Balancing Family and Dawah

ILM FEST 2015

Shaykh AbdulBary Yahya

MCA Santa Clara, CA

1/10/15

Balancing Family and Dawah

• Make up lack of quantity with quality. Any time that you have with your family, make it a quality time. Quality time is making it special. It doesn’t have to be a vacation or expensive trip. Taking them to the park, museum, out to eat, doing things with them. Spending the little time that you have making sure it is quality time. When it is quality time, your family will start looking forward to being with you. And when you are away, they know that when you do have time with them it is always special. So maybe the other parents are with their children more, but we have more special times with our children. That way you have more time for your Lord, your work, and your community.
• Choose a spouse that has the inclinations toward Da'wah. If you want to have a balanced life in terms of your da’wah life and family life, it starts with your spouse. You have to look for someone who has something in common with you in dawah, serving the community, and seeking knowledge. If it’s someone who is not practicing and you start thinking - maybe I can influence them.. then be prepared for a lifetime project. It’s possible but it will be a long project. So look for someone who has the inclinations of da’wah. And when you are spending time together benefitting the community, you are doing it together and doing things which both of you love and enjoy.
• Involve your whole family in your community work. Abu Bakr was always serving Islam and the Muslims, but was also serving his family. When the Prophet (S) made hijrah to Medina the family of Abu Bakr (RA) helped them in this. He cried because he was so happy to have this opportunity to accompany the Prophet (S), to  help and serve the Prophet (S), tears of happiness. Aishah (RA) said, I never knew a man could cry from happiness. Serving Islam and Muslims is a blessing from Allah. Abu bakr (RA) wanted to raise his family with that mindset. So he himself appointed Asmaa to bring food to the cave, put his son in charge of bringing news, and put his freed slave in charge of bringing the flock to the area to erase the foot print track and bring milk to the Prophet (S). So he was having his family help him and accompany him.
• Remember to remind your family. “Save yourselves and your family from the hell fire.” How can we teach others and bring light to other and our house is dark? Everyone is responsible. The mother, the father, everyone has responsibilities. And you have to take care of those responsibilities. But how can we teach our children when we are so busy? If we go to a halaqa, what we can do is, whatever we learn we go home and we teach. At least the main points. If your wife is not at the Friday Jum’ah khutba, you are obligated to tell her the points from the khutba. And if you do that, you will be able to focus more in the khutba because you know you have to teach your family. If you have that mindset you yourself will be a better student of knowledge. 
• For example, look at the story of Abdullah Ibn Wada’a. There was a tabi’ee named Sayyid Ibn al Musaib- the most knowledge of those who met and studied with the companions of the Prophet (S). He had a daughter. The son of the Khalifa wanted to marry her. But Sayyid sent him back and said he didn’t want his family tied with the khalifa’s family. Sayyid had a student whose his wife had just passed away. But he was poor and said ‘Who would marry his daughter to me when I only have 3 dirham.’ So Sayyid said ‘I would’. So Sayyid married his daughter to him and brought her to Abdullah’s house. Abdullah Ibn Wada’a was amazed. The girl that the Khalifa wanted for his own son was going to marry him. His mother didn’t even know about it yet because it all happened so quickly. Then his mother heard and comes, and says the girl has to spend three days with her first. So she went to stay with her mother in law. Then she brought her back and gave her approval. Then the time of the halaqa comes, the wife says ‘Where are you going?’ He said ‘To the halaqa of your father.’ She told him ‘All the knowledge of my father is right here in front of you.’ Sayyid taught all his knowledge to his family! 
• Have questions ready for your children. But what do I teach them? They are at school all day and I come home tired. My father whenever we would get in the car, he would have questions ready for us. Benefits of this: 1) to keep us quiet. 2) to teach us at the same time. When I took my test for the drivers’ license, I passed without even studying. When trips were long, my father would run out of questions. So he would ask us - you see that dotted line with the solid line next to it, do you know what that means? Then he would explain it. What does that sign mean? It means there is a curvy road again. Then i realized, that’s how I passed the test, because my father ran out of deen questions and started asking us questions about the road, explaining to us all the rules and all the signs and marks. He would get deep sometimes in his deen questions- What are the conditions of salatul janaza.. When you start looking for questions, you are learning. You don’t have to do it only in the car. if you are at home, have a question ready for your children when they come home. If you run out of questions, you can go into other subjects. That way you are spending quality time with them and teaching them at the same time. Then you start remembering all these facts. And they will be very educated and have lots of information that will help them in this life and the hereafter. This is exactly what the Prophet (S) used to do. He did not always teach them in halaqas. A boy was riding behind the Prophet (S) and he turned around and told him, ‘O young boy, I am going to teach you few things - take care of your obligations to Allah and Allah will protect you and take care of you.’ So you don’t have to have specific times, but make the time that you have a time to remind them. You have to have a household that is strong and knowledgeable. When they are more knowledgeable, they are more understanding of all you do in your work and the community. 
• What should I focus on? My life is falling apart and I have so many obligations, what should I focus on. Hadith - that Allah said, ‘O children of Adam, devote yourself to My worship and I will put ghina satisfaction in your heart and I will keep poverty away from you. And if you do not devote yourself, I will fill your hands with all sorts of things will make you busy and you will always feel worried of poverty.’ What is worship of Allah - doing everything you can to please Allah. So no matter what you’re doing, ask yourself ‘Is this pleasing to Allah?’. Then it is considered worship. So focus on pleasing Allah. It’s not wrong to be rich, it’s something you should be thankful for, and this is the key - you have to be thankful for it. Any blessing that Allah gives you, it will not harm you if you thankful for it. How can you be thankful? How to show it? Use those blessings in the obedience of Allah. If you have children, teach them to be obedient to Allah. When you are thankful, Allah will increase it for you. Call people and remind people and be at the service of Islam and Muslims and devote yourself to dawah and the community but don’t forget your family. You make time for your work and other things, we have to also make time for our family. Every one of us will be asked about our family members on the day of judgement. So we need to give them their rights. If you don’t have a lot of time with your family, make up the lack of quantity with a larger quality. Put smiles on their faces and also put time quality time for yourself. Sometimes the things that you enjoy are also at the same time things they enjoy and at the same time will be giving our children their rights.