause I'm lazy, okay? So he'll like ask for other things, but he'll complain, he'll come back and say, here you go, like, you know, all this stuff, right? Now he's got flies, like now, thunder, like, you know, he actually consulted, good, but he does this one thing, he consults, right? So he said, hi, I'm beginning to get upset. What do I do? I said, keep calm, keep quiet, don't say anything. Cause like my brother tries to imagine himself to be a civil rights activist. Someone in the family saying something that's a bit culturally insensitive or gorelogue, and he'd be like, why are you picking on whiteness? It says, right? So I'll text him, it says, go to the kitchen, right? Like keep quiet, like, there's not the time for your civil rights speech, you're not Martin Luther King, right? We're just trying to like have dinner as a family and go home, right? So you have to know how to, you know, deal with these kinds of things. Part of it is, we're talking in the context of adult children, right? When someone's growing up, they have to listen to their parents, right? But as you grow up, sometimes your parents will make demands that you can't fulfill, right? It's not an either or a thing. It's not do obey them or not. But you try to, sometimes it's not possible. They say unreasonable things. They make excessive demands. How do you deal with it? You deal with it with wisdom, right? With respect, with friends, with gentleness, right? You're like, why don't we have protein set, right? How does this work? Because I don't think it's part of the relationship with the status of Khalil. And also there was two incidents during life of Prophet Salam. Old man came and complained that his son was not taking care of him. And then Prophet Salam advised him to give some money to him. No, there's a few, so there's a balance, right? There's a balance, which is give everyone who has a right their due right, right? So the right of parents is that you be respectful to them, that you do your best to listen to them, right? That you strive to serve them. But the Sunnah is a perfect balance between all rights and responsibilities, right? Giving your parents rights must be done in a way that does not deprive your spouse of his or her rights, that doesn't deprive your children of their rights, that doesn't deprive you of your rights to seek the good of this life and the next, right? And that's the, how do you achieve that balance? You achieve that balance by not having an exaggerated understanding of anyone rights. There's some people who just listen to their husband or just listen to their wife, right? Because they're getting, I need to make this relationship work. But to do that, they destroy all these other relationships. And that's not a balance that's healthy even for that relationship.  So of course you strive to listen, but sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes you can't like, so as for the sunnah, like there's some things, for example, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, the most dramatic saying he said, Anta wa ma lukali abiq. You and your wealth are your fathers. By consensus, this is not meant literally. Because you don't belong to your father literally, right? It's an affirmation of how much you should be differential to your parents, but as an emphasis out of exaggeration. There's other situations, the person who complained about his son, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam told the son to provide, they said that's because the parents were needy. And if the parents are needy, then they have financial rights over you. But if they're not, they don't, right? So there's a healthy balance, right? And particularly in a situation where there isn't a broad spirit of deference, like most spouses won't be so differential, especially if they're grown up here, to in-laws. Like the husband wants to keep visiting the in-laws all weekend, most people growing up here, though life's not going to be very accommodating to that, right? And vice versa, right? So what do you do? That's where having that clarity, that it's not an obligation to listen to obey the parents. The obligation is to be respectful, to be kind, to, you know, in word and action and response. That helps one approach that you want to serve, you want to do it, but in a way that doesn't exaggerate other considerations, right? And once the key is upholding good character with them, as much as you can, you try to serve, but not in a way that's going to cause other harm. Because my parents, well, the parents said you visited them on Friday night, they want you to come Saturday and Sunday as well. But as a result, you're not going to go to the program on Saturday at the MCC with Imam Zaid, nor will you visit your parents on Sunday. What's that going to do? You'll be upset and it'll cause other imbalances. So that's why it, you have to know what the rights of your own parents are.  The in-laws, what are the, what's the right of the in-laws over, let's say the daughter. Purely legally, what are the rights? Purely legally, none. They have no right of demand over their son's daughter. And vice versa, right? Like, you know, the wife's husband, the wife's husband, the wife's parents have no right of demand over their son-in-law. Rather, they, if they ask something, you should do your best to do it. And that should be the spirit by which you approach it. But you have a right to see how you balance that with the other considerations, with your rights, with your children's rights, with your parents, and to come to a healthy balance. But how do you pursue that balance? You don't pursue that balance on the basis of reason. You pursue that balance on the basis of good character. Like, which in, you know, a lot of people refer to it as emotional intelligence, right? Relationships are based on akhlaq, on character, right? And adab, they're not based on reason, right? A lot of people, because they're like, they're kind of, you know, they're kind of like Bedouins. And so someone's, you know, the in-laws say, well, why don't you come Saturday night as well? We're making a wonderful party. So they say, I'm sorry, I can't come. I've already come here on Tuesday. I came here today. Do you think it's reasonable for you to ask me to come on Saturday as well, right? That may be actually true, right? But the Arab say, leisa kullu haqqin yuqad, not every truth is stated. Because if you say that, what's going to happen? They're going to feel wrong, then they're going to try to prove it in other ways. It's going to complicate things. And number two, it goes against good character. So do you have to go on Saturday night? If your in-laws say, come Saturday night as well? No. But how do you deal with it? Through good character. So they say, let me ask, let me ask Zubeyda, she runs the schedule, right? And let her deal with her parents, for example, right? Or Zubeyda's in-laws are saying, come Saturday night as well? She says, I'm not sure what Zubeyda has in mind on Saturday.  And then you guys agree on something. That's one of the strategies of dealing with in-laws is let the child deal with their parents, right? It also buys you a little time, right? But the key is uphold good character in it. Any other questions before we take a quick break? Go ahead. You talk about excellence. How can excellence be complete in obedience to your point of view? No, because excellence, we take into account excellence in a broader way, right? So the sunnah is give everyone as a right their due rights. So for example, a real life case, a good friend of mine, his marriage ended up in divorce because of his listening to his mother, because his mother says, beta, come and have tea with me after work. So every day being foolishly innocent, right? Every day after work, he'd stop at his mother's house and have chai. Now, of course, the chai would be accompanied by what? By some snack. Some day it's laddu. Some day it would be pakora. Some day it would be this. Some day it would be some chaat. Some day it would be actually just one pika. Some day they'd be like, it's just a snack but it's actually a meal. And this was just a little leftover from last night. But mom actually made it secretly because it comes over like you're looking weak, you know? So he has this and you know, and what's the minimum you could end up spending at your parents' house in that kind of situation? 40 minutes, an hour. So instead of getting home at six o'clock, he's getting home at 7, 7.30. And he's got that contented face of eating his mother's food. And the wife puts, you know, because wife's concerned husband's putting on weight.   And the little pieces of kabab, six of them. So what happened? It happened day in, day out. So the wife started getting upset. And of course she expressed the upset in many different ways, right? So she, you know, started snooping. She noticed that the monitor he asked for work had a TV in. So she started accusing him that you're watching TV secretly. And the guy was actually going, I know my friend, he's like pious guy. Poor guy, he read some hadiths about worshipping in secret. So you'd be worshipping in his basement office. She says, you're watching movies secretly at night. And he wasn't. Poor guy was trying to like, you know, pray to the Hajj of the Lord, his wife finding out, right?  Like sometimes to balance between the rights, how, what do you do? You have to use some discretion and wisdom, right? You don't say, no, you know, some people approach it rationally. No, mom, that's an unreasonable request. I can come once a week. More than that would be wronging my wife, right? That stirs up the mother's jealousy and you know, or other such things, but rather use discretion, right? And very often, like someone wants to get active in the community, it's difficult. Like, you know, I don't know the number of uncles and aunts my wife has in Toronto. Like immediate uncles and aunts. Like last I remember her father has seven or eight siblings in Toronto, maybe more, but it's confusing, right? And then her mother has a couple of siblings and there's other people, you know, it's like, quite complicated, right? So, you know, if we try to visit them as some expectations are, I couldn't possibly do anything else. So what do you do? You can't say, well, I'm sorry, I'm too busy. This is my schedule, so I'm sorry I can't visit you, but you have to use wisdom, right? And you have to see how you do it. Every one of her uncles and aunts would like us to go, you know, at least once a month. It's just doesn't, it's like very difficult. So you have to figure out how you do it. You do the best that you can, but with wisdom and tact, without hurting their feelings or anything. So that, so you're able to give others their rights so their children have rights over it. There's some people who are social in their family that the kids don't get their rights, whether they're worldly rights in terms of, you know, getting a proper, you can, I deal with cases where they're always visiting someone, but children need time for their studies. Children need time to play, you know, the children have rights. Also, the children never manage to learn Quran or learn their Deen why? Because they're always just social hopping, right? And how do you achieve that balance? To know that the rights of others are that you be good to them. And sometimes it requires that tact, right? So one of the ways we deal with it, like my wife, Masha'Allah, is really good at this, is that we try, instead of showing up at every family function, like family functions, mostly what do you do? You plump yourself in a seat and that's it. Do people really appreciate that you showed up to a large family gathering? Not really, like, you know, the social benefit in it, or the relational benefit in it is relatively small. But what we try to do, instead, is that we try to have a schedule, and we're not always successful in it, of visiting these people, right? And many of them are retired. And we have a flexible schedule, Alhamdulillah, so we'll visit them during the day. My wife will go and run errands for them once in a while, right? Because some of them need some help, right? I'm traveling right now, my wife's actually at her parents, right? So if they're quite elderly, they've got this huge mansion, they won't stop.  And, you know, there are two people, they're living in a house, and there's got like seven rooms and a garage for six, and like, I'm like, and they're not able to take care of my father-in-law, like 77 or something, they'll not give him health because he's still ticking, right? He's still climbing trees and doing all this stuff, but, you know, but I learned that, you know, some topics are outside. Because it's a very rational thing. Sell the house, move to a smaller place, you have a lot of money, you can live very comfortably, right? But anyways, so, you know, my wife's staying with her parents and, you know, she's helping them with a lot of little things that need to get done. So, but then once in a while, if there's some family function, they'd kind of like us to be there, et cetera, whatever. You know, some distant uncle from Hyderabad is visiting, et cetera, but I have a class.   