An increased love for the Prophet ﷺ through a lived experience.

Recently went on a Muslim Alpha trip with some brothers, and it really gave me a sense of deeper love and respect for not only the Prophet ﷺ and the Sahaba, but also for people who lived before us:

Our parents.

Our grandparents.

Our ancestors.

Life has undoubtedly become more convenient with all its advancements, but at the same time it has made us weaker.

Even just a camping trip for two days taught me so much about how comfortable our day to day lives are, and how people generations before used to live with struggle, day in and day out. It was also a stark reminder that Allah tells us in the Qur’an:

لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ فِى كَبَدٍ ٤

Indeed, We have created mankind in ˹constant˺ struggle.

Surah Balad (90:4)

We are to take our share from this world and enjoy it, but it was never meant to be jannah. Trying to turn this world into jannah is one of the biggest deceptions we see all around us. If you notice the beginning of the ayah when Allah says ( لَقَدْ ), that is a double emphasis, meaning “absolutely without a doubt, We have created mankind in (constant) struggle.”

The Sahaba would be out in the fields tending their crops, tending their animals, and manually having to do all the work. They would travel long distances in brutal conditions with minimal food and drink…and then have to fight the enemy.

Subhan Allah.

This lifestyle naturally gave people more grit, endurance, and strength, and small, petty issues didn't fluster them like our modern, “first world problems” do:

“Oh my God! My dad only bought me an iPhone 18 and not an iPhone 18 Pro!”

“Ughh! What do you mean you ran out of oat milk for my coffee?!”

“Oh man! I missed the cut-off for same-day delivery! Now my 6th pair of shoes will come tomorrow instead!”

What is even more amazing is the residents of Madinah would consider themselves to be the more “soft” and civilized society and they would call the Bedouins rough and harsh! For our purposes, even the civilized, more well-spoken society of Madinah would be harsh for us, and the nomadic, Bedouin lifestyle would be unsustainable.

Making things too easy makes one weak, and doesn’t prepare one for tougher times. Too much convenience becomes a deception, turning minds and bodies into a rotten lump of neurons and flesh that gets wasted away. Just look at the smartphone epidemic and now the increasingly acceptable and rampant drug epidemic where everything is allowed.

How do you combat the bombardment of convenience that is shoved down our throats? You need to exercise your mind, body, and soul. Trying new activities exposes your body to new movements - movements that will exercise muscles you never knew you had. Challenging yourself and taking calculated risks become a recipe for success, because you will have one of two outcomes:

1. You will succeed

2. You will learn lessons (what people call “failure”)

The real failure - is not trying at all.

We have to remember that curating difficulty for ourselves, our families, and our communities is a form of love. You do it because you love and care for them. You want them to grow and flourish, but in order to grow and flourish, difficulty is a requirement. A seed can stay small and comfortable inside its shell, or it can go through harshness starting with a crack in its shell, get exposed to the elements, and flourish beyond its constraints, expanding far and wide.

Camping in the woods, bonding and riding on horses, doing archery, sparring with the brothers - all with the intention of reviving the Sunnah, pleasing Allah, and hanging out with righteous company, are all part of growing and maturing. Not only did we push ourselves and worked to revive the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, we also reminded one another of what our purpose is in this life - to make sure the word of Allah is the highest, and the character of the Prophet ﷺ is followed to the best of our ability.

In order to accomplish this mission, it requires one to be uncomfortable, for it was this discomfort that allowed Islam to spread, and allowed Islam to reach us.

Don’t get too comfortable in this dunya, because remember, your life and my life are a test, and tests are always full of challenges and surprises.

Will you have this regret when you are gone?

We have all seemingly missed out on so much.

We didn’t give any importance to cryptocurrency and especially bitcoin, and we were not able to capitalize on it as much as we would have liked, when it was only literally pennies for bitcoin.

How about the housing market? Maybe we were tempted to buy a house with a riba based loan, but we said NO, and now that opportunity to save in cash for a house keeps dwindling away since the prices are out of control. We “missed out” on that opportunity.

We could have bought a car for much cheaper before the pandemic, but now car prices are just ridiculous. We missed out on that opportunity.

There are just so many opportunities that we have seemingly missed out on, but we have to remember one thing:

When we are in our graves, the only opportunity that we will care about at that time is:

Did we miss out on our Islam?

Did we miss out on our religion?

Did we miss out on our real purpose in life?

We as Muslims already have the best thing that no dollar, no house, no bitcoin, no exotic car can buy.

We have la ilaha il Allah.

We have Allah on our side!

We have the truth!

We have guidance to Paradise!

There will be so many people who would have wished they had Islam, crying to the point where they would be willing to sacrifice everyone they know and all the people in the world in order to save themselves.

“To save himself from the torment of that Day, the culprit shall wish to give his children, his wife, his brother, his kinsfolk who gave him shelter, and all the people of the earth, just to save themselves.”

(Surah Ma’arij 70:11-14)

They will be crying with so much regret that they didn’t invest in their REAL life!

They will cry, “I wish I had sent forth ˹something good˺ for my ˹true˺ life.”

(Surah Fajr: 89:24)

Whenever you feel like you’ve missed out on something, or an opportunity has passed you buy, then always remember that you still have the best gift of all.

Islam!

Taylor Swift’s sweat.

Did I get your attention with the title?

Good.

About a month ago, I was watching a clip on YouTube, where a lady was asking whether or not it was worth spending $2,500 for Taylor Swift tickets.

These were not front row seats, but they were nosebleed seats, essentially the furthest seats away from Taylor Swift. 

You would need binoculars to see her.

The host of the show was outraged that these nosebleed seats cost $2,500.

She said for that kind of money, I want some of the “Swifty sweat” to hit me.

(I need to be so close to her that her sweat hits me in the face.)

That same evening, we reached a point in the Seerah where an incident occurred, and the sahaba were gathering the leftover wudu water of the Prophet ﷺ to use for themselves. This went down a tangent where we discussed how the hair, the sweat, and even the saliva of the Prophet ﷺ was considered blessed.

So blessed to the point that they would take some of the sweat and put it in their perfume.

