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Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center

By: Fajr Reminders - Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Center
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 We came to give, not to take. Islam Spirituality
Episodes
  • Parenting skills #6

    Parenting skills #6
    Dec 10 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and the All-Merciful. May the Lord of the worlds be with you. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. We look at the rules of Islamic parenting. I call them the six rules. We ask Allah to help us to understand the responsibility of parenting and to fulfill it. We are talking about life skills and as I mentioned to you, these are some life skills. One of the most important ones, encourage volunteering. It is very, very important. It is something which I tell you as Muslims, it is something we really must make an effort. You must see the number of committees, committees and number of volunteering work that is done. As I am saying, I live in America. I give an example. One of my friends is a Rabbi. He runs an organization called the Jewish Family Services in West Springfield. They bring in refugees from other countries and they settle them in the US. Guess which religious group is their largest customers? Muslims, right? And they do it all for free. They get funding from the government, they do it for free. Anyway, so his name is James. So I asked James one day, I said, you know, he was talking about his family. So he said, we have two daughters and we have two foster sons. So I said, you are doing fostering? He said, yes. He said, my wife and I were registered as foster sons. So people, orphans and people like that, refugee children, they govern, they send them to us. They live with us as our children in our home. He says, we have two foster children and both of them are boys and both of them are, they have problems. So one has a drug problem, the other one has a stealing problem. Tertuvian. Tertuvian. Tertuvian. Now I am thinking to myself, what is wrong with this guy? Why on earth would you become a foster parent? And on top of that, you take some druggy kid or something to look after. Why? You are mad or something, you are insane? He is not insane. He is a very sensible human being. He is concerned. Then he tells me, one day, and this whole conversation started because he had a pager in his pocket. We were going for a walk. He had a pager beeped. So he looked at it and said, no, it's not my car. So I asked him, what is this? And that's how the whole conversation started. So he tells me this. He said, then one day, this kid who was, I mean, this kid means that he is about maybe 17 or 16 or 17, about under 18. So he is still a foster parent. So this kid, he said, he broke into our safe. Right? He stole some money and he stole some stuff which is in the safe. So he said, we had to call the police. We called the police. And he says, to my surprise, when the police and the first responders, they came, he said, they were all my neighbors. So then I realized that in our town, the fire service and the police service is volunteers, which is our own people who live in the town. They volunteer so many hours a week for the police force. So then they put on a police uniform. They are trained. They are certified as police officers. They put on police uniform. And then they are driving cruise, cruising cruise cars. And then doing police work. Or they are driving, they are on ambulances. Or they are on fire engines. Right? He said, that is when I decided to do that also. So this guy is a rabbi. He has his whole synagogue to run. He has Jewish family services to run. Plus now he volunteers to be on the first responders team. So he is done. He is riding on an ambulance. He got trained. He did a whole course for a year and a half. He passed this whole course and so on. He is doing this work, all of it for nothing. Volunteering. No salary. No monetary compensation. Now imagine the goodwill that gets you. That's my point. Somebody's house is burning down. Some disaster is happening. Who lands up there? This guy. Imagine the goodwill he gets. Right? So people associate help with this person. But believe me, you have to hunt high and low to find a Muslim who can go there. Almost zero. I am saying almost. So maybe there is somebody. I don't know. But at least I don't even know it. He won't volunteer. He will not volunteer. He will not get out of our comfort zones. He will not even volunteer for Muslim children. Refugee children come who are orphans and they go into foster homes with other people of other religions. Now having said that, I have never seen a kid who is a Muslim. I have never seen a case where those people have converted that Muslim kid. They are not. They make it a point. They bring them to the masjid. I get called. They say, Chef, we have Imam Beg. They say, Imam Beg. I say, we have got only four Imams. So you see, but ...
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  • Parenting skills #5

