Are You the Husband Allah Describes? - Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan

in our religion there are two fundamental responsibilities that every human being owes there's a responsibility we owe to allah and there's a responsibility or a set of responsibilities we owe to other people that starts with your own family different members of your family and then beyond that to your neighbor and beyond that to humanity at large it's actually much easier to talk about what we owe allah because what we owe allah is very clear simple and allah is always just and fair so at least one side there is no possibility of unfairness and that's allah and so when the expectations are given from him then there is absolutely no argument or ambiguity or lack of clarity however when you talk about a relationship between people for instance the relationship between an employer and an employee or the relationship between a parent and a child or a husband and a wife or siblings or whatever else when you talk about any of these relationships there's a possibility that one or either side does something wrong so here you are doing your part you're fulfilling your responsibility but the other side is not doing their part they're not fulfilling their responsibility and when that happens it's a very common tendency for you to say well they don't do their part why should i do my part so the relationships we have with allah essentially the relationship we have with allah essentially is very fundamental very simple very straightforward actually the only possibility of wrongdoing is on my end and that's why we begin our relationship with him with the first dua in human history master we wronged ourselves if you don't forgive us and if you don't show us mercy we're of the lost there's no possibility that allah will do wrong they didn't wrong us they were only wronging themselves and allah azzawajal never you know he doesn't do to people on the other hand though like i was saying in this introduction people are complicated and all the other relationships we have are complicated the thing is though that these are very important and these are things that we're going to be asked about before when we stand in front of allah our relationship with allah when you fix that relationship it creates a sense of responsibility to all your other relationships in other words what i'm trying to say is if you are very good to allah but very bad to your parents that actually means you're still very bad to allah allah azza has given you responsibilities to your parents to your spouse to your children to your brother to your sister to humanity and if you don't fulfill those then you have disregarded what allah gave responsibility allah gave you right so we have to actually fulfill those rights and those obligations to the best of our ability as well but it's so hard to talk about it's hard to talk about because if i were to give this lecture about the rights of parents for example there will be children in the audience and there are young you know sons and daughters around the world that have been abused by their parents that's a fact there are parents that were not good parents that is a reality and when they hear that lecture about how good you have to be to your parents they say to themselves wait but they didn't do anything for me what did they do they actually even abused me there are parents that are physically abusive emotionally abusive they're people that parents that are spiritually abusive they're all kinds of abuse that happens and why do they get a blank check and so when someone listens to one side then they get upset how come you didn't present the other side similarly if i was to give the lecture today the khudba today about the rights of the husband then a lot of wives would be upset what about our side why should i give him all these rights what has he done and if i were to do this for the men and say well these are the responsibilities that we have towards the women then the men will be upset well yeah okay fine i have all these responsibilities but she messes up all the time and you don't say anything about that what are we supposed to do so you know what happens in in discussing any of these rights and responsibilities there's always a chip on our shoulder there's always this defense mechanism wait are you going to balance this equation or what so the first thing i wanted to address is that elephant in the room uh today's quad is actually about the responsibilities of men and that will in fact make some men very upset because they're going to say you didn't say anything about women inshallah my next quote by here will be about women so i'll make them upset as much i promise you know but the the thing is though that there's a very natural and i would even say a tendency inspired by iblis himself is that he makes us forget our responsibilities and he makes us think all the time about our rights so when you are being reminded of your responsibilities you say to yourself well i don't get my rights why should i think about my responsibilities you're always concerned about your rights and as a result you are less concerned about your responsibilities these two things are independent of each other i know that's hard i i would be the first to admit that's a very difficult thing to do to actually think only of your responsibilities and not think of your rights you do have rights but they are not rights that you only give when your or you know or the responsibilities you only fulfill when your rights are being met it's not like that these are two independent things especially when it comes to justice especially when it comes to how we're going to stand