And it was narrated from Anas that Umm Sulaym used to put out a mat of leather for the Prophet ﷺ and he would take a nap in her house. When the Prophet ﷺ fell asleep, she took some of his sweat and hair and kept it in a bottle, then she put it in some sukk (perfume made of musk). He [Thumaamah ibn ‘Abd-Allah ibn Anas] said: When Anas ibn Maalik was dying, he left instructions that some of the sukk should be put in his hunoot (perfumes used in preparation of dead for burial). 

Narrated by al-Bukhaari (6281)

The sahaba would take these things and seek blessings from them, and there was nothing weird or wrong about it.

Naturally the kids thought it was kind of strange, but that is because they’re still kids, and don’t understand how the adult mind and body work…

And that is where we as parents have to bridge the gap, educate, and defend.

So what if the Sahaba sought blessings from the Prophet ﷺ’s sweat? This is something unanimously agreed upon, and the Prophet ﷺ himself approved of it.

As we can see from the Taylor Swift example, people seek some sort of “high" or blessings from other people’s bodily fluids to this day.

It sounds strange when you say it like that, but it’s the truth!

The “Swiftie sweat” is just one example, but it can be applied to many celebrities whose teeth, leftover tissues, and even used underwear sold for thousands of dollars. Let’s not forget game-worn jerseys that are worth hundreds if not thousands more than an unused jersey by an athlete.

I remember watching TV shows where during certain episodes, the main character would meet their favorite celebrity and after shaking their hand, they would say: 

“I’m never washing this hand again.” 

It is because now they have a residual “part” of that celebrity on them, making them feel special. There is a deeper connection with that celebrity just because of their bodily fluids on your body.

Of course no man's sweat or saliva is worth anything today, and the only sweat or saliva that was blessed was that of the Prophet ﷺ.

The point here is to educate yourselves, and to educate those who are under your responsibility. Start there, and continue to educate your communities and in sha Allah, the whole world.

How boys and girls think differently about money.

From the archives - original date August 6, 2024.

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The other day, my daughter comes up to me, very nonchalantly, and just tells me,

“Papa, I think I lost my money.”

There was no emotion or panic in her tone whatsoever. I was more in shock of how calm she was because I knew she had a decent chunk of change for a 12 year old (about $500 from gifts and Eid money).

So naturally I asked her, “how much money? Do you mean your purse?” Her purse usually has like $20-$40.

I was like there was no way she lost ALL her money.

She replies again in her casual voice, “No. I lost all my money.”

So now I’m a bit concerned and freaking out a bit inside, and we go on a mission to backtrack her steps and search her room, and eventually she finds it fairly quickly.

Once she finds it, it’s just a, “Oh there it is.” and there’s just the tiniest sign of relief on her face.

After this ordeal, I was just taken aback by her attitude and how losing the money didn’t make her freak out. When I thought about it more, it didn't really surprise me.

We have been homeschooling them since the beginning, and we have been teaching them proper Islamic principles, including how a household is run, who is in charge of what, and who brings home the “dough,” and who cooks the dough.

It’s a system that Alhumdulilah works amazingly well, and brings benefit to everyone.

My wife doesn’t have to worry about money, and naturally, my daughter has picked that up from her. Having a lot of money isn’t a priority for my daughter, and being thrifty with money is one of her qualities.

Frankly, it should be a quality for all of us.

Her carelessness with money isn’t spending too much, but just misplacing it in her room 😂.

My son, on the other hand, is the opposite. He is much more meticulous with money, always trying to find ways to earn money, mainly because he tends to spend more money. If he had lost his wad of cash, he would have turned the whole house upside down trying to find it. He would definitely have been in a more panicked state. 

The way my son and daughter react emotionally to money is part of their fitra that is inside all of us as Muslims, and something that our house has reinforced:

Men are the providers of the household and have to worry about money and providing, while women are the maintainers of the household and have to worry about caretaking and maintaining. They are different roles for men and women, but in the eyes of Allah, they are noble and equitable positions that can take you to Jannah. 

Someone who stays home isn’t a worse person because they take care of the home vs the one who has to go out and work.

If your kids grow up without the influence of social media, and without the influence of anti-Islamic lifestyles that they see all day and are fed through the school systems, they are more likely to grow up on the fitra and you will have to spend less time trying to detox their minds.

You will see the fitra flourish in the actions of your kids, from the obvious to the more subtle, like finances.

Hack your brain and think positive.

From the archives - original date July 24, 2024.

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So there I was, driving down the road through some twisty turns, and I noticed that the neighborhood I was going through was a very wealthy neighborhood. It was the American dream in real life: big houses, big green landscaped yards, and 2 or 3 cars in each driveway, all secluded and distant from each other. 

I remember a similar scene but it was in a different scenario. I was at the Smoky Mountains and I took a helicopter ride, and I was able to see the beautiful scenery of the green mountains and the giant homes in that area. 

All of this made me feel happy for a reason, even though I don’t own a house and am not a fan of taking a mortgage for obvious Islamic reasons. 

Seeing all these beautiful things that I wanted made me realize that in Jannah, I can have all of this plus much more! 

Forget about just one huge house, how about huge palaces that would make these houses look like monopoly homes in size?

2 or 3 family cars in the driveway? How about the most exotic sports cars that I can summon my way into at just the thought of it happening!

Green landscaped backyards? How about a yard as far as the eye can see, with rivers, fruits, and your family and friends nearby? No landscaping costs involved!

When we see what others have, let us remind ourselves that even if we can’t get those things in this life, we still have an opportunity to get them in the next life. 

Not only that, but this life is only an infinitely small fraction of our total existence! 

Don’t put all your eggs in the dunya basket.

Remember the Hadith Qudsi:

Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Allah said, ‘I have prepared for My righteous slaves (such excellent things) as no eye has ever seen, nor an ear has ever heard nor a human heart can ever think of.’ ”

Doing the bare bones consistently, can lead to Jannah?

From the archives - original date August 2, 2024.

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The Prophet ﷺ said:

وَمَنْ سَلَكَ طَرِيقًا يَلْتَمِسُ فِيهِ عِلْمًا سَهَّلَ اللَّهُ لَهُ بِهِ طَرِيقًا إِلَى الْجَنَّةِ

Whoever travels a path in search of knowledge, Allah will make easy for him a path to Paradise.

This translation doesn’t do justice to the word that is used for “seeking,” which is “iltimas.”