    Parenting skills #5
    Dec 9 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and the All-Merciful, and the All-Merciful. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you, and upon your family and friends, and upon your family and friends. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and friends. Peace be upon you all. We look at the rules of Islamic parenting. I call them the six rules. We ask Allah to help us to understand the responsibility of parenting and to fulfill it. So, we are talking about life skills and as I mentioned to you, these are some life skills. One of the most important ones, reading inculcates this habit every single day. I say to people, you must read at least one book. I say one book per week, but okay, so let me be… So, let me be… Kind on you. One book per month at least. Minimum. I don't care what book you read, read any book you like, but one book per month, make this an absolute rule for yourself. Then increase it, two books, three books, four books, at least one. And inculcate it in the children. My father, again, I'm sorry, I keep on coming back to my father, but this is a parenting thing, so I shouldn't be. He used to read three books at a time. I do the same thing. Three different plots. One will be a history book, one will be something else. I can run those same, those things in my head simultaneously. Have the lunch. Very good for the brain. He did that. What he would do is, he would bring the books to me. He would give me a book. And then he would come the next day. Or maybe give me a day, the third day. And he would say, oh, pade, did you read the book? I say, you just give it to me. He said, two days have passed. What did you just give? Sign in the book. So he then tells me, what do you think? So I start telling him, the author is saying, no, I'm not asking you what the author is saying. I know what the author is saying. I read the book before I give it to you. I want to know what you are saying. So don't regurgitate the stuff to me. The author said, forget the author. What are you saying? You read the book. What is your take on this? So I routinely read books. I do an analysis of the book. I write it down. I write down key points that I need to remember. And that helps me in my understanding of life and so on and so forth. And in my own writing, which I do. Right? And then, respect for law and order. Respect for duty. I don't know, some of you may have seen this thing of people saying, my 10-year-old drives a car beautifully. Why does your 10-year-old drive a car? Beautifully or otherwise? You're breaking a law. You're teaching a child to break the law. And parents do this very proudly. You're teaching a child to break the law. You know, in Islam, some of our ulama have said that if you break a law of a country which is for the benefit of all the people, you have exited Islam. You are a murtad. Even if you don't want to go that far, definitely in Islam, it is a crime. It is a very major sin. So for example, you go through a red light. Nowadays, of course, there are cameras everywhere. We fear the camera. We don't fear Allah swt seeing us. We fear the camera. Because then they'll send you a very expensive photograph. Right? Going through a red light. This is, in Islam, this is haram. Because you are, potentially, you can cause an accident. The law, you might say, where is the law in the sharia to say, red light? No, the draw doesn't have to be there. The sharia allows laws to be made for the benefit of all people. Traffic laws are such laws. And others. So teach them respect for law. And give responsibility. It's very, very important to give children responsibility. Give them daily chores. Each person has a role to do. Your job is to wash the dishes. Your job is to do this, do that. Whatever. And don't say, no, no, no, why should my child wash dishes? We have suffered. No. Teach them the, teach them dignity of labor. Once again, back to my father. Every Sunday, we used to, we had a ritual in our house. And that was, all the shoes would be brought. We brought, sit in the line. Brown shoes, black shoes and those days, you, all these sneakers and stuff, you could have. You wore canvas shoes. And the canvas shoes had to be white. So with, for white, you had that lime, which you rubbed on it. So black shoe with black polish, black polish application brush, and then black polish shining brush. Then brown polish and this. And my father used to sit there, and we all used to sit, each one with their shoes. And we would polish our own shoes. And we told you, we had servants. No. You do your own job. So you apply the polish with the brush. Brush it with that. Then you hold the shoe between your knees. And you take a polishing cloth. And you rub it like this. You would have seen the film, or those of you who are from Mumbai, you see the Mumbai railway stations. How do, I know how to do that. That whole ritual. You shine ...
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  • Parenting skills #4

    Parenting skills #4
    Dec 8 2025
    Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and the All-Merciful, and the All-Merciful. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon you, O Shafi'i al-Mursaleen, Muhammad Rasool Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and upon all of you. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon you, too. We look at the rules of Islamic parenting, and I call them the six rules. We ask Allah to help us to understand the responsibility of parenting and to fulfill it. So, we're talking about life skills, and as I mentioned to you, these are some life skills. One of the most important ones, number three, is the daily account, the mahasibah, and the learning journal. Learning journal is an interesting… tool that I teach people, which is, what you do is, take again your notebook. You do it in this sequence. First of all, what you do is, in the notebook, you write down three goals for tomorrow. Every night, you write down three goals for tomorrow in order of priority. And the priority has to be in keeping with your life goal. You are achieving these three… You're working on these three goals to achieve the overall goal, your life goal. So, first, you have to begin with writing down the life goal, and then going from there, writing every day three goals in order of priority, which will help you to achieve your life goal. Then, you… The following day, your day unfolds or unravels, whichever way you want to get it. So, you write down your three goals. And then, at the end of the day, you sit down, you open the book, and the book are the three goals you had written for the day. Now, you analyze these three goals and say, did I achieve it, did I not achieve it, what helped me to achieve, what hindered my achievement, and what am I learning lessons from that. Therefore, what did I learn with regard to achieving the goals? So, that you write down in a… In a… In a… You look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those and look at those happen, what are my learnings? Three columns. That is called the learning journal. This is very important and I strongly recommend that you start writing this. It's not a diary. It's not like every day in the morning I woke up at 8 o'clock I had breakfast, I ate this thing for breakfast and I don't know. This is only focusing on your learning. What are my learnings? This is what I experienced. This is my reflection on my experience and this is what I take away from it. Believe me, you start writing this, you will learn a hell of a lot. Because all of us go through life, we have experience after experience after experience but we all don't benefit the same from those experiences. Some benefit more, some benefit less. That has to do with the quality of the learning. And the quality of the learning to improve it, this is the way. It's to write a learning journal. I spoke to you already about friends, so I won't repeat that. This is a very nice quote. It's not one of mine, somebody has said it, but beautiful. It says that we must all suffer from one of two things. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. We must all suffer from one of two things. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. And the truth of it is that excuses don't change reality. So if you did not do something which you are supposed to do or you did something which you are not supposed to do and you make an excuse, it does not change the fact that you did something wrong. Right? If I lose something, for example, one of the amazing things that we give up, the biggest asset that we have, the only non-creatable, non-replaceable asset, which is called what? Time. We give it up for nothing. We give it up for nothing and the people who take it from us are making humongous amounts of money because we are giving up our life. Right? They have access to your most private parts of your life and you can't sue them because you gave them that access. If they got that, if they had got that access without your permission, you could have actually sued them for invasion of privacy. But you cannot sue them because you are putting it out there. Who is posting on Instagram? You or Zuckerberg...
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