in front of allah so now what i wanted to start with is the definition of a particular word that defines the relationship between husbands and wives the phrase allah used in surah nisa is that men are kawam over women men are kawam over women a very unusual word the word kawam and that seems to be the foundation of how this this unit is supposed to operate and what men oh women and how women are to react to men is captured in that in this one phrase everything else it's a long ayah everything else that follows in this ayah is actually in the shade of this one statement so if this is dedicated to that one statement really and that really that fundamental word kowamin what does that mean for you and me the word kawam comes from the arabic word qiyam to stand and it has several implications one of the very fluid words of the arabic language is a very powerful choice of allah for this this word to be used there are many other words you can use but this word in particular one of the things that makes it unique is that it shares its origin with one of the names of allah too allah's name inaudible the word al-qaeda is actually from the same origin as the word kawam now i highlight that for a reason i highlight that because when allah's name is being used then we have to understand that name fully in all of its meanings to appreciate the beauty of that name and also that that word itself becomes now sacred and to take some of its meanings away or to add meanings in there that are not there is rather blasphemous because it's sacred it's one it's from one of the names of allah himself derived from it is one of the names used for what we are supposed to emulate now the first of them means standing like not sitting but from it is implied activity like someone who's constantly engaged in something someone who's never passive someone who you know how there's there's autopilot or there's cruise control in your car right or so there's a machine that can once you turn it on it just runs on its own it doesn't need to be constantly operated that's not what we're talking about we're talking about the exact opposite something that doesn't function until you actively involve yourself you cannot just press the on button and let it go and this this is actually very it's kind of funny but the way they explain this in in etymology is by means of a an ancient poem there's a slave it used to have slavery back in the day so the slave is about to be sold and as he's about to be sold he says please don't buy me and he says this the statement [Music] uh you know then he said he says don't buy me because if i'm hungry i get really annoyed i don't i'm not active at all i don't feel like doing anything so you're not going to get any work out of me especially when i'm what hungry and if i've eaten well i just love sleeping so but when he says i'm hungry i'm not active at all use the word koman and i'm suggesting here what i'm trying to tell you here is the meanings of that word include someone who's constantly active now that that's the first hint to myself and you about relationships this relationship is not something that will carry itself you'll have to actively maintain this relationship there's something the the love between spouses is not something that just carries on it has to be maintained and nurtured and flourished it needs to be something that needs to come one needs to come back to you cannot assume that it's there it can dry up and it can fizzle fizzle away the assumption that something has been forgiven or the hurt the feelings of hurt are gone that assumption it does not the hurt doesn't go away on its own you have to work on getting rid of it you have to fix it so there's an active role necessitated you know sometimes people are living under the same roof they're not talking to each other for years or not not any real conversation anyway how was dinner how's work how's traffic okay i'm just gonna watch tv now and years go by and people actually haven't had any conversation they haven't built any relationship at all the only thing they share is a roof that's all they share that's not what men are supposed to do and it's particularly difficult for men to be active in fostering a relationship because we're not much of a talker anyway we like to just be passive we like to just come home after a day of work sit on a couch put on tv or just get on her device and just i don't want to talk and she'll come and say hey so how's your day what's going on tell me how you're feeling can we do this later i don't feel like this right now we're not the ones that initiate and we have to be the ones that initiate that's the first implication also means commitment that this is why in even quran um [Music] it was so difficult to come and stand and pray at the kaaba because you could get beat up and so someone when someone made the commitment to pray despite all of the challenges ahead of them the word qiyam was used for it similarly the people of the cave were terrified to testify in front of the entire village because they're going to get slaughtered if they testify that there's one god when everybody else worships worships multiple gods but if kamu [Music] to make a commitment to commit to something men have to commit to this relationship and here this is the real reason i brought up this i'll give i'll go through these meetings rather quickly and then get to the the the fundamental piece that i wanted to get to also means constancy you have to and and from it actually comes the word tiwam and tibam is uh actually the the pillar of a building is also its qiman the thing that holds something together and the thing that maintains that you can rely on all the