I’m no Arabic scholar, but I was watching a Righteous and Rich episode, and Br. Imran explained the word “iltimas.” It is commonly translated as “seeking,” but it actually means someone who does less than that.

How much less? It is one of the lowest levels of seeking knowledge, where someone might spend once a week, or even once every two weeks, trying to seek just a little tiny bit of knowledge.

No rigorous studying, but very passive knowledge. 

Even for THIS person, the one who isn’t trying hard at all to seek knowledge, but if he is consistent, Allah will make a path to Paradise easy for him. 

Allah hu Akbar!

After hearing this, there really isn’t any excuse for us not to seek knowledge. Even if it means reading a post on social media (that is authentic), or watching a few short videos (dare I say reels or shorts!), this could be your ticket to Jannah.

Consistency is key though!

Of course we should always strive higher than the bare minimum, and the benefit you will get from seeking knowledge will literally change your life. 

Not only your life, but the lives of those you are responsible for.

Your children, and your spouse.

Imagine spending just 5 minutes a day teaching your children about something you learned. It doesn’t even have to be directly related to Islamic knowledge, but maybe something happened in your day, and you can relate it to your kids by showing them how such and such a situation was a blessing, how that incident was a trial, how this situation reminded me of the Prophet ﷺ during this phase, etc. 

These 5 minutes will add up over time, and they will organically lengthen the conversations you have with your children. They will ask you questions, and the conversation will keep going while you bond with them. 

The knowledge discussions will be something they will actually look forward to, and before you know it, these discussions will become longer without seeming like a drag. 

And best of yet by Allah’s will, your path to Paradise will be easy!

Check out the video clip here.

Friday sermon 8/8/26 - A Father's role in the family.

You can listen to it on YouTube, or read the transcript below.

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إنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ

وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ، وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا، مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ، وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ.

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ وَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنتُم مُّسْلِمُونَ

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ اتَّقُوا رَبَّكُمُ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُم مِّن نَّفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ وَخَلَقَ مِنْهَا زَوْجَهَا وَبَثَّ مِنْهُمَا رِجَالًا كَثِيرًا وَنِسَاءً ۚ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ الَّذِي تَسَاءَلُونَ بِهِ وَالْأَرْحَامَ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ عَلَيْكُمْ رَقِيبًا.

Brothers and sisters, the last time, um, when I was here, we had a discussion, we discussed the honorable role, and the very crucial role, and the very righteous role that a woman has in the household. And today, Inshallah, I'm going to expand on that, but I'm going to be discussing it from the side of the fathers. And what the father's responsibility is within the family.

And first of all, when I think of these subjects, it reminds me of the hadith, of the Prophet ﷺ, where he had said, and this is reported by Abdullah bin Umar, the son of Umar bin al Khattab (RA), he said, 

“every one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock. The leader of people is a guardian and responsible for his subjects. 
A man is the guardian of his family, and he is responsible for them. A woman is the guardian of her husband's home and his children, and she is responsible for them. The servants of a man is a guardian of the property of his master, and he is responsible for it. 
No doubt, every one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock.” 

So as we can see from this Hadith, at some point in our lives, whether you're a man or woman, you are going to be responsible in some capacity, even if you are an older sibling, and you have younger siblings, you are responsible, because you have to set an example for your younger siblings. And we notice from this, that there's 2 sets of authority when it comes to the children. 
We have the mother who is the more closer authority of them, and then we have the father who's on the outside of the Hadith, and he's also the authority of the family, the wife and the children. 

Now, a lot of brothers, unfortunately, sometimes when they hear this hadith, and they hear that they're responsible and that they're in charge, they think of it as a flex, they think of it, yes, look, I'm in charge, I can do whatever I want, and you just, and I can sit back and I don't have to do anything, and it's all good. But actually, it's not a flex, brothers and sisters, it's actually a responsibility, it's a huge responsibility, and it's a burden on a true believing man. 


When he hears this, he doesn't smile. He has to rise to the occasion, right? It's something it's a call of duty, as you can say. 
And it could very, it could very well be that on the Day of Judgment, your family can have a case against you because you did not do what you were supposed to do as the leader. So don't take this lightly and don't take it as a way to be like a, for example, a dictator who thinks that just because he has power that Allah must love him because he has all this power and everything. But no, it's not like that. 
It's mutual with the, with your family, just like the Prophet ﷺ, where he was in charge, but his relationship with his wife was very loving, very caring, and he would consult with them at certain situations. 

So, And unfortunately, sometimes when we get lazy, and we don't take responsibility, what ends up happening is that the women have to step up and become leaders sometimes and a lot of times against their own will. So we should definitely be careful in terms of this responsibility. 
And today, Inshallah, I'm going to be discussing some of the points of what we should do as we raise our kids. 

Now, I know with fathers generally speaking, they're more busy, right? They're more outside, they're busy at work, and they might not see their children as much as the mothers do. 
But with a mother, it's about the amount of time. The quantity of time. But when it comes to the father, it's not about the quantity of time, it's about the quality of time. 
How much time you spend, and what you can do to increase the baraka in your house. You can be at home for a whole week when you're on vacation, for example, or even all summer long, but you're watching TV, or you're doing your thing, and your kids are in their rooms, playing games all day long, and there won't be any sort of progress between your relationship with them, because you're both in the same house, but you're technically in different worlds. But you can spend 15 minutes a day with your child, with your children, with your family, and you can literally change the world. 


Our boys and our girls, they need a father who needs to know what it means to be a real man. And, ideally, a man who is trying to copy what the Prophet ﷺ, used to do. And we need to follow his path in order to lead our boys and our girls and our families to the right path. 


And this reminds me of the verse in Surah Tahrim, where Allah SWT says,

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ قُوٓا۟ أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًۭا وَقُودُهَا ٱلنَّاسُ وَٱلْحِجَارَةُ

He says, oh, believers, save yourselves, and your families from the fire, whose fuel is men and stones. Subhan Allah. 
So imagine the fire that Allah has created, the fuel of it is what? Humans and stones. So, may protect us and our families from such a fate, Ameen. And when you study the life of the Prophet ﷺ, and this used to be the curriculum of the, of the, you know, the Sahaba and the Tabi’in, they would study the Quran, the Sunnah and the Seerah. That was the curriculum. 
And there's a statement that's attributed to Ali RA, and it's a very wise statement about how to raise a family and how to raise children. 