So, you know, we, how do you balance it? You balance it with wisdom. You look at what meaningful things you can do, right? And that's how, but in that knowing what your parents' rights are, helps a lot. There's a lot of parents who try to be overburdened. Like, I have friends, for example, you know, whose parents said, beta, you can't, you know, for example, you know, the wife has parents in back home and wherever back home may be. And the parents say, beta, you can't go to Pakistan. It's too dangerous. But like, the wife wants to visit her parents back over, they're like, you have to obey the parents? You have to allay their concerns. You have to be respectful to them. But is it, if it was that dangerous, there'd be no flights left to Pakistan. There are still some flights. It is kind of dangerous, but people do survive. The population is growing. So not everyone's being killed, although it's kind of scary, to be honest, right? But sometimes there's some battles that you should lose, right? I've been in a number of times to do programs in Pakistan. My dad said beta, and my dad's like, really easy going. He's one of the coolest dads anyone could have, right? Alhamdulillah. And my dad said, you can't go. And it's actually not a very rational thing, right? But once in a while, you should know when to lose dramatically, right? And that's one of the ways to get your way, is once in a while, I actually personally thought about Pakistan, to be honest, right? You lose dramatically. And I announced it in front of family, said, oh, you know, I got this invitation to go to Pakistan, et cetera. I asked Baba, and he gave me really good advice and why I shouldn't go. And Baba feared. He listens to me even on religious things. And you lose dramatically. And that's one of the things in relationship. You should know when to lose your battles and to do so with the ultimate drama, right? And it works. My dad said, Masha Allah Faraz listens to me. He consults with me, right? And that's one of the things. Part of respect to parents is to consult with them, right? Like I needed to fire someone, like I won't give more details. I asked my dad, because you know, my dad's an Indian experience, isn't it? So you consult with them on life decisions. You don't have to listen. That's what they'll say, right? Even if you're out, my decision, you know, but my wife's, we renew our company. Not like we can either renew it or not. Like it's not a big decision, right? But my wife's like very analytic, right? So she decided, so I said, let's talk to your dad. My wife was actually quite, you know, like, I'm asking her to consult her. Also because my dad, my father-in-law is sensible, but my father-in-law is so like, you know, when my wife asked him, he's like, because we are honored, and that's part of the thing. You consult with them, and when you show respect, you actually earn a space, right? Because they feel comfortable in their relationship. Then you show respect to them. You ask them for advice, and then they'll let you be on other things, right? Then that's, you know, and it's not by being like manipulative, you know. It's very, the Sunnah teaches us balance and pragmatism, right? And one of the things is, you know, if you express respect, you can get your way out with most things. Bullah Alam. Any last question before we take a break? Allahumma salli wa sallim, wa sallim wa bariqa ala Sayyidina Muhammad, wa la alihi wa sahbihi wa sallamat as-salim al-kathira. So the key point that we're making with respect to in-laws is that, and one's own parents as well, is to appreciate that the central right they have is upholding good character with them. Is to be respectful, to be polite, to be kind, to be caring, right? That's the central right. And that should, one should have a spirit of striving to serve them, a spirit of deference, but in a manner that balances their wishes, right? With also the rights of your spouse, your children, and your own rights over yourself. So you try to come up with a healthy, positive balance, right? And when you're unsure of achieving that balance, if you're educated, then what do you do? You have to consult, because sometimes it's not easy. Like I just, I deal with a lot of these cases, for example, their sister, who's very close with her parents, but her parents are getting elderly, the other children have kind of not abandoned them, but they're overseas, and the parents are insisting that she move in with them. But she said, her husband won't move with them, because she's from Canada, her husband's from the States, and her husband doesn't like Canada. Actually, probably more, he's kind of scared of his in-laws, right? So what do you do? Hey, what do you do? If she listens to her parents and moves in with them, it's not only going to endanger her marriage, there's going to be a lot of fallout from that. So what do you do, right? And we discuss it, et cetera, and the solution was quite straightforward, right? Which is, I asked her, are you regularly in touch with your parents? I said, well, I talk to them once or twice a week, I said, no, call them every day, it's free. It's because it's called Skype, right? Even uncle and aunties now know how to use Skype, right? Skype is like, you know, there's a concept in religion called necessarily known of the religion, right? There's certain technologies that are necessarily known of modern life, right? Everyone knows how to use Skype, right? Shiu Khintarim use Skype, right? Actually, Shiu Khintarim use a lot of things that Shiu Khintarim in the West don't, right? There's a greater percentage of Ba'al-e-Shafes on Twitter than there are Western Muslim scholars on Twitter. It's kind of funny. But anyways, right? So sometimes there are intermediate solutions, right? That give a balance, right? That if her husband's refusing and it's going to, you know, she doesn't want to leave her husband, et cetera. So stay in touch with them daily. Yeah, and I know the family, they're quite well off. So would you be able to afford visiting them regularly? He said, I can't take the kids with me regularly. I said, but are you able to go regularly? So basically the solution is, stay in touch with them daily. Visit them, you know, as often as you can on your own. When you're able to, like during holiday breaks, et cetera, take the kids as well, right? Because she has a lot of extended family. Instead of she's comfortable leaving her kids with her in-laws, et cetera. So there's intermediate solutions. Let them come and visit once in a while, right? So they don't feel, it's not, should I move in with my parents or not? Sometimes we create these false dichotomies. Either I listen to them or I don't listen to them. Life is not about either or. The sunnah teaches us very often there's intermediate solutions that take everyone's interest into mind. Kids get very happy if they go visit somewhere else. Kids enjoy when grandparents come because they bring gifts, et cetera.  Did they like Anna? Yeah, go ahead. What's the responsibility of taking care of their parents then on their old age? In old age, the... If the daughter has a sign of the situation. Technically, the responsibility falls on all the children together. The financial responsibility falls in accordance with financial means, right? So if let's say there's three siblings, two sons and one daughter. But the two siblings are poor and the daughter is wealthy. Who has the greater responsibility of taking care of the parents? The daughter, because she has more means, right? Normally it would work out that if the daughter is married, very often she would have less means than the sons. But that's not always the case. It's in accordance with ability, right? Both in terms of spending and then also in terms of life situation, right? In terms of... So the... Were we in the middle of a question? Yeah, the responsibility of taking care of parents. Yeah, so the responsibility of taking care of parents. This becomes complicated, right? In that it's a reality that's very sad, right? That's very sad, right? That a lot of times it's one of the externalities, negative externalities of living in nuclear families, right? That very often the parents get shortchanged, right? Or they become perceived as a heavy burden. Like you have a friend of mine who's a social worker in Canada. It's very sad. The kinds of things that happen, like I don't know how things are here, but there's, where I live in Mississauga, if you go to the main, the most famous mall in Mississauga, square one, and you go during a workday, see this really sad reality of the South Asian uncles and aunties who are just walking around the mall. Because what the kids do, because heating is expensive, right? It's freezing cold. So what they do, they don't wanna run the heating. If you keep the heating off during the day or keep it very low, you're gonna save a few hundred dollars a month. So what do they do? They drop the parents off at the mall and actually to save money, they actually give them like a bag with food in it as well because they don't want them to spend money at the, see, right?  And also it's complicated in things, right? Because people here have a greater sense of privacy and more particular about the way they want things, but in-laws, especially if they're from back home, they'll say, well, you know what? I moved the painting from here to there and causes a fight, et cetera. So they won't let the kids, or some, you know, because both kids need, both husband and wife are working. Other people actually have bolts outside their house. Actually some, there's been attempts to have legislation to ban bolting out from the outside if people are inside.  So they go and they get lost outside. And in the winter, that's kind of dangerous, right? So it creates complicated situations. But part, and there's no simple answer to that. And there's no simple answer to that. But part of it is that, you know, one has, in one's decision-making, one has to consider the broader well-being, and to consider what balance of choices will be of the greater, right? Because very often we make very limited decisions, right? Like, you know, in my own family, I know people, you know, they couldn't buy a house anywhere in the greater Toronto area, but just because they got their dream home, they're living 70 kilometers away from their parents, 50 miles. How often are you going to be able to visit your parents if you live 50 miles away from them? Especially in a place like Canada where there's snowstorms and this and that, like, you know, and the parents are getting elderly, right? And sometimes you do have to be a bit directive with parents as well, right? The parents are living in one of the really upscale suburbs. The kids right now can't move in in that area because it's way too expensive, right? But that's where there has to be this sort of thinking, right? Of how can we create win-win-win situations, right? So in that case, for example, if anyone were to listen to me, and of course I'd, you know, they're buying laws, right? Like, you know, like if I said things like this, I'd be outlawed, but there's workable solutions. And I'm working on it indirectly, but I have to be careful because I don't want to antagonize anyone because I have no interest in the whole thing. Like, you know, we visit them a couple of times a week and you know, al-amdirillah, you know, we're, is you look at how can you create win-win-win situations that very often the kids will not be so willing to move in with the parents or have them live with them because it's kind of awkward. Both kids are working, but that doesn't preclude living close to one another, right? And it requires a certain give and take, right? And sometimes you have to be a little lovingly firm with your parents, right? Let's look, because the parents say, why are you living far away from us? So instead of saying, well, we either live close or we don't say, okay, why don't we all try to see somewhere where we can all move into the same neighborhood, right? And that is a mix of affordability and all these criteria. You don't have to live in that upscale suburb all on your own, okay? So to come up with a solution and you try to suggest workable solutions, right? And part of it is to make those, to make workable choices. And one of the things in that is consult because there's people who deal with these things and many people work it out. We have actually parts of our family and I'm sure all of you are familiar where people work out things like that, that they're living, they're not maybe living with the parents but they're living, they found houses next to each other or near each other. And the parents actually ultimately, sometimes they'll resist but they'll be happy because you sold a million dollar home, moved into half a million dollar home which is still a pretty good place but now suddenly you have half a million dollars of disposable wealth. That's not a bad place to be. A lot of dispute is the issue of obedience. Zubair comes back home and the biryani wasn't made. Did Zubaira have to make the biryani? Did Zubaira have to make the biryani? So the majority position within Islamic scholarship is that it's negated to obey the husband. It matters related to the relationship between two parties. It's sunnah, there's a general sunnah which as we mentioned before, it's not an absolute in all cases because they may agree to the circumstances may dictate the country but in general, it is not a modern obligation. In some cultural context, it may be the fatwa may be that the wife has to be the husband in leading scholars of Indian subcontinent for example to say that because of the exaggerated emphasis on the wife obeying the husband that reaches a level of excessiveness in expectations and demands that is not the fatwa in our times. So the husband cannot demand that the wife obey him in matters related to household duties, et cetera, but it is recommended for the wife to do that. All else being equal in the general case, why? Because that's how the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam divided work between say Nali and Sada, Fatima for example and that's been the historical norm across human societies that our understanding of gender roles is of complementarity rather than sameness. But at the same time, that's not a rigid complementarity because