time furniture can move inside of a house walls can move pillars can't move pillars have to be a constant we have to be the constant in our families for our women they have to be we can't be fluctuating yesterday you said this today you're saying that yesterday you said this is okay today it's not okay you can't be fluctuating you have to be constant and that's one of the other implications of the word tiwam and finally one of my favorites actually from it comes the word pima not the ones that they see eat but keema is actually value fema that a man being kawam is actually responsible for letting his spouse know how valuable she is he gives her value he appreciates her he acknowledges her he lets her know that she's beautiful and a lot of men actually do the opposite let her know how fat she is how ugly she is how short she is how dark she is how freckled she is or whatever and they'll do that constantly putting her down demeaning her value you know putting putting or insulting her intelligence god you're such a horrible driver you're so annoying why can't you just take the normal right turn like everybody else you know why are you in this lane why aren't you in that lane constantly putting her down in some way or the other and akawam is someone who gives value instead of taking value away like if if the spouse of the woman feels you know stupid when she's around her husband when she feels ugly when she's around her husband when she feels valueless when she's around her husband then he's not being a kawam to her this is what we have to be a wom now i wanted to highlight all of this in one particular context and that is before we become better husbands and better and by the way the ayah is not just about husbands it's actually this is the kind of thing we're supposed to do for our mothers or sisters or daughters it's it's actually broadened and then it's made more specific about the spousal relationship but the reason i was probed to bring this topic up as a khutba is because recently i've been engaged in quite a bit of travel and what i do when i travel and i speak in different communities across this more recently was across the united states and somewhat in europe after a program is done i spend a few hours just talking to people just people just come up to me and they ask me all kinds of questions or share concerns and overwhelmingly overwhelmingly the women that came and spoke with me spoke with me about how their husbands uh are they're good husbands but they allow their her in-laws to be abusive in other words they live joint family system or whatever it may be or you know they're you know the husband has his wife but he also has his parents and the parents are abusive to the wife and she has to put up with it and he says i can't do anything they're my parents what do you want me to do you know they're going to say things to you but you should just be patient because they might i'll always side with my mother i'll always side with my father etc what happens here is there are two lines that have been crossed on the one hand as a husband your responsibility is to your wife you took her from her family you took her from the protection of her parents she had a welly she had a father and his job was to make sure she stays happy safe she's not insulted or humiliated she's protected from all forms of abuse physical emotional spiritual all kinds of abuse that was the father's role and when you signed that nikah and when you said you agree then all of those roles were shifted over to you you're supposed to be as protective of her even more so actually than her father was because your relationship with her actually even goes further she's even the mother of your children there's there's more here and so you were supposed to be a shield around her at the same time you are also a son a son to your mother or son to your father and this religion teaches us that we cannot even say oof to our parents you can't raise your voice to your parents at all now you are being pulled in two different directions you have these enormous obligations to your spouse the quran calls it a heavy contract a heavy agreement it's not a light thing marriage and on the other hand you have this enormous responsibility to your parents and sometimes they make you pick which one you're going to be good to and your job is actually to draw a line and say this is what i will do for my wife this is what how i will take care of her and this is how i will protect her and to let your parents know you can say whatever you want to me you beat me up you curse me out i'm your kid you do whatever you want it's fine i'll take it but you can't touch her you can't say a word to her she's not yours she's not your responsibility and she's not your child especially the culture i come from you know what they say when the girls getting married they say oh she's like our daughter oh it's like we have a new daughter in the family beware when you hear those words be girls be thoroughly warned because one day she's like she's like our daughter trouble is looming just a couple of weeks later there's going to be commentary about how you didn't cook or you cooked you know with too much salt or you know you're lazy or you didn't clean some stuff is going to begin no no no no the relationship between this woman and her husband's family first and foremost is a relationship of mutual respect she has to be treated with respect and she has to treat with respect when it comes to rights and obligations she is under no obligation to obey your parents i'm sorry i'm sorry in that i feel sorry for you that you believed that for so long but your your wife has no obligation to obey your parents and if