So he said, for the 1st 7 years, play with your children. 
In the next 7 years, teach your children, and then in the final 7 years, advise your children. So today, Inshallah, I'm going to be focusing on the 1st 7 years, which arguably are the most critical and give some pointers that relate to fathers, but you can also, there's some cross here between mothers as well. 

So the 1st and most important thing that we should be doing is calling to Allah SWT. 
Even when we give Dawa to a non-Muslim or anybody, it's never about Zakat or about rights or about hajj or fasting or none of that. It's always, it all comes down to the central concept of calling to Allah SWT alone. And even when your kids are very small, they might not even be able to understand what you're saying. 
It's good to have a discussion with your family at home, let's say after prayer, you sit down, and you talk for 5 or 10 minutes. Even if they don't understand you now, if you do that regularly, ideally once a day, but if not three times a week or something along those lines, by the time that kid is two, three years old, and they can have some understanding, you'll be a professional now, at speaking about Islam. 


And you don't have to be speaking in a scholarly way. It could just be some basic examples, like, when you go to the grocery store and you take your kid, and you see the fruit section, and you see all the different apples. There's, like, maybe 12 types of apples, all the colors, red, yellow, green. 
There's four types of red, you know, three types of green, and you can just say, you know, Subhan Allah, look at how beautiful Allah has created the food for us. It tastes good, and it even looks good. Right? 
As compared to some of the other foods that are manmade that are not healthy. 

So, and then you can turn that into a talking point for your child, and they can appreciate that and learn. So once again, it's not like you're sitting down in a madrasa with a stick, and you're teaching them, and if they don't repeat, you smack them, right? 
That is not from Islam, and that is obviously gonna cause a lot more damage than any good. 

So you have these organic conversations, you know, and then as you go out in the day for work, what you should be as a hunter. Now, what do I mean by being a hunter? 
You should find a story in that day that you can come home and tell your family, and once again, you can relate it back to Allah SWT. Maybe, and when it comes to some advice and hints, it's just like Allah says, in the Qur’an, where He says, 

Don't you see the skies? Don't you see the mountains? 
Don't you see, don't you see the ships that are sailing? Right? And now Subhan Allah. 
We appreciate the ships, right? Because of what's going on in the world. We know that those ships are good, because if they come, the prices go down, and if they don't come, the prices go up. 
So, once again, a reflection, something like that, even, you can have an organic conversation, and be like, you know, Allah said, these are blessings, and now we can finally appreciate it, because look at what's going on. Maybe that's for an older kid, obviously, not a four year old. But you keep doing these things, and they will appreciate who Allah is. 


And at the same time, The advice of Ali RA, which is to play with them. Now, with moms, they'll play with the kids, but it's very, you know, controlled because they don't want to hurt their kid and so on and so forth, but fathers, as many of us fathers know, we like to wrestle with our kids, boys and girls, and we'll carry them through them here, this and that. And they'll laugh, and they'll laugh, and then they might push a boundary here and there, and then they'll cry, right? 
And then after that, after they're crying, at the same time, they're coming back towards you laughing again, because they want to do it again and this and that. And they're learning a connection with you. They're building a connection in their brains that are very young, and they're developing brains, and they're actually connecting with you, they're learning confidence, they're learning boundaries, they're learning social interaction, all these things that you can't see. 
All you see is crying and laughing, right? But that's what's going on in their brains. 

And we know this for a fact, because if you were to take a child, and may Allah protect all of our children, but if something were to happen in their brain, and half of their brain had to be removed, at a very young age, that child can still function, for the most part, as a normal human being, as they grew up, because their brain can rewire itself, for that lack of that other half, and it can rewire itself, and they can still function, pretty much at, like, 85 or 90% of a person. 
Whereas if you would take any adult brain, if... And Subhan Allah if half of our brain was to be removed, we would be a vegetable, at best, we probably wouldn't even survive. So you can see how their brains are very critical and crucial at that young age. 


So playing with them, teaching them who Allah is, and with all of these different interactions, we can build upon that, and teach them how actions can be good deeds. So now you're telling them how merciful Allah is, and how, you know, if you go to bed early, you can make intention with Allah that when I go to sleep, then I'm gonna get stronger, and then the next day, I'll be a better Muslim. And they'll be like, oh, okay, you know, they might not agree with you all the time, but they'll hear you, and they're gonna remember these things. 
Even if they might not listen to you, but they'll still remember these things. And they'll remember that, you know, if you eat your food, you'll get stronger, and you can make intention that, I want to be a stronger Muslim, and then I can worship Allah better, because I'm stronger, I'm eating this food. And once again, organically having these conversations, and once again, following the attitude of the Prophet ﷺ where you do not get angry. where the Prophet ﷺ emphasized not to get angry. 
And the only time he would get angry ﷺ, was, when the commands of Allah were being violated, and even when that happened, he wouldn't tell somebody, you know, sit down or hit him, or yell at them, and call them crazy, or what's wrong with you in front of everybody, he wouldn't do these things, right? He would not do these things. 

As a matter of fact, there was a young man who came to the Prophet ﷺ. 
And he asked him, Ya Rasulullah, allow me to commit, zina. Allow me to have a relationship with a woman outside of marriage. Did the Prophet ﷺ get up, yell at him, and smack him, and do all of that in front of the Sahaba? 
No, he did not ﷺ. He brought him close. 
He advised him. And he convinced him because he said, would you like this for your own family? Would you like this if someone did this with your mother? 
And then the man said, No, ya Rasulullah. Would you like this if someone did this with your sister? No, Ya Rasulullah. 
And he kept on going, and he eventually made dua for the man, and then he stopped having these thoughts. 

So, you see, this is how we should model when our kids are young, and when they're older. And also think of the other part of this question of this Hadith. 
The fact that that young man was able to come to the Prophet ﷺ, in the first place, and ask him this question that is very controversial. How many of our children come to us and ask us these kinds of questions? And that'll only happen the way you treat them when they're younger. 
If you are harsh, if we are harsh, and we're, you know, may Allah protect them, if we're punishing them with physical force, then they're not going to come to us because they know what's going to happen if they do. 