circumstances may differ. All right, any questions there? Another aspect, matters of intimacy cause a lot of differences, right? Cause a lot of differences and this is one of the areas where one of the scholars in Damascus put it that two of the areas where most disputes arise from are the bedroom and the kitchen, right? And sometimes one is that one has to see there's two aspects to matters of intimacy, right? One is the right of the other party and the other aspect is the sort of emotional relationship between the two parties, right? The elements of love and so on, right? But the Sharia teaches us to be pragmatic. We have ideals but we approach the ideals in a practical manner, right? So how does one deal with these kinds of matters of intimacy? We have an ideal that in general we should strive to have a romantic relationship and all this and courtship, et cetera, but it's also a matter of rights, right? So we distinguish, we see it in two ways, matters of intimacy. One, the right to intimacy is the right of the husband is the right of the wife. And then this is also meant to be a means of nurturing love and mercy. But if you feel that you have an expectation of the role of intimacy in the marriage, okay? Cause what do you do if you look at it in economic terms if every intimate relationship between husband and wife requires romance and courtship and so on, right? The emotional cost, so to speak, of any act of intimacy is too high and one party or the other will opt out, right? And that leads to a lot of detriment, leads to frustration, leads to people resorting to other things, can lead to infidelity, leads to all kinds of things, which are wrong choices, but you know, it comes from an imbalance within the marriage itself. So one needs to distinguish that there's an ideal. It's like the sunnah of intimacy is that there should be romance and love and courtship, et cetera. That's a sunnah, but underlying it is the right. The Prophet, as I'm said, if the ulama say it applies both ways. But, and that's one of the things important to understand. And there's many precedents related to that, that even if the wife is in the kitchen, cooking, busy, the wife chooses. And they say the opposite is also true. The opposite is also true. And that replies to the immediate, it also applies in general. The ones, St. Amar was patrolling Medina and this woman was singing this song in yearning for her husband. And St. Amar was having really good hearing because the number of stories of him hearing women and their complaints, right? But this woman was complaining of her desire for her husband and he heard it. So he asked her, like, what's the situation? And he went with a lot of people. And she said her husband was away on a military expedition and she's feeling very strong desire. What did she do? Said, let me get back to you. So he went and consulted a number of women, including his daughter, say the Hafsa. This how long do you feel a woman, is the longest period a woman could normally expect to be away from her husband, et cetera. And say the Hafsa gave an answer and he confirmed that with a number of other women. So he consulted experts, right, people. And say the Hafsa was one of the fuqaha of the female companions. And she had a lot of experience with women's issues. It was like a scholar and a counselor. He consulted her but he confirmed with other people and he gave an edict, not just a fatwa, an edict that the longest period someone could be away from their family, especially if their spouses were young, in jihad was a certain period of time. And I forget the exact numbers, I'm not gonna mention it. It's either three or four months, but I'm not 100% sure. So this is one of the aspects related to intimacy, right? That you have, try to have a certain norm that this is how you strive to do it, but if one party seeks it, whether you feel like it or just consider it, they're right and fulfilled with balance, right? With balance. And there's many, many, a lot of research recently that these romantic notions of love and intimacy are of great detriment to relations, right? And they're unrealistic. And this is a right for both parties. The right for both parties. As long as it's reasonable. As long as it's reasonable, right?  I said, if you got the kind of questions I get, you'd be like laughing all day, right? Yeah, because someone asked me just, I don't know how to answer. Someone said, I feel warmth on my, you know, on my rear. What does that mean? We're like, how do I know? That's not a religious question, right? Like, and that was seriously the question, right? And so, you know, one of my friends said, I think I'm gonna get fired from work because of my wife. Why? So my wife keeps insisting I come back home during work hours. What do I do? So I'm gonna, like, you know, and of course, six months before, he'd been complaining of the opposite, right? And, you know, within bounds of reason and sensibility and dignity, et cetera, but this is an area one should be aware of, you know, one distinguishing between what, you know, that there's a reasonable right the other party has that one should not refuse, right? Any reasonable, one should not refuse.  If you might. And the other is that one strives to fulfill that in accordance with the Sunnah. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave us an incredible amount of instruction regarding the physical rights of one's spouse, right? Of course, I got myself in trouble once because a good friend of mine, Musfi Muhammadan bin Adam, like a lot of scholars, he dealt with a lot of issues of sexual intimacy. He said, you know, there's so many problems related to this, I'm thinking of writing a book on it. I said, go, okay?  People don't know what they're doing, right? Which is why. And sometimes, you know, one of the ways you can deal with family and in-laws is to be kind of cool, right? I had a cousin getting married. And I was thinking, like, what present should I get him? So a dignified manual on the subject was, three letter word for dummies. So I got that for my cousin, right? And I was like, Faraz, it's so cool, right? I didn't think that a Maldi Sahib would give me that kind of gift. So actually, most people are clueless, right? And actually, there's an ulterior motive, which is I wasn't going to go to visit, I wasn't going to his wedding. I'm sorry, I didn't have this $800 to spend to go to the wedding. And the wedding was likely going to be questionable. So I said I sent a gift with my brother. But people are clued out, right? And just one of the things to learn about as well. Again, and we'll leave it at that on that subject. And sometimes it's good to be practical, right? The last thing on intimacy, sometimes it's good to be practical. One of the scholars in Damascus, he was dealing with this problem and this problem across the world, that all these couples would disagree about frequency and time, et cetera. And he was a spiritual guide, the Syrian spiritual guide. He actually, he just simplified the decision making process. He said, if you're under 35, I think 35 or 34, three times a week. So they actually called it, the weirdo sarif, the bedroom routine. And sometimes it's good to come up with, like there's a problem, instead of saying, okay, what's the problem? Why are you not doing what, just to agree. Okay, why don't, we just set up a schedule. These nights, at this time, et cetera, right? So you set up a practical schedule, but you fulfill it not as a routine, but in a positive way, right? And it's good to be pragmatic, right? Think instead of complicating, let's discuss, let's go to, you know, that the sunnah is about action-based change. You have a problem and say, okay, what can we do to gradually make things better? And that's the act. And if you ever seeking counseling, the most effective counseling that the sunnah suggests, in most cases, is practical action-based counseling, that behavioral, right? That suggests positive behavioral changes. But you can sit and discuss for six months with a counselor, why exactly is your husband hesitant and why do you refuse? And six months will pass and the problem is probably just getting worse and worse, right? So simple steps, look at what you can do to change things for the better. Another area where problems arise is children. All kinds of problems. When to have children. How many children to have? How you will raise the children? You know, what kind of schooling? Public school, private school, Islamic school, which Islamic school, homeschooling, what type of homeschooling, what curriculum? You know, all these things. So how do you approach it? Okay? One practical thing is this again should be something that should have, at least some broad discussion should be made beforehand, right?  See, at least five children. Your wife's saying, I want no more than two, right? Or vice versa, right? What are you going to do about it? Right? The wife says, I want to delay having children until I finish grad school. But she's still an undergrad.  She's hoping to go back to university once you start paying for it, right? So, it's not going to take like four or five years and you want to have children now, right? So these things should be discussed beforehand, right? Ideally, right? And very often people discuss though, if you deal with, like one of the things that makes me feel like an uncle, like I have, you know, I'm Uncle Rabbani, is, you know, what people discuss about marriage, right? I know like someone closely related to me, they call off a potentially good marriage on the basis, I kid you not, of what we games each party like.  And they got into an argument about that and they call off the whole thing. Over Wii Tennis, like come on. If you want to really play Wii Tennis, go ahead.  But, you know, a lot of petty things are discussed. You know, are you going to do stitching? I was actually asked that when I was getting married, right? And I just said no, right? But I did admit that I know how to do it, because scouting. But instead of, you know, general things, look at things that are important to you in marriage and you discuss them beforehand. Questions here? But of course the million dollar question is, what if you disagree during the marriage, right? Which is a distinct possibility, right? So what would you do if you disagreed during the marriage? Yeah, I mean, that's all you can do, right? That's all you can do.  I say, you know, sometimes the waves of ideals come crashing on the rocks of reality, right? You can say, okay, I'm only going to home school in this way, et cetera. But your husband, your wife says absolutely not. They have to go to public school. They have to do this, et cetera. So what are you going to do, right? And one of the ways to do it is to look at what next steps we can take. Don't focus on why do you want this and why do I want that and try to like, you know, convince the other person, et cetera. But to focus, okay, what are next steps that we can take? Yeah, and try to see if there's a win-win situation. Possible, and very often there is. But if you try to look at it in a forward-looking way, very often you can allay a lot of the concerns that the other party has, right? Like, you're bent on home schooling. The husband says, absolutely not. So, well, you know, and the other thing, of course, is try to understand what the concerns of the other party are. Because if you can capture what the other party's concerns are, you're likely going to be able to allay them. Right? Or at least be closer to resolution. The final say in that matter. It's not as simple as if the final say, right? Technically, right? Technically, the husband's supposed to be the Amir in the household, right? But who are you leading, right? Leading implies that someone is following too, right? And for someone to be leading and someone to be following, it also entails that they're going in the same direction. Right? Like, if the Amir is one who's leading someone who's going with them, right? But the Amir isn't the one who ties up, you know, the other party and drags them. That's not an Amir, right? So there's, you know, there is that, you know, there has to be a sense of, okay, that yes, there's the idea of there being deference, but let's say, the real life case, let's say that the wife strongly feels that the decision the husband wants to make regarding the children is a detrimental decision. Does she just have to give in? No. Right? So it's more sophisticated than that, right? The leader, the Amir is the leader who's in the role of being a shepherd, being a shepherd. And it requires, you know, it requires one, it requires it's consultative, right? But you have to win over the other party. And also sometimes you have to realize that you want to go that way, the flock wants to go that way. What are you going to do? Right? And sometimes you can get your way and sometimes you don't, right? So it becomes more, it becomes complicated, right? And sometimes you do have to take a stance. You feel that something is either wrong on religious ground or sometimes it's an unreasonable demand, right? It's unreasonable demand. You know, like I deal with cases where a lot of people get infatuated about homeschooling. Sometimes your men want their kids to be homeschooled. Of course, who's going to do it? No mother, when she feels she can't. Not big, not for some religious reason, she feels she'll be too much for her, right? Does she have to listen? No, right? Cause she has rights over herself too. Like it's a, you know, and the problem and the issue with rights is that they're not straightforward, right? And that's part of why marriage is such a potential for earning the pleasure of Allah swt. Cause it's very complicated. There's not, in many situations, there's not just