you are forcing her to obey your appearance and serve your parents you are engaged in an act of injustice you are being abusive you're not a kawam you're not the kawam allah made you you were supposed to be taking care of her you didn't bring a servant into the family and you're not supposed to be giving her lectures about you have to be patient their elder they can say whatever they want no no no no no no when even our family does something wrong allah commands us to stand up for justice even if it's you have to stand up for justice even if it means you have to stand up against yourself meaning if you've done something wrong you have to own up to it and if your parents have done something wrong you actually lovingly respectfully head down humble voice you still have to let them know you can't do that mom i'm sorry you can't do that dad that's not right i'm not going to allow it you're my dad but those rights i will not allow you to trample because allah will not be asking you allah will be asking me whether i was going over my wife or not if you cannot be that shield then you are in violation what of what allah expects from you as a husband that's that's very important to understand we have situations in which by the way as people are listening to this like i said in the beginning i gave that disclaimer there are going to be in-laws that are like but you know there are wives that are abusive to the in-laws you didn't give a hubba about them you just give a hubble about how messed up we are but what about them they also throw shoes and do crazy things call them i will but i can only do one thing at a time in a khubba one at a time it's coming but right now we have to deal with one problem and by the way one evil doesn't justify the other evil and one evil well they do it too is that a deflection or not a justification that you get to get away with the other wrong that's happening and you and i have to take stock in your own families what's happening is this kind of wrong happening because if it is then allah will ask the best of you are the ones that are best to their families that this last bit that i wanted to share with you please take note of it there are there are three kinds of abuse that i want to highlight three kinds of abuse the first of them is the worst of them or if you think it's the most worse the worst of them is physical abuse that is absolutely out of the question rasulullah do not hit the female slaves of allah outright do not hit the female slaves of allah now allah's messenger could have said don't hit women right don't hit women because the female slaves of allah are women but the power of those words is that you know when you say when you call them female slaves of women or female says of allah then you their relationship fundamentally who who owns them allah does and when you mess with someone else's property like if you destroy my car you haven't offended my car who have you offended you've offended me if you came after my child you haven't just insulted my child or abused my child you've abused who me i will come after you you understand if they are allah's property and you hit them who is coming after you allah allah watch it they belong to allah that's what the messenger says so physical abuse is absolutely out of the question it is out of the question and anybody who would like to argue otherwise i'll stick around after jummah i can talk to you about it the second kind of abuse is emotional and emotional abuse could be verbal it could be when the husband is not around the in-laws come along and say by the way you're just here for a little bit we can get rid of you whenever we want that's my and when the husband's home then how are you you're so sweet you're so kind and this girl's going crazy like when he's not around they turn into the devil and when he's around they turn into an angel so when i try to tell my husband that they're crazy he says what are you talking about they're so nice you're crazy and this is a kind of emotional abuse a husband and wife have to have a trusting relationship they have to if you don't have trust you have nothing there's nothing there this entire this is not a blood relationship marriage is a contract which means you agreed to share a life together and that requires the utmost amount of trust if you can't even trust what she's saying to you if you think that she's lying to you all the time then what makes this marriage a marriage is not there it's not there for you to say i can't believe that i can't believe that uh well you if you can't believe it then i don't know if you're in the right marriage there's something fundamentally wrong something far deeper than just abuse there's not even a trust left inside the marriage emotional abuse is sometimes verbal and sometimes it's not even verbal sometimes it's the way you're looked at sometimes it's the way people sit around you she comes into the room they get up and walk away they don't even turn their face this way they change the tone of their voice sometimes even the way in which you say she says or she doesn't say anything at all that's a pretty abusive statement to not say anything at all and then she can turn around and say what would i say i didn't say anything that's emotional abuse and it's unacceptable the last of the abuses though is the scariest one to me and that's spiritual abuse when the wrong is done and then the religion is quoted allah says you have to be good to parents this is what islam teaches you and they'll do the wrong and then they'll invoke allah and his book and his messengers who are completely innocent of this nonsense and then that's that that's the religious or spiritual kind of