So we have to be gentle. We have to realize they're young, they're ma’soom, they don't, they can't control themselves, and the more you study these things, and the more you study the Seerah and the Quran, the more you will realize that this is the case. 


And our kids, in this society, they're already trying to fit in. They're always trying to fit in in their schools and in other groups, and we're already the “other” category, right? Even on the paper form, it says, What are you? 
this, this, this, and that, or other? Right? And sometimes you just gotta fill the “other” box, right? 
Because there's no other box to fill. 

But they're already trying to fit in, and if we're not there to nourish that environment for them, they're gonna try to fit in in those other environments. 

One other thing that will save you a lot of money, actually, is getting them involved early on inside of doing chores in the house. 
And fathers and mothers as well can be part of this, where you can do small things, even if you're cooking, for example, if someone's cooking, they could just give you the plate, hey, get me that plate, hey, give me this spoon, give me this, throw this in the trash. Or if they're really small, and they can't do any of that, put them in the high seat and let them watch you do stuff. Because they want to belong in your family, and they'll, and like many of us know, they'll follow you. 
If you have older siblings, they follow them, because why? They want to belong and do things. But instead, what do we do a lot of times? 
And I can understand why we do this sometimes because we all need to have, you know, dedicated time to do certain tasks and do them well and do them fast. But most of the time, if not all the time, we take the child, hey, you, you sit over here, you take this (handing the child a device). I gotta do stuff over here. 
Right? And then I talked about this last time on how the effect of screens on the brain, which acts like a drug. So we're actually medicating them in a sense, in a bad way. 
And then we're going over here doing our own thing. And then later on, we wonder why my kids have certain, you know, these problems. 

And subhan Allah the other day, I was at the grocery store. You know, there's a kid, he's probably like 6 or 7 or 8 years old sitting inside the cart. And the mother's going around with the cart. 
He's sitting there on a screen because he's because that's the only way now that he can be controlled or he can be taken out of the house for getting this job of getting the groceries done. But ideally, when a child is that old, he should be helping you put the groceries in the cart. You should be teaching him, Hey, this is a good apple, this is a bad apple. 
This is a good tomato. This is a bad tomato. And they should be able to learn a skill in life. 
Basic shopping and how to survive, in that sense. 

So being a parent, brothers and sisters, is a blessing, but it's also a test. And if we don't do justice in the first seven years and develop that deep relationship with them, it will only be harder during the next two stages of life. 
So now, in these first seven years, if you do these things, as best as you can, because obviously we're all human, we're not going to do this 100%, even if we're 80%, or even 70%. At some of these things, and we talk about Allah, for 7 years, imagine you're talking about Allah to your kid, you're telling them these stories, and why Allah's merciful, and so on, and so forth, and then at 7 years old, we all know the hadith about, that's when your child should start praying. 

Now, if you're praying at home, they're already going to be starting to pray with you. 
They're gonna jump on your back, this and that. They’re going to copy your movements. And we’ve all seen that. 
And the more we build on that, the question no longer will become, why should I pray to Allah? The question will no longer become, Why should I pray? The question will become, why shouldn't I pray? 
Of course, I should pray. Look at all these amazing things that Allah has given us. Look at how the earth, if we were just one or 2 feet left of the sun, or if we were one or 2 feet further away from the sun, life would be (un)sustainable and everything would be frozen. 
If we were just a little bit closer to the sun, what would happen? Everything would be too hot and life would not be sustainable. 

And all these different things, you tell your children, once again, in an informal manner, Sometimes maybe you can have a formal talk, but all of these things, you build it, you build it, and the question is no longer, why do I have to pray, Mom, why do I have to pray, Dad? 
Who cares, this and that? No, the question is gonna be - Now the question is, why shouldn't I pray? 
Of course I should pray. So that's not even an issue anymore, right? For the most part, Inshallah. 


أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ وَلِسَائِرِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ ، فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ.

So now, I want to fast forward a little bit, brothers and sisters. What happens when parents are not serious about their religion, and what happens when fathers are not serious about leading their families, and they have a lifestyle where they come home, they watch TV, go to bed, and they... and they, and they repeat the cycle, over and over, not really teaching their kids. It's more like just reprimanding them for not doing something that they should have done. 
And this lifestyle keeps on building on itself. 

Maybe this lifestyle could have worked at a certain time and place, maybe 50, 60 years ago, when the environment you were living in, was an Islamic environment, because you were back home, and the Adhan was being called, and so on, and so forth, but in today's day and age, it's different. You have to adapt in order to keep your values intact. 
So what happens, and I've seen this growing up, born and raised here. I've seen this myself, brothers and sisters, I've seen fathers who were not involved, and when it comes to boys, it's actually a crisis, and there's a whole book and studies on this whole topic, there's a crisis with the boys, because they're trying to learn what a man is supposed to be like, and there's, with their fathers not being around, they don't know what it really means to be a man because they're around their moms and so on all the time. And that's fine. 
Obviously, a mother is going to be a mother. 

So they have a loss of purpose, and this is a big problem in society, not just for boys, but of course, if you don't have Islam, not just because you're a non-Muslim, but if you're a Muslim, but you don't have Islam, because you're just a Muslim by name, then you don't have a purpose, you don't know what it means to be a man. You don't have anyone who's giving you attention. 
So then these types of people, unfortunately, are the ones that you can pinpoint in the school system even, according to the teachers, what they've said is, if kids act out, if they're bullying, if they're bullying others, these types of kids are usually the ones that don't have a father figure in the house. And it leads down a huge downward spiral of drugs, of alcohol, of girlfriends, all of these things, and I've seen it from Muslims families, where, eventually, you're trying to chase somebody halfway across the country, because you're in love, only to die on the way there, or on the way back. Subhan Allah.


Or you get involved in gangs, you know, the same kid I knew, when he was a kid, we'd play, he was, like, five. I was, like, eight. You know, he would kiss me on the cheek, like, just 'cause he was a kid, right? 
And whatever. And it would be wet. That's how I remember he would kiss me because it'd be a wet, blobby kiss. 
And then he grows up, and what happens? He gets killed in gang violence, right? So, subhan Allah, so that's why the father has to be there. 
He has to give his boys guidance. 