a simple solution. Do this, right? Cause human beings are complicated. There's multiple considerations and impulses, right? So what do you do, right? I'd like the wife, the mother may know that, yes, this may be religiously good for the children, but I might have an emotional breakdown if I stay home all day taking care of the kids. Cause it's just too much, yeah? And so sometimes, you know, you have to say, no, I can't do it. But to do it with wisdom, not just to refuse and start blaming the other party, but seeing, okay, what a reasonable solution. So for example, in my own family, you know, my sister, for example, how does she dare, you know, she's half hydro, right? They, you know, my sister in general, my sister is extremely social by nature, right? Dynamically social. Actually, sometimes, you know, she sets up multiple social appointments at the same time, which is really spectacular. Like once, you know, my sister and her family was at my place and we're having dinner and her phone rings. And it was my, her father-in-law says, Azim, oh my God, I'd agreed to, I'd invited your dad over to our house. So my sister agreed to come to my house, but she'd invited, she'd invited her father-in-law to her place. Your father-in-law alone, her mother-in-law passed away a number of years ago. So, and he had the key to the house. So he was sitting in their living room. And then she got a text message from some friends who were waiting for her at some restaurant. They were like, you know, a reunion of some friends from university. So she made three appointments at once, all right? So my sister was like, and then I just said, Azim, we gotta go. And my brother-in-law, who I admire, because I've never seen him get upset. He's like, the calmest guy I know, right? And the Rabanis were all like pretty hot-blooded. So he's very often the voice of calm and reason in our family, like. He's like, I know, that's finished. So he called his father and says, well, we're just running a little late. You know, why don't you, and he suggested something or the other for his father-in-law to do, all right? And so his father-in-law was placated. But my sister genuinely felt there's no way she could homeschool, right? They'd be just overwhelming friends. She has four kids now, she can't. But they came up with a reasonable solution, right? She works at an Islamic school. So the four kids, their tuition is subsidized. It's a good Islamic school, very good academically, but she's at the school. So she's able to give that extra watchful eye over the kids, et cetera. And they created a win-win situation. So it's not a case where the husband being, it means that whatever the husband says goes. It's not a, you know, it's not like, it's kind of like a president.  Like, you know, the president doesn't have absolute powers. There's checks, there has to be checks and balances, right? So, you know, and that's the challenge of marriage, right? The challenge of marriage, that you have to be committed to making it work. Any other questions? We talked about household duties and chores, so we'll leave them, you know, aside. One of the trivial things that are significant, that cause a lot of dispute and much more than you'd imagine, are annoying habits and personality. He has bad breath, right? He doesn't close a toilet lid. He doesn't close a toilet lid. He insists, I don't know why he stands. It's against the sunnah, right? Or all kinds of things.  Only a little, you know, all these kinds of things, right? She puts too much spice in the food, right? She visits her friends too much, right? He hangs out at the masjid for too long. His beard is too prickly. You know, all kinds of things which you may think are funny, but when people are in that situation, that like, you know, sometimes the littlest thing can really disturb a person for a long time, right? It's like Imam Shadr, he said that the spiritual insight of the heart is like the eyesight. The littlest thing that falls in it disturbs it completely, right? But the same thing applies to our feelings. You know, sometimes the littlest thing can disturb your feelings completely. Now you get really upset, why? My wife didn't make dal. You really like dal? No, then why are you so upset? Because she didn't make dal, right, you know?  My wife, you know, like one friend was complaining, why have never buy soda? She said, do you drink Coke? She said, no, then why are you upset? She said, well, when the guests come, she said, do all your guests really want soda? Probably not. Like, I know his friends are all like, you know, like my friends, they're all like tree huggers, you know, they're all shopper whole foods if they could afford it, but they can't, so they don't, right? They'd have organic halal, but it's expensive. But that kind of, you know, the shekhamza generation, right? Allah is the Greatest. So how do you deal with these issues, right? The simplest, there is, you have 80% of things that annoy you, you should overlook and that's it. Right, because most of them, if you pause and think about it, they're of complete insignificance. You know, someone's like, why are you wearing those shoes again? Like, who cares? He's wearing the shoes, let him wear them. Like, how does it change your life, right? Like most people don't really care what shoes people are wearing, right? Did they, were wearing some useless shoes just, right? Why don't you buy a new pair of shoes? And okay, it's good, they save some money, right? Or, you know, or deal with it in a wise way, right? Deal with it in a wise way.  And I'm like, what?  And my wife's like, you know, like she'd continue wearing the shoes until they last, very, very practical. So what I did, instead of arguing with her, I just went and checked her shoe size so I'd never remember it. Just ordered her a spectacularly good pair of shoes. That made me really happy, right? And my wife's like, why did you get these shoes? But in the end, she couldn't deny they're really good, so she started wearing them. Simple as that, right? And a lot of times you look at, instead of focusing on the problem, see, is there a way to deal with it? That blows away the problem, right?  We have too much time here. Why do you keep changing this? No, but the thing is, how do you cause change in your spouse, right? How do you change your spouse? It's called chipology. Chipology, or simply we call it shepherd day, right? But chipology is that you have to understand the temperament of sheep, right? The Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, told us that each of you is a shepherd and each of you is responsible for their flock, right? And what do the shepherds heard? They heard sheep, right? So what do you do with sheep? And some of you have heard actually in Amman and the neighborhood I lived in, actually my next-door neighbor had a flock of sheep. And what do you do? If you want to get your way with your husband, treat him like a sheep. Don't tell him he's a sheep because then he'll start making some noise, right? And you want to get your way with your wife, treat her like a sheep, right? So each treating the other like a sheep. Now how do you deal with sheep? I spent actually a lot of time thinking about this. My next-door neighbor had a flock of sheep in a suburb of Amman, completely against the law, but he's from a prominent family so they could do whatever they want, right? And it was really cool because he was from a Bedouin family, from the Khadrullah family actually. And it was really cool because Bedouins don't show him. They went to the Prophet's license, they saw one of these Bedouins saw the Prophet's license, keeping his grandchildren.  The Prophet said, yes, said, yes. He said, wallahi, we don't kiss our children. The Prophet said, what can I do if Allah has taken mercy out of someone's heart, right? So my next-door neighbor had, his wife died and they're burying her right there in the hill next to our houses. And after she was buried, he broke down crying, and he said, and which is very unusual for a Bedouin, broke down crying, he said, she was a good woman. You know the first thing he said about her? She used to take care of my sheep. He was crying, he was so cute. Because his wife would take, and actually out of, you know, Hajfal-e-Ismanliness, his wife would take care of the sheep in the early morning period when it was cooler and he would take care of them in the mid-afternoon and stuff when it was hot, it was warmer. Because it's much more difficult to be outside at that time. But that a very beautiful relationship, but you notice about sheep, right? That sheep do the wackiest things. Sheep are not rational beings, and human beings are not rational beings, really. Much of what we do is not rational, right? So how do you deal with sheep? Like if you want, well, the first thing with sheep is you have to be patient with them, you have to be patient. It's simple, and that's what they say. Herding sheep, people use it more after you use it deliberately. No, they're just being patient. Because you're walking, you know, the sheep are all going straight. Suddenly for no obvious reason, a sheep bolts and starts running up the hill. And some of the few other sheep will follow. Now, if you start running after them, they may fall over the hill, right? They may do, they may trip over and like, you don't know what will happen. What's the best thing to do at that? In most cases, 80% of the time, this is gonna come right back. It requires attention. The minority of the cases. But most of that, yep, pardon me. That's it, and it'll come back. There's a bit more minority of cases that require some further attention in that. But that's very minor, small case. Most of the time, but then if the shepherd is in cruise control, right? So you have like shepherd in cruise control. Where does the shepherd walk when the sheep are in cruise control? That the shepherd is behind the flock. Who's setting the direction of which way the flock is going? Who's setting the direction? The shepherd, not the sheep. And that's what shepherd is doing. That if you want to get your way in relations, you have to, the other party has to feel that they're going the way that they want. But who's setting the direction? Right? Who's setting the direction? The shepherd. And that's the essence of parenting too. The children have to want to do it themselves. But what they want to do is want them to be wanting to do. And yet, it's still that, right? And it requires wisdom. It requires growing what the right incentives are. And different people are different. Not all sheep are different people, right? Like some people, like my wife, some people's wife spent too much money. My wife even thinks, I know she needs, she needed a new computer. We have to get you a new computer. And it's kind of important because she teaches that and works at Secret's Guidance. Nope. Now you could argue till the cows come home. That has got her really nice. Hi Mac. This is like originally the first, like I bought her. And I just put it where her old computer used to be. And I installed everything. Actually I knew her passwords. Got her email set up with her. Thumbs down. And you know, she can't complain. Like it's like, it's obviously a beautiful machine. Let's see, like, she's really appreciative. I knew when the iPad was coming out. I think my wife was convinced. My wife believes with no hesitation she thought of the iPad before Atlas. Right? I needed some credit. But when it came out, she was refusing to go. It's actually not. I just ordered one for her anyways. And different people, they react in different ways. And you just have to know how to influence them, right? In a positive way. But you have to be careful because a lot of things that talk about how to influence oneself, et cetera, they're actually very dangerous. And you have to be very, very careful about this. One of the most detrimental things that one can fall into is what's called the psychology of influence. There's a lot of stuff about the psychology of influence that is just dark. It's dark. It's manipulative. It's manipulative. The Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam taught positive ethical influence. If you look at what people talk about, social psychology and psychology of influence, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam used every trick in the book. But he used it in a positive manner. That was ethical. That was not self-serving, right? But it was out of nothing but sincere concern for the good of the other, right? So when we talk about influencing your spouse, it's not about manipulation, right? There's all kinds of literature out there. And it may work in the short term, but long term it breeds resentment and it's detrimental to relationships. And there's a lot of studies about the detrimental effect of these modes of social influence. Like, so be careful, okay? Because also these, they're based on, the influence is you influence the other party to get what you want. But the Sunnah is that you try to exert positive influence in ethical ways for the good first, the first concern is, none of you believes until they wish for the other as they wish for themselves, right? You want the good for the other just as you want it for yourself. But it's based on a balance that you want the good for yourself and for the other party and you want the good for the relationship as well. So it's not manipulative and that has to be very clear. So what do you do? Learn the Sunnah. And learn the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, right? Hey, a beautiful example of these things and because it begins with it because if you change in the relationship, normally the spouse will change as well. And even if they don't, you did what's pleasing to Allah S.A.W. Someone was critical of Abu Hanifa's student, Abu Yusuf. He said, why do you dress up like this? Because a lot of the righteous would dress very simply, right? In tattered clothing, Abu Yusuf would dress immaculately. Even the wealthy in Baghdad would look at him and be impressed. He dressed like so fine. And he said, look, just as I like my wife to dress up for me, I like to dress up for my wife, right? And you know, and this is a reality that, you know, the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam emphasized as well, that do things that what's going to be pleasing to Allah S.A.W. And that change begins from within. