Raising Children With Deen and Dunya I Hina Khan-Mukhtar, & Ubaydullah Evans

In this episode, we dive into Raising Children With Deen and Dunya: Top 10 Practical Tips. Discover how to nurture faith, character, and resilience in a world that constantly pulls in every direction. Ubaydullah and Hina break down practical, heart-centered guidance for Muslim parents navigating modern life, from building spiritual habits to setting boundaries to creating a home rooted in ihsan.

About Our Guest:

Hina Khan-Mukhtar is a mother of three young men and one of the founders of the homeschooling co-operative known as ILM Tree in Lafayette, California, which now serves over 35 homeschooling families in the East Bay. In addition to teaching Language Arts to elementary, middle school, and high school students, she has written articles on parenting and spiritual traditions for children and is involved in interfaith dialogue.

About Frames host, Ustadh Ubaydullah Evans:

Ubaydullah Evans is ALIM’s Scholar-in-Residence and the first African-American graduate of Al-Azhar’s Shari’a program. After converting to Islam in high school, he studied locally and abroad, including IIE, Tarim, and Cairo. He also teaches with Ta’leef Collective and IMAN. At ALIM, he’s Core Instructor for the Summer Program, teaching Islamic law, Shama’il, and the Aphorisms of Ibn Ata’illah.

Frames Podcast 🎙️

Join ALIM’s Scholar-in-Residence, Ustadh Ubaydullah Evans, for monthly Frames live discussions featuring respected scholars from across the country. These conversations dive into timely, relevant topics shaping Muslim thought today — offering sharp insights, meaningful reflections, and perspectives you won’t hear anywhere else.

American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM)

Established in 1998, ALIM promotes the empowered, religiously grounded development of American Muslim individuals, families, and communities through Islamic Literacy, which is the establishment and critical engagement of the intellectual and spiritual foundations of Islam. It envisions cultivating Muslims  who are intellectually and spiritually grounded, able to engage critically with their faith, and contribute meaningfully to society.

Guided by world-class scholars, Dr. Sherman Jackson, Dr. Ali Sulaiman Ali, Dr. Muneer Fareed, Ustadh Ubaydullah Evans, ALIM offers accessibl...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Our viewers pine for relevant programming. They're always saying, we want you all to talk about things that are relevant to us, things that that matter. And I can't think of a topic more relevant. I can't think of a topic more germane to our lives personally, but also to our collective experience than parenting. Right? I've often remarked that in contradistinction to our Christian brothers and sisters, for whom you know Jesus, uh the central figure of their faith, was not a parent, uh, and was not a spouse in that phase of his of his life. Uh uh, the Prophet Muhammad, uh, the exemplar, the focal point uh of our religion was a parent, uh, was a spouse. So we actually have practical um uh embodied uh prophetic examples that we can we can draw from on this topic. But I'd like you to tell me what led to your curiosity? What led, you know, you know, you say in your article, raising children with dean and gunia that this is something you've been curious about for a very long time. What what what do you think is the source of your your interest in this topic, this of parenting?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Honestly, it just comes from um needing help.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