And when it comes to the girls, the father is their first man in their lives that they will have a relationship with. The father is the first man, a daughter will have a relationship with, a father-to-daughter relationship. 
And we know girls like to seek validation and attention, and this is part of their fit, and their nature. So, as a kid, it's easy for you as a dad to grab your daughter and call her a princess and this and that, and she loves that stuff. You can't see it, but she loves it. 
It's in her head. Because women are very emotional when it comes to, um, love. As compared to men, we're very visual when it comes to love. 
So they're very emotional, so they want to get attention. They want to hear people complimenting them. 

So when as your daughters get older, you should still compliment them, and you should treat them nicely, and follow the example of the Prophet ﷺ. 
Once again, whenever Fatima RA would come, the Prophet ﷺ  would get up for her, he would get up, he would go to her, he would kiss her on the forehead, he would walk her to where he was sitting, and put her down, and have her sit there, as to honor her, right? Subhan Allah. And then likewise, when he would go to visit her, she would kiss him on the forehead, she would grab his hand and put him where she was sitting and have him sit there to honor them. 
So this is that love a father should have for his daughters. So they feel satisfied, and they can express their beauty to them, and they don't have to seek that from other men, who are obviously ill intended or, or the sorts. 

So brothers and sisters, my final reminder to all of us - the globe changed, the whole global map changed. 
The whole Arabia changed. The hearts of millions and now billions have been guided when Allah SWT revealed the Quran, and the 1st word to have been revealed, was IQRA. 


Read. See, so read, Allah changed the whole world, the map, the beliefs, and He shed light upon light to, all of humanity with the 1st word, of READ. So my brothers and my sisters, we don't have, quote unquote, a lot of free time, as we think we do sometimes. 
We have to learn. We have to learn, so we can be better as well. And always purify your intention that you're doing this for Allah's sake, and not just so your kids are good Muslims, no. 
Do this, to purify your hearts, I'm doing this for Allah's sake, and that you can develop more knowledge, and you speak to your family, and at the same time, you become a better speaker yourself. 

And then you develop more confidence, they develop more confidence, and it only brings unity when everyone is becoming closer to Allah SWT.

What will you tell your kids on your deathbed?

Originally published on November 23, 2023 on my previous website.

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This verse gets me every time.

It’s a stark reminder that we will eventually leave this world, and our children will be left without us.

The question that goes through every Muslim parent’s mind, who worries for their children, should be this question that is in Surah Baqara, Verse 133:

Or did you witness when death came to Jacob? He asked his children, “Who will you worship after my passing?” They replied, “We will ˹continue to˺ worship your God, the God of your forefathers—Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac—the One God. And to Him we ˹all˺ submit.” (2:133)

Jacob or Yaqub (AS) didn’t talk about the worldly worries:

“Do you have enough money to survive?”

“Is your job stable enough so you can support yourself?”

“Here are all my passwords to my accounts so you can calculate the inheritance.”

On his deathbed, Yaqub AS only had one worry for his children. Something much more precious than the luxuries of this world. He wanted to make sure his kids knew what their real purpose was.

“Are you going to worship Allah, or will you forget about your Lord when I am gone?”

A magnificent question from Yaqub AS, and a question we need to be asking our children before we reach our deathbeds because one day, we will be gone, and they won’t have us as a fallback for life’s concerns. Plus we have no guarantee that they will be around when we are on our deathbeds.

If we train our kids properly and bring them up in a house of Islam, then in sha Allah they will have an answer that is just as amazing as the question. Look at how Yaqub’s children respond:

“We will ˹continue to˺ worship your God, the God of your forefathers—Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac—the One God. And to Him we ˹all˺ submit.” (2:133)

Subhan Allah, look at that beautiful answer. They didn’t just respond by saying, “We will worship Allah.” They responded by saying that we will worship your God, the one true God, the God of your forefathers, AND to Him we will all submit.

Let’s break this down for a bit.

This comprehensive answer means that Yaqub (AS) didn’t just teach his kids that Allah is one and call it a day.

He taught his children about Allah, he taught his children about the Prophets who were alive before him (who were his ancestors), and he taught his children that the main goal in life is to submit to Allah.

In essence, he would teach them the “Qur’an and Seerah” of his time. The Qur’an being the Scrolls of Abraham, and the Seerah being the lives of Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac.

He taught them the formula for success, which is to learn first and foremost who Allah is, and then to follow the teachings and examples of the Prophets in terms of how to worship Allah.

We have the same formula in Islam. We teach our kids about who Allah is, and we also have to teach our kids the Qur’an and Seerah of our Prophet ﷺ. The Seerah is linked with the Qur’an directly. You can’t possibly study the life of the Prophet and not encounter the Qur’an in it.

Now let’s also look at it even deeper. When someone asks you a question, whether you know the answer or not, you will reply as simply as you can. When Yaqub AS asks his kids this question, they reply back in such an impressive manner that it makes you think, “Did Yaqub ask them this question even before he was dying,” because no one can answer in such an impressive manner unless you were already reminded and coached about this constantly throughout your life.

And the answer to that is YES, they were coached throughout their lives about the purpose of their life. If we look back at the verse right before this one, we will see what Yaqub tells his children:

And Abraham instructed his sons [to do the same] and [so did] Jacob, [saying], "O my sons, indeed Allāh has chosen for you this religion, so do not die except while you are Muslims." (2:132)

Quranic rendering for the digital age.

Tarteel.ai:

A few decades ago, navigation meant paper maps stored in your glove compartment. When GPS devices and smartphones emerged, the obvious next step might have been to digitize those maps; to scan them, store them as images or PDFs, and allow users to pan and zoom.

Instead, modern navigation tools look nothing like paper maps. They automatically detect your location, incorporate live traffic data, provide contextual insights, and reroute you dynamically. You can travel from point A to point B without ever touching the device.

Now consider how we engage with the Quran digitally. We moved from physical mushafs to images of their pages on a screen, still flipping page by page. Some enhancements such as search and audio playback have been layered on, but fundamentally, the experience has barely progressed. We are still changing the medium, not rethinking the experience.