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us, for example, that if you're coming back from a trip, what are you supposed to do? You shouldn't arrive at night. Because people are, you shouldn't arrive unexpected. You shouldn't arrive unannounced. Even in the old days, which is not easy to do, right? They said, send someone to inform them beforehand of when you're coming, right? Like, send a messenger, tell them, I'll be arriving at that time. Even if you arrive, they say it's best to wait somewhere and send someone to tell them that he'll be getting there in the next hour. And wait, don't just go.  Why? Because you want them to be in the best of states. And then what do you do? You don't just show up, right? You're supposed to fix up your appearance. If you're able to, you should change your clothes. You should brush your teeth. You should put on perfume.  But you also give the other party the opportunity to do that. And that's the model of a marriage. Both parties are trying to please the other in order to seek the pleasure of Allah, right? And if one did that, then these kinds of things should be cast aside, right? Any questions? We have about 15, 20 minutes. So what we're going to do is to open up the floor. If you have specific questions, we've tried to cover a broad amount of ground, but if you have specific questions, please do go ahead.  Is that something that is restricted to that area or something that we could use? No, broadly, like, you know, scholar, that's the default in the sharia to begin with, right? The default in the sharia is what is the reality of a marriage? What is the reality of a marriage, right? A marriage is a willful agreement between two morally responsible human beings that they agreed to come together in a relationship that entails certain rights and responsibilities, right? It is not a relationship of ownership or slavehood or servanthood, et cetera, right? And, you know, however, but there's a balance. It's not, they say, laifrata wa latafriyup, there's neither excess nor laxity, right? But we also know that there is, there are, we have real life models of how a marriage should be. And a pragmatic, you know, and a balanced pragmatism of how things will work. And we have the witness of human history of how relations work out. And there's a clear sense there of complementarity, of, you know, that there has to be a spirit of giving in the marriage, that the wife should defer to the husband and the husband should defer to the wife in particular ways. And there's spheres of where one should defer more to the other and vice versa. And these are ideals. Not all of us are able to fulfill all ideals all the time.  Just like, you know, in the ideal case, every one of us should be one of the awliya, right? In the ideal case, all of us should be getting up for tahajjud, you know, half the night or a little less or a little more. Because that's what the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam did. The Quran is clear about that. But do we? Right? So we don't operate on the ideal and everything. So the deen gives us pragmatic reality. If you fall short, don't fall completely off the parameters of positive conduct, right? Any other questions? So I mean, in summarizing some of the main points that we touched upon, one, the centrality of upholding good character. But that gives us certain imperatives. All of us should have a commitment to always be learning about the prophetic character, right? And always having a reflective attitude that where am I at with respect to my conduct and character? And what is the standard? The standard is the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. Critical to marriage are two qualities that one has to restrain. One is one's anger and the other is one's speech. And if you struggle with that, that the cure for confusion is knowledge. But one must learn about those things, right? One must learn about those things and treat one's challenge first. Sometimes you can handle it on your own, learn about it, try to apply what you learn. If you struggle, you consult. How do you approach the disagreements that happen in marriage? The Sunnah teaches us not to be critical, but rather to try to come up with positive solutions, right? The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam never criticized people. He, so a beautiful example was the son of Um Salama. The son of Um Salama, his name was Umar, Umar ibn Abi Salama. He was a child and food was served in front of him and he was very hungry. So what was he doing? He was eating with both hands from all over the plate. Now, how would most of us correct it, a child who was doing that?  So eating with both hands, without saying Bismillah, from all over the plate. What would most of us do, huh? Yell, what else?  You take the plate away, right? Yeah, and actually that's a form of child abuse, to say one of the things that you should never say to the parents, what's wrong with you? Because imagine if someone said it to you, what's wrong with you?  If someone asks you what's wrong with you, I could get into depression. Like what's wrong with me? That's a, you know, that's a devastating question. If you take it literally, it's a devastating question. What's wrong with you? It's like the ultimate put down, right? I'm honest, if someone asked me that, I'd feel traumatized, right? That wouldn't, but you know, like, I'd want to feel traumatized, cause I like drama, right? But I probably wouldn't, cause I probably just wouldn't care. But, you know, but if you ask that, what's wrong with you, why did you do that? Like how could a child, like a six year old child figure out, why did I do that? The whole reason the child is not morally responsible, cause they haven't reached maturity of intellect. Someone asked you, why did you do that, right? Why did you, at 12 30 at night, eat the third slice of black forest cake? The answer to that is not of any benefit, cause it's already eaten, right? It's already eaten, right? So that's not the question to add, that's being negative. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam never had a negative response. What did he do with this child? And that doesn't apply just to parenting, it applies in relationships as well, broadly and in marriage. Anyone know what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did? And this is how you always respond to Allah. He told the child, ya Ghulam, ya Ghulam, O dear child, sammillah, begin in the name of Allah. Wa qul bi aminik, and eat with your right hand.  Would you be upset? Okay, sure, I'll say bismillah. And eat with your right hand. Okay, sure, I'll do that. And not, why didn't you say bismillah? Cause someone tells you, why didn't you say bismillah? Your nefs will immediately feel a resistance. What do you say? Why don't you say bismillah? Okay, sure, right? Say bismillah, okay? Eat with your right hand, okay?  He empowered this person, this child, right? His stepson, right? The son of Umsalama, his wife, from her previous marriage, Abu Salama passed away, right? And so he was in the prophetic household, right? And that's how you focus not on what was done, but how you can rectify the situation in a positive way, right?  Now you could put her down and say, I don't like why you wear the, so why don't you wear that other jilbab? You're okay, right? So all that, or to look at a positive way, right? To look at a positive way of dealing with things, right? And also have a good opinion on, they make a mistake, don't assume that they had ill impulses. So if your spouse is sitting, listening to a talk about in praise of ugliness, and suddenly some obscene image comes up, have a good opinion that they didn't know that it was going to be obscene. Yeah, that's happening, you know? You're like, and that was the first obscene image in the whole thing. I was like, aww, right? And anyways, you know? So have a good opinion of your spouse, right? In general, what's the ruling of having a good opinion of others in our deen? It's an obligation, right? So a fortiori would apply in marriage. So these are some keys to dealing with the challenges of marriage. Any other questions? Alhamdulillah. So we'll stop there, bideen-lahi ta'ala. The, in this, there's one final aspect, right? I'll just skip over this just, which is that, you know, part of having a successful marriage is, as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, we looked at his dua, right? About, you know, sir, his dua, right? Is that never lose a sense of what you're trying to achieve in the marriage. That's the last thing, you know, we've emphasized this in the beginning and we'll close with that, right? That have a, begin your marriage with a clear sense of purpose and strive to renew that sense of purpose throughout the marriage. One of the things that I'd like to point, like what are the purposes in marriage? If you go to the Seekers Guidance website and search for intentions of marriage. One of the great Yemeni scholars, he put together the intentions one should have in marriage. Because sometimes it's very abstract to tell someone, seek Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's pleasure in marriage. So, okay, but how? And how? So this is a beautiful, you know, dua actually, right? It's a dua of the intentions of marriage that I intend through my marriage to seek the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala by and in all these ways, right?  So one of the practical things to do is to the few practical takeover, how do you sustain the purpose in marriage? Number one, before entering marriage, make a clear intention, to seek the pleasure of Allah, but detail out. And sometimes it helps to write it down. It makes it more real. How exactly will you seek the pleasure of Allah through this marriage? For example, when my wife and I were getting married, we were both here. We wanted to go over to you. So we made a very clear intention. You know, one aspect of our intention in marriage is that we're getting married to seek the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala by learning the Deen and by teaching the Deen. And we will both support one another in doing so. We're a bit dramatic as well. Asghar, Alhamdulillah, it worked out well because a bit of a dramatic thing. We both said actually in our marriage agreement that if at any time either one of us is a hindrance to the other in learning or serving the Deen, that we will separate without hesitation. And then I gave my wife the right of divorce. That was the only thing. Shiaq didn't ask for it for anything else. Actually, I'd never advise anyone. But we had a clear sense of purpose, but it really helped out because some of the times when we're overseas, there were struggles. There was difficulties. There's some actually, some difficult choices. One of my teachers advised me to go and spend some time in Pakistan. My wife really didn't want to do it in terms of her own choice. But when she, had she refused, I wouldn't have gone. But when the issue came up, she said, if this is what it takes for you, for your learning and serving the Deen, then we're gonna do it. And actually, I was hoping she'd say no, because I really didn't want to go to Pakistan. I was terrified. Not terrified like personally, just, I was like kind of fed up of Desi Deen at that time. My worst fears were actually, it was very good for you.  