blackmail and abuse that goes on in families this needs to come to an end in your family i'm only talking to the men right now i'm not upset with parents i'm not upset with you know with anybody else i'm not even upset with you but i'm just giving you myself a reality check look our our parents are not evil they're not they were brought up in a certain culture they were brought up in a certain environment they have certain norms that they've come to become used to and some of those things are not right but they don't realize that they just do what they think in their mind is right they're not nobody's purposely evil they're not even though some women believe that about their in-laws nobody is intentionally evil everybody just thinks from a very different point of view you however are in the middle you're in the middle of two worlds that are pulling at you and you're gonna have to just you you're gonna have to be the voice of reason and justice and you know what that means sometimes you're gonna have to take the side of your parents and sometimes you're gonna have to take this out of your wife because nobody's always right and sometimes you will make a mistake too and then you'll have to admit that you made a mistake that's going to have to happen too which means the role that you are in this middle role that you're in is a very difficult one and it's a role in which you will constantly be the object of criticism somebody will criticize you all the time because whatever decision you make upset someone somebody will congratulations on being a man that's what it comes with that's the role you have to play congratulations that's the role allah has given us if you don't understand that you feel like this ayah is about this absolute authority allah has given us and you know we get to do whatever we want with the women under our authority the word pian has nothing to do with authority first of all it has to do like i said with being active and making sure that you can you constantly check yourself and make sure that the relationship remains healthy is commitment is constancy it's from it comes the word is which means fairness even one of the meanings of this that they may maintain fairness over it one of my favorite meanings of it that i didn't even share with you is kum from men are supposed to be not only there for their women in terms of caretaking and protection they're supposed to give their women a sense of purpose and direction they're actually supposed to in a sense even be mentors to their wives mentors to them advisors to them this is what you should do hey let me help you fulfill this goal or that goal how many times there are especially in abusive family situations there are women that used to have goals i want to i want to start an orphanage i want to do this i want to write a book i want to do that and they don't get to do any of it who is supposed to encourage them and open up that door for them and say yeah you should do it i know you make a mean paratha but you can also write a book you should you should work on that who was supposed to encourage them and do that that was supposed to be the husband he was supposed to open that door so i pray that allah gives us and our children the ability to be raised mentally as kawam and the abuse that is happening inside of our families that we're the we're the reason that it comes to an end i'm not giving this khutbat that you go home and you start fights that's not why i gave this khutbah i didn't ladies i did not give this question you go say hey watch this video don't do that that is not why i gave this khulba it's for for men to do an introspection of themselves that is part of the selfishness that we have now you know uh adopted everybody hears a hudba or a lecture or a talk and they think well this will be really good for my rights everybody should be thinking this will be good for my responsibilities don't become selfish in this religion this religion is about you serving allah first and foremost so we just take stock of ourselves and when you do go back and try to implement some of these things even implement them with mercy even if your parents are doing wrong and you're correcting them you're not a police officer and you're not a judge you're a son still even if you're going to correct them you're going to correct them with love and mercy and care you're going to be tactful and careful about it you know and so may allah azzawajal give us that delicacy so that we can really truly fulfill the words of the prophet sallallahu alaihi best of you are the s to their families and he didn't say the best of you are the best of good families even if you have a messed up family you still have to do your best right and i'm the best of you to my family may allah azzawajal make us better and better families and make us do right by our families [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Bayyinah Institute

Views: 791,028

Rating: 4.9192433 out of 5

Keywords: Nouman Ali Khan, Arabic, Quran, Islam, Bayyinah, Bayyinah TV, Bayyinah Institute, Koran, Islamic, Education, Muslim, islam, muhammad, muslim

Id: qbA0zesP2ZQ

Length: 28min 44sec (1724 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Positron311]

This applies for sisters too!

Although I admit (as a brother) that I need to improve myself as well.

[u/yiffzer]

This is one of the best talks I've seen on responsibilities and rights. We always seem to conflate the two together when they are independent (so, so wrong).

[u/OriginalPostSearcher]

X-Post referenced from /r/khutbahs by /u/letseatlunch
Are You the Husband Allah Describes? - Nouman Ali Khan (10/14/2016)

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