At Tarteel, we are reimagining how Muslims engage with the Quran from the ground up. Doing this well requires solving a problem that most digital products never face: rendering a sacred text with absolute textual fidelity, deep interactivity, and strict spatial consistency, all at once. This post explains why existing digital approaches fall short and how we built a new rendering system to overcome those constraints.

Very nerdy but cool process for bringing the Qur’an into the digital age with more functionality, while keeping spatial consistency. A must read for design and font enthusiasts.

A Psychiatrist talks about meds he would never give his kids.

Enough about what I think, just listen to the expert. He holds very conservative values, and a lot of what he says falls in line with what Islam has to say.

One of the key points he mentions is the effect our diet has on our bodies. Eating and drinking well plays a huge part in how we feel, and we can all attest to that. We all like to eat junk every now and then, and that’s how it should be - every now and then, not the bulk of our diet which is true for many if not most Americans.

It makes you ponder the verse in the Qur’an that talks about food, and how it leads down a Satanic path:

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ كُلُوا۟ مِمَّا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ حَلَـٰلًۭا طَيِّبًۭا وَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا۟ خُطُوَٰتِ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنِ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّۭ مُّبِينٌ ١٦٨

O humanity! Eat from what is lawful and good on the earth and do not follow Satan’s footsteps. He is truly your sworn enemy.

The Cow (2:168)

Lawful and good, or lawful and pure.

How much of what we eat is actually pure? To think that there isn’t a connection between diet and mental health is ludicrous. Even just a few decades ago, the connection between your oral health and heart disease was popularized, and we don’t question that at all.

So now ponder over this verse - if we don’t eat pure food and nourish our bodies the right way, we could be following Satan’s footsteps. We indulge in what is bad with little to no self-restraint, which is exactly the Satanic path. Compound the bad food with bad health, leading to poor medical choices such as brain-altering antidepressants, and you wonder why children on psychiatric drugs start acting out of character, become dangerous, and even suicidal. Children’s brains are still underdeveloped, and now you’re altering them with drugs that consistently show bad outcomes.

Having a deeper connection with Allah, with your daily prayers, with the Qur’an, with the Sunnah, and eating right are all part of the process that will lead to 99% of people being free from psychiatric drugs, but it’s the answer that doesn’t generate record-breaking profits.

Dry January? More like high January.

The Atlantic (News+ link):

Many Americans enthusiastically partake in Dry January, but it is rarely pitched as fun. After the holiday stretch of office parties and family gatherings, Americans have come to use the start of every year to abstain from alcohol in the name of health and auspicious beginnings. It’s a time of discipline, of cleansing, of embodying your mood board, even if it makes you a drag at parties. And it is also, as weed companies have learned, a marketing opportunity.

In recent years, weed companies have started to lean into the argument that taking the edge off sobriety with a low-dose gummy or THC drink still counts as dry. My social-media feeds are flooded with posts from cannabis companies pitching their products as fun and approachable tools to get through an alcohol-free month. Mary and Jane, an edibles company, makes a tantalizing proposition: “Dry January made easy.” Artet, which specializes in beverages, sells a “High & Dry January” bundle that includes a bottle of its THC-laced aperitif. Some products are conspicuously health-coded: North Canna describes its cannabis drinks as “functional,” and Feals highlights its edibles’ low calorie count. Above all, the ads emphasize how little booze you drink when you get high instead.

This push for a weed-filled January is, of course, a blatant (and somewhat silly) attempt by cannabis companies to get more customers. But as restrictions on marijuana loosen, and more Americans find themselves able and willing to fit the drug into their lives, Dry January does appear to be offering an opportunity for experimentation. In fact, cannabis sales surged in January 2024, and 21 percent of Dry January participants who responded to a 2023 survey swapped booze for weed that month.

This type of liberalistic, “have what you want as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else,” mindset is what will eventually destroy civilizations, including ours. You can’t walk out of anywhere these days except you smell weed. Even right outside the hospital for God’s sake.

So much for starting the new year with optimism and healthier choices:

The shaky logic of replacing one drug with another during a month dedicated to sobriety is hard to ignore. If the point of Dry January is to improve health, replacing alcohol with cannabis—which is not a benign substance—seems counterproductive. Far less is known about the long-term use of cannabis compared with alcohol, but both can be abused, cause dependence, and interfere with daily function and productivity, Ryan Vandrey, who helps run Johns Hopkins’s Cannabis Science Laboratory, told me. Some people are predisposed to react negatively to cannabis, experiencing anxiety, paranoia, or even cyclical vomiting. Over time, long-term heavy cannabis use can exacerbate mental-health conditions such as schizophrenia and depression.

The cycle will continue, as increased schizophrenia and depression means prescribing more antidepressants and antipsychotics that people once again shouldn’t need, but it fuels the money circle fresh with even more cash. One of the reasons why I left traditional pharmacy is because you become a bonafide, legal drug dealer, depending on what city you work in.

That was over a decade ago, so I can’t even imagine how insane it must be today.

Just think - almost every area of healthcare that has increased treatment leads to better outcomes, except mental health.

One of the reasons why it’s true is because people aren’t living with purpose anymore. Many people don’t even think about the question:

“Why am I here?”

They’re always connected to a device, listening to something 24/7, are on some sort of drug cocktail, binge watching a new series, and so on.

They’ve never unplugged and detoxed their mind to really think about, “Why am I here?”

The Islamic concept of Barakah present in Apple Product Design.

In a YouTube video with Muslim Founder, Peter Gould discusses how he talked to Apple Product Designers about Barakah (transcription below):

Yeah great question Well um I was once teaching teaching some Apple product designers in Cupertino in um in San Francisco head office and uh I remember kind of speaking to the audience like okay you’re familiar with things like Feng shui or Zen design or Wabi-sabi like Japanese like non-western design philosophy and they're like yeah like we're all cool designers - then I said, "Well how about Barakah?" And they're like "What?" It's like "Isn't that like a movie or something?"

And you know I'm just kind of paraphrasing but you know Barakah is such an essential part to you know maybe a quarter of the world's population in terms of how we think how we live our life how we aspire for this intangible divine goodness in a thing, Barakah, and uh you know as my my friend Muhammed Faris he wrote a book called The Barakah Effect And he once he kind of said "Peter we should think about ROI as return on intention rather than return on investment."