No, I didn't complain even one. Why? Because there's a higher purpose. We knew what we're getting ourselves into. Right? Alhamdulillah. So that's, you know, so set that clear intention. Helps to write it down, right? And you know, what I've suggested of the intentions of marriage helps you in terms of what kind of intentions you should have. The secondary intentions are how you will seek the pleasure of Allah. But also personally, the things that relate to you and you should have discussed them out. Make that intention. And it's good to revisit that intention on a regular basis. It's from the sunnah to renew one's intentions. So make high intentions for marriage. Number two, renew those intentions. That reinstills that sense of purpose. Number three, always make a lot of dua for your spouse. My name, not just general. I make dua for the Muslims and she's Muslim. I make dua for the believers and as far as I know, she's still a believer. No, by name, asking for the good for them. Cause that nurtures concern, right? And the Prophet of Islam used to make a lot of dua for individual people. And if you just, you could compile a book of all the individual people of the Prophet of Islam used to make dua for by name, right? And that's an important aspect. The third aspect is guard your heart in the marriage. I guard your heart in the marriage because there's a relationship. Marriage is meant to nurture your faith. It's meant to nurture your religiosity, your akhlaq. But the opposite is also true. In order to nurture the marriage, you need to be nurturing your faith. You need to be nurturing the things that nurture your akhlaq, which is what? Practically, the health of your religion is based on two broad things. What are they? These two broad things are knowledge and remembrance of Allah, Subhanahu Ta'ala. The Prophet of Islam said, This worldliness is distant from divine mercy because laan, which literally means accursed, but it's not an insult. Allah is not cursing the dunya. Laan is al-bo'adhu, al-ti'adu an-rahmatillah. Laan means that something is distant from divine mercy. Worldliness, meaning that in which there's no concern for Allah, distance you from divine mercy. And worldliness is distant from divine mercy except for the remembrance of Allah and that which relates to his remembrance and except for a person teaching knowledge or a person seeking knowledge. So the health of the deen, so that we don't become of what they're called, abna ad-dunya, so we don't become worldlings that you have to have the two prophetic streams of good flowing in your life. What are they? You need to have some kind of connection to beneficial knowledge. On a regular basis, right? With the balance that we've emphasized. And number two, you have to have meaningful spiritual routines of remembrance of Allah, right? And it doesn't mean that you try to like regulate your husband or wife's spiritual life, but you have to create the atmosphere in the house that it should be of the houses where Allah is remembered. And one person is enough for that, right? If your husband doesn't recite Qur'an, et cetera, what you should be doing, if you become a person of zikr of Allah, a person of Qur'an, your spouse will be positively affected. If not in the short term, in the long term, right? And change can take time. Some of the greatest companions, their own spouses, their own parents took 15, 20 years to become Muslim. Abu Bakr al-Siddique, his father became Muslim. You know when he became Muslim? At the opening of Mecca. And would anyone be more keen for their family to become Muslim than Abu Bakr al-Siddique, all ad-dillah, at Anhu? Right? But change takes time. But you just have to keep the net in the water and you'll see the benefit eventually by Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. And so have these routines, right? And that actually gives you the strength to have the right response, right? What is the gift that we have from Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is that light of guidance in our heart. For a successful marriage, use that light to bring light to your relationship, right? Right? And it's very simple. If you follow him, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, you will find guidedness. What is guidedness? Guidedness is the good of this life, right? And the good of the next. And learn about those Sunnahs, right? There's incredible amounts of Sunnahs of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And learn about them. You know the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was the ultimate romantic. Say that Ayesha mentioned with pride that if she drank from a cup of water, the Prophet sallam would pick up the cup, turn it around and drink from where he drank from. Right? Incredible little things, right? She mentions, and she mentions with pride why she had the duty to convey these things. These things that normally we wouldn't mention to others. But she mentioned the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam used to nibble my lips in affection. And she mentioned it because she wanted to tell people like, you know, be affectionate to one another. And she was duty bound.  And all kinds of incredible little things that he used to do, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and that's one aspect. A lot of times people spend their time foolishly with the sunnah, trying to figure out how did the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam pray? If we don't know how the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam pray now, and you're trying to figure it out 1400 years later, means the deen wasn't preserved, you should give up, go home, and just start crying that we lost. But alhamdulillah, the deen is preserved and was preserved by the great imams of Islam. What should you be focusing on from the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam? There's no hadith that the believer is most perfect in faith, are those who wiggle their finger the most.  These are all disputes. Every one of these issues of dispute that you spend your time, waste your time on, the sahaba differed upon, all of them.  The thing that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam came with, he didn't say, I only came to tell people the specific way of praying. No. I was only sent to perfect noble character. And that's the key, that's the key. And how do you acquire it? You should have a regular connection with learning the teachings of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And with consistency, you'll see the change coming. So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and closing. Rabbana hablana min azwajina wa dhurriyatina qurata ayunin wa ja'alna lil muttaqina imama. Allahumma ja'alna min abidaka su'adaa al ladina tuwajjihum nakhwa sunnatin nabiqa al mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Allah we ask you that you grant us in our spouses and in our offspring a joy for our eyes and make us of the foremost of the people of piety. We ask you that we realize the meanings and implications of this noble verse. That we realize that we cannot possibly raise our children and have healthy believing families on our own but that we require mutual concern and community in which to raise healthy families. We ask you that we be of those who have long-term vision so that we seek not only to preserve faith for ourselves and our children but for our offspring until the last day. Ya Rabbil Alameen, we ask you that we be of those who seek not merely to get by in this life as believers but that we be of those who raise their aspiration and who seek to be the foremost of the most beloved of your servants, the people of true taqwa. Ya Rabbil Alameen, we ask you O Allah that we be of those who have true reliance upon you and who see the sunnah of your beloved messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam as a tremendous and transformative spiritual opportunity, a means and guidance by which we are empowered to make the right choices in our life and in our religion so that we can be people who pursue the good in our own lives, who pursue and promote the good in our own families, who pursue and promote the good in our relationships with our spouses, with our parents, with our children. We ask you O Allah to make us manifestations of the good of those who's very conduct and who states and whose actions inspire others to seek Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala We ask you that we be parents whose children aspire to be like us, that we don't have to tell them the right thing to do but rather they seek the right thing because of what they see of our own conduct and character and actions Ya Rabbil Alameen, we ask you that we be of the best of spouses and of the best of children and of the best of parents Ya Rabbil Alameen, we ask you that we be of those who are humble and honest and sincere and true so that anytime we fall short of that radiant standard of light and virtue that you have gifted us with, the standard of your beloved Messenger Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that we be of those who hasten to rectify, who do not feel shy to apologize and to mend what we have harmed Ya Rabbil Alameen and that when we see difficulties and distress we see these as opportunities Ya Rabbil Alameen to seek your pleasure by responding in according to what will be pleasing to you rather than responding in accordance with our egos and our lower desires Ya Rabbil Alameen, this is our call and you are the one who answers wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina wa Nabina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam atasleeman kathira wa akhiru da'wana anil hamdulillahi rabbil alameen Alhamdulillah, adjazaakum wa ta'ala khayr for your patience. You want the consolation or the answer? Okay. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam atasleeman kathira As you mentioned, there's a number of hadiths that mention different ages in the development of a human being, right? And those are, they say, lilaqlab, that's the general case. So, for example, with children, they, you know, that, you know, the age of discernment, what's called sinnut tamiz is considered to be seven years. And tamiz, that's interesting. In Urdu, what does tamiz mean? Manners, right? But tamiz in Arabic, actually, Urdu is very useful to know Arabic, because you'll get insights into words that Arabs, because Arabs don't have, tamiz doesn't mean manners in Arabic. But what is manners? Manners is being able to distinguish the right thing to do, right? So the age of distinguishing. Now you can distinguish between benefit and harm, like, you know, if a seven-year-old child goes to the store, they're supposed to be able not to get cheated, right? They don't want to buy a chocolate bar and they say it's $5. If they say no, it wouldn't be $5. But some people may reach that level of maturity and discernment earlier and some may take longer time. That's sort of a general case. But the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, gave specific instructions that from the age of seven, encourage them. And that applies broadly, right? With some children, you may, you know, they have that keenness, that concern, right? And different children are different. My older son, for example, you know, from the age of like, whatever, five or six, he was like doing all his prayers. Number two, you know, he was like, abuji, I don't need to pray right now. And you don't even need to encourage me because the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, said encourage them once they're seven and I'm not seven yet, right? And so what do you do?  But of course, so it varies. Similar, the age of 40, the significance of the age of 40, it's not textual in the same way. It's not textual in the same way that there aren't specific rulings connected to it. Unlike, you know, these ages with children that from the age of seven, you know, we encourage them to pray. From the age of 10, they may be disciplined for it, right? They may be disciplined for it. But the age of 40 is not, it doesn't have legal consequences in that level. But it's considered to be an age where one attains wisdom, but it's considered, age is considered to be a noble thing in the Deen, right? There's a sense that, you know, your peak age is when you're physically fit or you're physically in full strength or people's outward perceptions of beauty when it comes to women, for example, and then it's all downhill from there, right? But in Islam, you're always rising, right? Because the honor of a person is in accordance with their capacity for good. The honor of a person is in accordance with one, their capacity for the good, and number two for the good that they've done, right? And in both ways, what does age supposed to, what is age supposed to bring with it? Age is supposed to bring with it the coupling of knowledge with experience and knowledge when it's coupled with experience results in wisdom, right? It results in wisdom. And typically, you know, wisdom in most cultures is associated with age, right? Because a wise person is a person who's lived, right? So they don't just know the theory, but they know how things play out in life. So the age of 40 is considered to be a noble age, right? In the sense that some of the scholars actually held in Islamic theology that all prophets were sent at the age of 40. And it's a theological position within mainstream Islamic scholarship. Actually, some of the greatest authorities in Aqidah like Imam Bajjuri in his commentary in Joharat-e-Tawheed and others mentioned that this is a predominant position that all prophets were sent at the age of 40. And there's discussion on that, but at least it was a common thing, right? At least it was a common thing. So it's not considered negative, right? So if someone hits 40 or is about to hit 40, it's not like, okay, it's all downhill from there. No, it is considered to be an age now. We have greater responsibility, right? Because now you have the experience in life that the slight madness of youth is supposed to go away. I have a couple of years still, alhamdulillah, so I could still be childish, right? But now you're an experienced member of the community, right? So now people are going to be relying on your opinion because you've lived, ladi arab saya, fulan haash, so on so has lived. I didn't have that experience. So it's considered to be a responsibility within the family, et cetera, right? So it's not considered to be a downhill thing. It's not a weakening of faculties that's looked at, but rather it's a deepening of one's understanding and thereby one's ability to one pursue benefit yourself because you're still young, you don't know how things work in life. So you make some bad decisions, et cetera, et cetera. And it's less grave to be making wrong decisions when you're 25 than when you're 35. And by the time you're 40, you should know what to do, right? So in your own life, there's a greater sense of responsibility, but now also there's the broader family and community and social aspect, right? Of taking responsibility. And then there's also the realization that this is now sort of the third stage in your life, there's as a young person in the first 20 years and then a middle-aged person from 20 to 40, but now you're in the culmination of your life. And that's not looked at negatively, right? Because we don't see death as the end of life, right? Death is the meeting of your Lord, right? So now someone who hits 40 now, now they should be really getting serious about aligning the direction of their life towards the akhirah, right? Not because they're going to die any time soon.  