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Paradise
in Our Homes
Episode 5
In the name of Allah,
the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon
Prophet Muhammad (SAWS).
I would like to start with the
Prophet’s Hadeeth in which he tells us that in Ramadan, Allah’s (SWT)
mercy encloses us and that in this great month He (SWT) forgives us and
boasts of us before the angels, hence we are supposed to show our best in
Ramadan. Take your wife’s hand or your parent’s hands and start worshipping
Allah (SWT) together.
Today’s episode deals with the
problem of family breakup. I’ll start off by recalling a fairy tale. Once upon a
time a large and very close family lived on an island. They were so happy,
laughing together, eating and playing together, sharing everything and they felt
so peaceful and secure. However, nothing lasts forever. The island was struck by
an earthquake which divided it into small islands and the big family was
segregated. At the beginning the children were too happy to have all the freedom
they ever dreamt of without elderly supervision. As time passed, however, they
realized they were not happy because they missed that feeling of security that
used to bind the family together. Even the older ones on the island thought of
crossing over to see the children but eventually decided that it should be the
younger ones who should take that step. Everyone got used to living separately
and communication was lost between them- and this is precisely what is happening
within our families. How we lost the means of communication between us, how cold
and distant a man and his wife have become with no common interests or shared
feelings. Homes are more like hotels now where strangers communicate by notes on
small pieces of paper stuck on the fridge or by e-mails! If they happen to be a
rich family maybe they would have many TV sets and would be sitting separately
each watching their favorite program. Even when the family members are gathered
together watching a program, they would sit in silence then as soon as the
program ends they would get up and go their separate ways still in silence, why
don’t they discuss the program together first?
Our nation is supposedly a
very strong one but we are now going through a period of weakness. Family
reunion is essential for our revival, it’s what we have left. If families are
lost then there won’t be much hope for us! Any true revival for this nation has
to start within the family.
We are afflicted now by the
plagues of seclusion which is gradual in onset. First, the family members will
stop going out together, then they will stop eating together, then they will not
talk together or share their feelings or thoughts until they stop having any
common interests and end up living on separate islands. This is because instead
of solving their problems they just keep adjusting to their bad situation just
like the frogs who were killed by being thrown in boiling water.
If you visit the website (http://www.amrkhaled.net)
after the episode today you will see a questionnaire prepared by a group of
psychologists, classifying different family groups according for example to some
activities which they carry out together such as eating, going out, worshipping,
listening to each other’s problems, and so on.
They say if you cannot build
homes then you should build prisons. There is a very interesting film prepared
by the National Geographic Society in which they show a group of elephants
living together in a forest near a village in India. Elephants live as large
families like humans, in which the old teach the young. Every night, they would
go down to the nearby fields and eat the green crops of the farmers who tried to
stop them by many ways such as building barbed fences, spraying hot pepper, but
nothing seemed to work. They decided to kill the older elephants. As a result a
new generation of elephants emerged who were savage because they lacked family
life. They started attacking not only the crops but also the farmers and their
houses. This was actually all recorded and documented by the National Geographic
Society. Do you know what they did? They had to import elephant mothers
and fathers all the way from Africa to India, in order to add the much needed
sense of discipline to the rest of the herd. After some time the elephants
stopped attacking the farmers and resumed eating the crops. At the end of the
film they wrote, ‘either you build a family or you build a prison.’
Family life is a blessing that
we should appreciate and thank Allah (SWT) for. Look at all those
homeless children on the streets, all the broken homes! I remember an incident
when one lady visited an orphanage. She sat next to a child who was coloring a
picture. He colored the heart dark blue. The woman thought he did not have other
colors but he said, ‘no this is the color of my heart!’ She started showering
him with love, hugging and kissing him. At the end of her visit he ran to her
and said, ‘look the color of my heart has changed, it is yellow now!’ Family
life is a blessing which we all should appreciate before we lose!
I will tell you a true story
about a young woman who thought that after her marriage she did not need her
father much anymore. She wasn’t visiting him or calling him up as frequently as
before and every time he would ask her she would be full of excuses: the house,
the children, and so on. Until one day her brother called her up telling her
that her father had collapsed and was in the hospital. She rushed there with
flashbacks of her childhood haunting her; memories with her father, how he
showered her with love, spent time with her in her favorite summer resorts just
to please her. Her father was unconscious, the nurse asked her to hold his hand!
Oh, when was the last time she did that?! One hour later he passed away. Now
she’s walking down the street with her two children, her son is holding her hand
but the older one, her daughter, ten years of age now, thinks she’s too
old already! The woman looks at her and silently prays to Allah that one day she
would be holding her hand before she too died.
We have in the studio here
with us a family who lost their daughter when she was in her twenties. What kept
them together; was their very close relationship and the strong bonds of love
between them. Family ties are so important, keep them strong. All praises to
Allah (SWT) for the blessing of having a family before it is taken from
you.
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