And so in these places and some of the places I've taught I intentionally use the language of the heart I don't call it Islamic design or like Muslim, you know in every human there is a heart. Every heart has a spiritual state, and someone designing an iPhone or designing you know really popular software, they can appreciate that, on the spiritual path like Alhamdulillah as as Muslims we are given a much richer understanding of what is the heart what is the ruh, what is the how, and then your amanah, your kind of responsibility, if you're designing for that, becomes much more serious, like you've got to be careful like, “am I just pulling people to distract them and addict them and whatever or am I trying to find ways to be uh very aware of my responsibility in design?”

A little deeper dive into Barakah can be found with an interview between Peter Gould and Muhammed Faris himself:

“Most definitions come down to things like ‘abundant, flowing, positive, divine energy that enters a thing’ — a tangible intangible that works in mysterious ways beyond logic to create an effect.

“Some scholars describe it as a hidden soldier of the soul. Meaning Allah sends Barakah into something like one of his soldiers. So it might enter your time, or your family, or your laptop, or your sleep, or your food. And it does some kind of spiritual chemical reaction there that leads to a benefit of abundance or goodness that’s hard to describe.  

“One example that many of us have experienced is when you invite friends over for dinner and you’ve prepared food for 10 people. But then one of your friends brings his whole family, and you look at the food and think it’s not going to be enough. But the Barakah is that it’s always enough. Sometimes there’s even leftovers as well. That’s a manifestation of Barakah as a result of your good intention to bring people over and feed them. […]

It’s not unusual, for example, for good things to happen with our work and for us to consider it as either luck, coincidence, or the results of our own hard work. But as Mohammed says, if we were to really take the time to look at how events have led to that ‘good thing’ happening, we would surely see something bigger at play.

“This is Barakah,” he says. “It’s Allah aligning things so perfectly that you look back and think ‘I could not have planned this’. Things had to align so perfectly to get to this exact point — you can’t just see it as cause and effect any more; it’s beyond that. 

“And the danger — especially for entrepreneurs and start-ups — is that we tend to say it’s from our hard work. Because we do experience all of the hard work. We show up early every day, go into the office, do all this stuff, and we want to attribute that success to ourselves. You almost don’t want to recognise that there’s a spiritual invisible hand at work. But it’s the Barakah effect that moves things and arranges things for you.”

We need the concept of Barakah to also hit the field of AI and other technologies in order to help build humanity instead of trying to destroying it.

Five “Fahadx” observations I made when at the hospital.

Baby girl got sick again this past week, making a total of 8 days at the hospital over a one month period. A few observations I noticed:

1. Almost every healthcare worker wears an Apple Watch.

2. This particular Modular Compact configuration with no bottom widget is more common than I would like.

3. The chapel is occupied by Muslims 99% of the time.

4. Sushi is great, and cheap. You can literally park at the hospital and get cheaper sushi at the cafeteria than the grocery store.

5. Masimo blood oxygen sensors are a real thing. A wrap-around for the foot, using the big toe as the sensing point. Thank you Masimo - now please (Apple and Masimo), make a deal and give us proper Apple Watch blood oxygen capability.

Grok makes nearly nude photos of women without their permission - future implications.

The Guardian (pdf file of article):

Grok has come under fire from lawmakers and regulators worldwide after it emerged it had been used to virtually undress images of women and children, and show them in compromising sexualised positions. The widespread sexual abuse consists of X users asking Grok to manipulate pictures of fully clothed women to put them in bikinis, on their knees, and cover them in what looks like semen.

“I felt horrified, I felt violated, especially seeing my toddler’s backpack in the back of it,” St Clair said of an image in which she has been put into a bikini, turned around and bent over.

“It’s another tool of harassment. Consent is the whole issue. People are saying, well, it’s just a bikini, it’s not explicit. But it is a sexual offence to non-consensually undress a child.”

I wonder if this is the first time 1st generation Muslim parents in the West are aware of this issue? Unfortunately, this is nothing compared to some of the more vulgar apps and websites out there. The worst part? The more this type of behavior becomes normalized, the more likely it is for women (yes, even Muslim women) to say, “well if people are going to nudify me, I might as well get paid for it.”

Haramblur.

Cool extension a family member referred me to. Works for a majority of browsers and Android devices. Blurs Islamically inappropriate content.

Love the innovation in the Muslim AI space. Check it out.

The drug cascade that is becoming the norm in children.

From The Wall Street Journal (paywalled link; Apple News+link):

“The best scientific evidence suggests that it is very rare for two or more medications in kids to be helpful and there are concerns about safety, because there can be additive adverse effects of different types of medications,” said Dr. Javeed Sukhera, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and chair of psychiatry at the Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

A child on several medications at once often hasn’t had a comprehensive evaluation by a child psychiatrist, Sukhera said. Stimulants can cause side effects that can be mistaken for an additional disorder. “When a young person shows up with anxiety after starting a stimulant, that doesn’t mean that they have an anxiety disorder,” he said.

Many adults say that ADHD medications vastly improved their lives, and some scientific studies show that medicating reduces risk of other potential problems such as juvenile delinquency and subsequent mental-health disorders.

Still, side effects of the ADHD medications on young children can be severe and unpredictable, sometimes pushing parents to accept additional pills to address them.

All too often, under pressure from preschools and elementary schools, many parents seek help from pediatricians or psychiatric nurse practitioners—who frequently lack in-depth training in pediatric mental health—rather than wait months or even years for appointments with behavioral specialists or child psychiatrists.

Alexandra Perez, a clinical psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine who works with young children on Medicaid and private insurance, said she has seen children as young as 4 on multiple psychiatric medications. Many have experienced adversity or trauma and have behavioral problems as a result that get labeled as ADHD, said Perez, who practices Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a method that has been proven to reduce behavioral difficulties associated with ADHD.

“Children are quickly diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication,” she said. “That doesn’t tackle the root causes. We are putting the Band-Aid of medication on, a temporary fix.”

So much more to unpack here, but the best form of therapy really is more time spent with parents who take an active role in being present with their children. This is especially true for mothers who have been tricked into thinking that parenting and being a stay-at-home mom isn’t worth anything, when Islamically and even from other religious perspectives, it is the most important and honorable act a woman can do - raising future generations of humanity.