That sins have consequences, that relationships matter, all these different things that you hear about, now you've lived them. And so there's that, the greater gravity. So it's a time to reflect, right? That which way am I headed, right? So it's looked at positively, right? And also Islam, part of the, one of the wisdoms of dress within Islam, both for, not just for women, but also for men, right? Is that it's meant to imbue a sense of dignity in the human being, right? That we don't, even men, you know, we don't dress in tight clothing and things in a way that accentuates the merely physical, right? The Islamic dress accentuates the human being's reality, which is that we're ultimately a spiritual being, right? So it accentuates that nobility of the human being, right? And that's highlighted in, you know, with age, right? With the graying of the beard, with, you know, with the graying of one's hair, et cetera, this is considered to be nobility, right? The Prophet of Islam told us that, you know, if to, you know, that, you know, the graying of the hair, the Prophet of Islam mentioned a number of things about it. One to express respect to someone who has great hair, right? Number two, that we, oneself, one should take that as a sign from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? And of who you are, that you have that sense of responsibility. And thirdly, it's considered to be, the Quran talks about that the warner has come to you from Allah. And what's the warner? Ibn Abbas said, the warner is gray hair, right? That when your hair starts graying, that this is a reminder from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so it's not a downhill thing. This is a sense of now aligning oneself with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Any questions from the sisters? Already 40 sometimes because the pressure this lifestyle starts truly into the way that you get out of it. But what do you do in your life? Yeah, I mean, a lot of people get in midlife crises much earlier than that too, right? And a lot of it's, you know, because everyone, wherever you are, you carry a lot of baggage. That's just the nature of this life, right? People carry baggage everywhere. Like, you know, you're, they say a person is a prisoner of the social context that they grow up in, right? Everyone comes with their own baggage, right? People from certain cultures can never line up properly, right? As we learned today at lunch, right? It just very difficult, right? Similarly, you know, these notions of beauty and aging and this and that and other things, those are, there's a great wisdom in it, right? There's a great wisdom in it that ultimately these situations that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala places us in, these are tests, right? The whole point of life is a test, right? Alladi khalaq al-moutah al-hayatah liyabluwakum. He's created death and life in order to test you, right? If you don't think you're being tested, then that's the first test you're in is that you don't realize that you're in a test. So whatever situation you're in, it's a test, right? So, and the challenges to respond to it right, right? So these kinds of challenges are opportunities, right? To seek the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to recognize what a blessing it is, right? Because if everything was easy, you wouldn't appreciate the tremendousness of that blessing that you have, right? And you know, a very simple example, right? You know, a lot of sisters, for example, and it's a reality in our community. For example, a sister is divorced, right? She's 40, said no one will ever marry me and no one will this and no this and I'll never find, and you know, these kinds of things is, you know, actually the problem is if you look at his example, he did not choose to marry, say the Khadija. Say the Khadija chose to marry him. She was 40 or 41, depending how you count her age, right? There's some people who say she was younger than that but that's not supported by most of the texts, right? And what did she do? She took the means, right? She'd been previously married. She had children from previous marriage and this and that and the other. But you know, so that's part of it, right? That one looks at, okay, what, I know it's considered quite unusual for someone her age in that society to be marrying, to actually initiating marriage in this kind of, in a noble kind of way. But she did it, right? So many of, you know, many times, you know, whatever situations one is put in that are age related, part of it just is to see, right? And it's a good reminder sometimes, right? It's a great blessing from Allah, that he gives us these kinds of shocks and Allah SWT tells us in the Quran that every year or so Allah SWT sends us challenges. Sometimes we don't realize that it came and what's the message in it, right? It's a good thing, so one has a midlife crisis. It's like an angelic advertisement. Turn to God, right? That's the thing. And it's much better to feel that kind of challenge and that kind of emptiness or confusion and what is it that one needs to realize that there's a purpose in life? Whereas a lot of people are blissful, are disadvantageously happy, right? And that's one of the things once you be careful, like in marriage, what are you asking Allah for, right? It's one of the worst things you can ask for from Allah SWT is just to be happy, right? Because if you look at marriages and like, you know, I've sort of reached uncle age now, Alhamdulillah, I have this Twitter handle called Uncle Rabbani, okay? And, but you know, I was away, Alhamdulillah, for 10 years.  Who are all religious folk and, you know, active in the community, et cetera? Who suffered the most in their deen? Wives, no. Like, it was like equal opportunity suffering. Like, there's a lot of sisters who struggle, a lot of guys who struggle too. But who suffered the most in their deen? Hmm? No, no, no. Yeah, those who had happy marriages, this most identifiable group who had the most stagnant religious life were those who had, you know, al-Iswal, okay? Everything's fine, you know? And so what happens? They're just sort of drifting in life. Many of them drifting and sort of stuck religiously. So you go away 10 years, they've not really progressed very much, at least, you know, apparently, as opposed to where they were at 10 years ago, right? Or many of them slipped away, you know, too much, everything seems fine, but inwardly there's a lot of struggle. And conversely, some of the people who benefited the most spiritually in their deen were the people who had the most awful of marriages. Okay? And why? Because if you have a crisis, if you have a failure, you have difficulty, what are you gonna do? You're gonna turn to Allah. And one of the wives of the great and the Lucian Imam, Ibn Arabi, and he talks about her with great admiration. He said that my wife once said that that most of humanity refuses to turn to Allah except in distress. And so a lot of people who are like incredible, incredible things, you know, someone I know quite well, and they, you know, he was cheating on her repeatedly, right? And but when the marriage fell apart, you know, her concern was, well, I, you know, says, I don't have anything against him. I, you know, I wish to end this, but her question was, how do I end this in a way that will not be of detriment to him and his deen? That's a deep, that's coming from a deep spiritual vantage point. Says, yes, I, you know, I don't think our relationship is good for me or the children or him. But how do I get out of this in a way that will not hurt him and his deen? That's coming from it. And, but I, you know, I made it clear that you have a right to seek your right, et cetera. So yes, I, you know, I'm not going to let go of my basic rights, but I want to do it in a way that will be pleasing to Allah, that will be good for me and for him as well. And that's coming from real, you know, spiritual groundedness, right? So that's part of it, is that, you know, those tests are some, are gifts from Allah, if one responds right to them. The thing one should be most scared of is not difficulty. One should be really worried about ease, right? Cause it's, it's not so difficult to be patient. What's really difficult is to be thankful. What's very difficult is to be thankful. And it is few people indeed who are able to be thankful. And Allah, how does that says? Wa qalilum min ibadiyah shakur. And few indeed of my servants are truly thankful, right? That when you have clear manifest blessings, are you able to be thankful? And that's a big challenge in marriage, which is why the dua al istikhara, what do you say? And destined the good for me wherever it may be, and make me content with it. So when those kinds of challenges happen, one is to see the great spiritual opportunity, right? And you know, the spiritual masters say that wurudul faqat a'iyadul murideen, that the times, the coming of times of distress are the festival seasons of those seeking Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? That if you knew what a blessing difficulty and distress is, they said, you dance and joy, right?  And there's a lot of good in it if one responds to it right. But there's a couple of things. One is that if that any time one is in an exceptional state, it is a normal state of affairs, but any time was an exceptional state, whether it's difficulty, right? Or whether it's exceptional ease, right? Things are very easy in life. Any time was an exceptional state of difficulty or the converse or ease or hardship or one is troubled, one of the things one should be sure to do is to consult. And one of the very detrimental things that our sense of sort of rugged individualism does is that people don't consult enough, right? And consulting, of course, the people worth consulting, because often what people will do, they'll vent with their friends, but none of their friends can really give them meaningful advice. So that's just like complaining, right? And that doesn't have benefit. But the consult, sometimes there's some trusted friends, whatever, whose opinion you do value and will give you beneficial counsel, an honest opinion. Or to consult those with the learning or the expertise or the understanding, the wisdom, to be able to give one valuable advice. And that's something that one shouldn't underestimate, right? Because a lot of people remain in very difficult places in their life because they're not seeing the bigger picture, right? And sometimes a good friend, that's why one of the benefits of good company, right? That a friend or someone with experience, with wisdom, can help one or with knowledge, can help one see the bigger picture and have the right response. So that's one of the things that if someone is experiencing that crisis, is not to hesitate to consult. The other thing, very often people, when they are in difficulty, there's a tendency, very common, to withdraw. I need time to myself and that's completely wrong, right? Unless someone has a high degree of spiritual maturity, you know, the human being is a social animal. Without company, it's like being a fish out of water. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Alaikum bil jama'a, be with the group. Wa iyakum wal furqa, and beware of remaining alone. Fa inna shaytan al-qaibun min al-wahid, wahu min al-ithnaini ab'ad, for the shaytan is close to the one alone and is more distant from two. Man arada buhbuhat al-jannah, fal yalzamil jama'a. Whoever wishes for the vast expanses of paradise, let them hold fast to the group, right? To be with other people. And that itself helps put things in context. So someone may be dealing with some difficulty, they're feeling down, et cetera, but you spend time with other people, et cetera. It gives a sense of meaning. It puts your troubles in context, right? And it gives, you know, and one's not just lost in one's own thoughts, right?  Those are two things to put one's troubles in context. One is the consult and the other is to resist the urge to avoid company, right? And then the shaytan comes and says things like, well, I had people over last week, no one has invited me all week. Doesn't matter, invite more people over. You know, you get the extra reward, right? Because it's not about reciprocation, it's that you're trying to do that which will be a means of Allah swt. If they reciprocate or not, that's not why you're maintaining relationships with others, right? So that's, you know, an important element to, wallahu ala, any follow-up or? Okay. You know, Baraka, I love you. So when you see people when they focus on rules and regulations, because of how they look at religion, and then also you have people that look at religion as more of a relationship, right? How they look at each other online, and how the rules then come behind that. And so if you have a situation where it's, for example, in one where some break up the sentence, you know, when they come to a rule, they know it's kind of taking the easy way out or saying, oh, you know, I have a, someone says I can do this, and this other person says I can do this. You can't really, I guess, argue because maybe those are valid opinions. But then how do you address perhaps the more fundamental issue which I think is what I kind of mentioned because it would be as a rule as opposed to something you would do for. Yeah, so some people are sort of legalistic in their marriage or in their relationships, and others are more focused on the relationship itself and a higher purpose in the relationship. I mean, different people have different perspectives and understandings. It's some of the worst marriages are marriages that are fiqi marriages, right? Where every discussion is, my right is one, two, three. And that says no, my right is two, three, and four, right? And they live this sort of legalistic way, right? And the sunnah teaches us to, as one of the poets put it, that is to live in accordance with the law but with love, right, that the law is lived with the spirit of love and that mercy, right? It's not done in a legalistic manner. That's not how the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that law has to be lived in a certain spirit. Otherwise it's very troubling. I have permission to mention it when my sister and brother-in-law got married. I was in Damascus at that time. The first winter, they called me and they said, both of us are on the line. You have to resolve a disagreement between us. Said, we saw in Reliance to the Traveler, well, my sister said, in Reliance to the Traveler, it says that the wife is entitled to a complete set of clothing in every season. And my sister was quite optimistic. They're still in college, right? And they're both working part-time while in college. So, am I entitled? And then before she said that, my brother-in-law jumped in and said, Faraz Bhai, you know, I'm still in college. I can't afford to buy your sister a complete set of winter clothing every season. It's too expensive.  It's like several hundred dollars, right? So he said, you know, as for the hair oil and the comb and these things they mentioned, that's straightforward. But this other stuff is very different. Every season. So, and sometimes it's actually coming from a misunderstanding of the law, right? Cause that's not the case. The law actually just says that, you know, there's a complete set of clothing. If someone's short something, then that's what the husband is responsible for providing, right, if need be, right? But that's not the, you know, one has to couple that with the spirit. But at the same time, if the other party is sort of legalistic in their approach, you know, you're support, how do you respond to it? You don't respond to rigidity with rigidity, right? Allah swt tells us in the Qur'an, adfa'a billatihi ahsan, respond with that which is better. Fa'idah l-ladi baynaka wa baynahu adawa ka'anna huwa liyun hameem, and you'll find unexpectedly that the person between whom and you was enmity or disagreement or discord will become as though a dear friend, right? So that's the, that's part of the challenge, right?  They are as they are. So maybe he or she is very legalistic, very formalistic, maybe, you know, they're just, that's how they've, you know, for whatever reason, either that's how they've understood the religion or this is how they feel threatened.  But the way you help the person expand their horizon, the way you see the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in his own relationships is what? Is through excellence of character, right? Right? Respond with that which is better. And part of that is that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam taught us that listen to the hearts of people. And we'll look at that tomorrow when we talk about like some, you know, many of the challenges that arise in relations. He did not just hear what people said, right? He heard their, he listened to their hearts. Because when people say things, their hearts are expressing certain meanings as a result of that. And if you can hear their hearts, then you can deal with the real issues, not the stated issues, right? So for example, you know, sorry, some of you may have heard this example before, but Zubair and Zubeda got married. And that a very rocky first year of marriage. It was rough, right? And they were fighting all the time. And so now it's their first year anniversary. Zubair goes to MCC and he got invited by brother Masood for dinner between Maghrib and Isha.  We need some coffee. So they sit down and drink some coffee and discuss Masjid politics, right? There's no present politics, but they're plotting for the future, right? Long-term investment, right? So they sit down, get caught up in that.  Let's go and get some other coffee. So they go for second coffee. And they said, all that coffee, we need to have some dessert. So they go grab dessert. And it becomes 11, 1130. And then Zubair realizes, oh my goodness, I was going to take Zubeda out for dinner. They're not gonna call it their anniversary dinner, but it's a dinner happening on their anniversary date without being called anniversary dinner. So then they end up in a conversation about getting unnecessary advice for Zubair from all the uncles who were accompanying them. So he reaches home past midnight. He reaches in for his pocket and he realized, oh my goodness. He separated the car keys from the house keys, so he didn't have the house keys. And he's like, yeah, I'm gone, right? So at that, he's about to go to ring the doorbell when he sees the shadowy figure. Appearing from the frosted pain, right? And my wife has asked, I don't mention this part, but she's not here. And that frosted figure is significantly larger than when they got married. Because one of the ways Zubeda has dealt with her frustrations in marriage is to eat a lot of ice cream, right? And by stopping going to the gym, right? The frying pan. The other, she has a very dangerous instrument called the bailan, right? The rolling stick, rolling pin, right? And he didn't know that you can actually wrap in Punjabi, right? Because she's like just throwing it down, telling him who he's descended from and where he should end up in the hereafter and other things that, you know, we can't explicitly mention in respected places like this, right? So at that time, what she's saying, if you respond to what she's saying, it becomes a battle of the egos, right? So you're a son of certain animals and where you should end up in the hereafter and this and that and questioning his manhood and questioning all kinds of things. And you know, how are you going to respond to that? Right? By ego, right? To put her down and say, you know, guess why I don't come home? Because it's things like this.  It just disintegrates into one moment of ugliness, right? And on the other hand, if someone looks at this situation, right, with a prophetic look, right, how would the Prophet ﷺ respond to a situation like that? He would not be listening just to what Zubeda is saying with her words. But the Prophet ﷺ listened to hearts. What is Zubeda expressing when she's this upset? And we'll ask the sisters because like, no Zubeda's here in person, are they? I get nervous sometimes because once I did a seminar in marriage in Birmingham, UK, and every time I'd mention Zubeda and Zubeda, they'd be like a buzz in the room. And it turns out afterwards that the organizing team was six people, two couples, and the other two people were single. The guy's name was? The sister's name was Zubeda. And everyone used to say to them that you guys should get married. I had no clue, right? So every time I'd mention Zubeda and Zubeda, they'd be like, and afterwards they'd say, do you really think they should get married? I said, who? They said Zubeda and Zubeda. They've gotten married many times. They're confused because I always use Zubeda and Zubeda as an example. So when Zubeda's saying all these things to him, because she's very angry, he promised to take her for dinner, and he didn't come till past midnight.  But what is she expressing with the heart? Anyone? That she missed him. What else is she expressing? Disappointment. What else did she, from what her heart is expressing, how does she feel about him? She loves him, right? Now can you do something positive with that? That actually that's a declaration of love. In very complicated disguise, right? It's like a Halloween costume, right? But it's actually... You should be like, Alhamdulillah, she cares. Because she didn't care. She'd be like, Alhamdulillah, she didn't even come. She was really happy. She really didn't care. She wouldn't get upset. They say the opposite of love is indifference. But if you listen to the heart, now you have something to respond to. How would you respond then if you realize that she loves you, she missed you. She cares about you.  Like now you have something to respond with. Of course not in a manipulative way, but with that love and mercy that the Prophet said and he's placed between you love and mercy. There's not just some random thing, right? You can respond to those deeply felt emotions with what? With a heartfelt response, right? And how you do that, we can talk about tomorrow. But that's part of the challenge, right? When these kinds of situations happen, this happens in other things. Parents are upset about something. Parents say the most spectacular things. And sometimes you wonder like, and of course they see logic is like, goes beyond like normal human logic, right? Like parents will say things like, like how could like, you know, I was at a family gathering and I just went to the washroom and I'm stuck there and uncle just explodes on a relative of mine. I'm like, oh my God, I like quickly make wudu. I was like, should I go and not make wudu? I said no, I'll make wudu because it'll help calm things down.  It was like, it's about gun control. Neither owns a gun. It's very hard to own a gun in Canada, thankfully, right? But my cousin goes and, or my relative goes and says, you know, if I want to have a gun because if someone comes and robs me, I want to shoot them in the face. He shouldn't have said that. Uncle says, you're disgraced with a family. Leave my house and never come back and he lives there.  And you don't handle them rationally because relationships aren't based on reason. They're based on emotion. Uncle got upset for certain reasons. My cousin said what he said.  Like, you know, twice. Of all places in Canada where it's like, it's boringly safe, right? Right? Like, so he's had very traumatic security experiences. Okay? So you have the house. These kinds of situations, how do you deal with them? The issue doesn't matter as much as the underlying emotion that is in the heart. So you have to allay those emotional concerns. Alhamdulillah. At least for a few minutes, they're both calm down. But then Uncle started it again. And then of course, and then sometime it's hard to deal with things. I just told Uncle, Uncle, please sit down. And I started sitting down.  Like, what? You're physically assaulting me. Because I just started, Uncle was going out of control again at everyone.  I just put him down very gently. I started to solve the problem. You are assaulting me. And those things, what do you have to do? Smile and let things calm down. But this is an important insight. You have to listen to the heart and what people are expressing in these relationships. Any sisters? There's a little kid at the back, but I'm not sure if she looks like she has her hand up. But I'm not sure if she does. Yeah. I don't think it's her hand. Okay, go ahead. You mentioned something that I wanted to ask. Yeah, so our understanding of love and mercy. I mean, the word used for love in the verse, wood is a deeply settled love. There are different terms in Arabic for love. Some describe very strong emotional love. But wood is a love that's deep and settled. And it's related in general linguistic sense for the word for a valley. And the water that's in a valley is going to stay there because that's a low point. The water that could be gushing down the mountain, et cetera. But when the snow melts or when the rain season goes, that dries up. But the water that's there in the valley stays there for a long time. Why? Because it's deep. So it's a deep, unshakable love. It's coming from understanding that this is a lasting relationship. And this love, wood, is you want good for the other. That's why you need wadda, has the idea of wanting good for another. Or wanting of the good. Which is why it's actually very closely related to mercy. They say wood is the deep sense of liking the other person. And it is expressed through merciful conduct. That's one understanding of how the two terms relate. So wood is a deep affection, deep concern for the other. And its expression is mercy. Its expression in one's attitude, in one's actions, in one's responses, that is mercy. So that's the relationship between the two. There's other ways that explain, because the two terms are so rich. But in that sense, that deep love could have a very emotive aspect. Some people are very expressive and very emotional in their love. In some cases, it could be a very practical love. That you think, well, he's my life partner. He takes care of me. Or it could be a very spiritual love. In the sense that you love them for the sake of Allah. Or ideally it should have all three components. Love, they say, has probably three impulses from which it arises. There's an emotional impulse of love. There's a rational impulse of love. And there is a spiritual impulse of love. And ideally the three should be, for love to be whole, it should have all three aspects. They say, if you have a very strong emotional love for someone, it should be restrained by reason. So that it's not expressed in wrong ways. Zubaid falls in love with Zubaida. So regardless of what happened in Romeo and Juliet, you shouldn't climb into her balcony. It's a reason. It's probably dangerous to do it as well, because you've never climbed a balcony before. You could fall and hurt yourself. And Uncle Jamil will shame you in the community and you'll never get to marry her. You temper your emotions with reason. And you look at the spiritual dimension. How do I express that love in a manner that will be pleasing to Allah SWT? But if you have a spiritual love for someone, you love them because they're a perso