And, you know, everything we do in life, we have you know tests we need to take and classes we have to enroll in, and you know, certification we need to get to prove that we're worthy for the job. And then parenting is something all of a sudden you're thrown into it. And I know for my husband and myself, parenting was probably one of the biggest spiritual awakenings that we had until until we became parents, we were just kind of on autopilot, you know, thought that what we learned in Sunday school growing up was enough to get us through life, and um, didn't think much deeper, and then we became parents, and all of a sudden the weight of this amana was on us of like how do we pass on this beautiful dean to the next generation and make them want to own it and be proud of it and be unapologetic, and no matter what is thrown their way, to remain steadfast. And we I was just like, where do we even begin? And when I started looking into parenting books, because most of us, you know, we go running to books to find the answers, and just like you said, I was looking for practical examples, practical advice. And at that time, when my eldest son was born back in 1997, the only books I really could find uh were classical texts, you know, a lot about the pious predecessors, the prophets, uh, stories from the Cita, which of course are very inspirational. Um, but there's no but actually, they are very inspirational. I needed, I wanted um to understand how to apply what I was reading and what I was learning in the 1990s at that point in Northern California, in the Western Hemisphere, in this modern day that we were living in. And so, because I couldn't find the answers in in books, I just decided to start interviewing families just on the go. And basically, parents that really impressed me and really inspired me, children who I was very um in awe of, and when I saw them, I thought, I hope my children grow up to be like these kids. So I would just stop them any opportunity I got to ask, well, tell me something that worked for you, tell me something you wished you had done differently, something that you know now that you didn't know when you were younger, what do you think us we parents need to know? And so over time I was talking to hundreds of families and parents, and I just started noticing that there was an entire spectrum of advice being given, but there were 10 themes emerging where pretty much all these families, some who knew each other, some who didn't, from all over the world, were kind of touching on the same 10 points again and again and again. So when I had the opportunity when it came up in 2009 to write a piece, a parenting article for a uh Muzzad newsletter in Southern California, the editor-in-chief asked me if I would write uh an article on parenting. I thought, you know what, this is the perfect opportunity to get all this advice that's been floating around in my head, get it down in writing and see what comes. And it actually took me six months to write it. By the time I was done, it was like 12 pages. And um, alhamdulillah, that's what I like to share with people. Like what what the and then since then, since 2009, there's a lot more I've learned. My kids were young at that time. Um, now I'm an empty nester, all three of my boys are gone, and so there's a lot I've learned in the process since it's article was beautifully comprehensive but also concise.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

It you know, every every point was expressed adequately, but I don't feel that any point was belabored in a way that was uh infelicitous in terms of as a as a writer. But you said in the article this was your field work, and you put that in quotations, but as I started to read the article, I said, no, this was real fieldwork. I mean, this was a real ethnographic study. Like people were interviewed, uh, children were interviewed. You you talked about real moments, real incidents of being impressed with families, with children, and it ended up being um really eye-opening. I think the thing that impressed me most was the earnestness of the article. It wasn't cynical in tone, it wasn't even fatalistic in tone. Like, of course, you mentioned dua as the first principle, but you were like the the the undertone of the article was this is something we can do. It's not just something that's out of our hands, something we don't have any control of. It's in the mashia of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It's you know, there are things that we can do. Like we can engage our children and our domestic lives in ways that produce children that succeed as Muslims and children that make contributions to their communities. So how do you how does one avoid, you know, because whenever I talk to people, well-meaning people, about this topic, they often say, you know, just make this, you know. I mean, uh they'll even cite the example of you alayhi salam that you know he was a prophet, he was Ma'asul Khat, he was divinely protected from error, and yet his son still chose to be, you know, uh among the disbelievers, and his son perished, you know, in the deluge. So your article suggests that while we know everything is in the will of God, there are steps that we can take, there are practices that we can implement. Uh, and we shouldn't be cynical about this. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Absolutely, 100%. We we have to have a faith, we have to have this thewakal that I'm gonna take the means, the outcome is up to Allah. And on the day of judgment, I'm gonna be asked about what I did to facilitate my children's success in the deen. I'm not gonna be asked about what was the end result because that is up to Allah. And one one thing I did notice with all of these families, initially many of them were very hesitant to offer any advice or share anything. I think parents do worry because none of us are safe until our last breaths, right? We're not safe until we leave this world believing Laha, Muhammad Rasulullah. And parents do worry about things like Ain, you know, they do worry about jinxing themselves and becoming self-righteous, becoming arrogant. So nobody wants to take credit. And so I understood that and and I acknowledge that. Um, but I did I did realize that if if my gut reaction was going to be, okay, okay, I get it. Yeah, dua, fine. Yes, I know I need to do dua, but really give me the real meat and potatoes. I realized that that in itself is a shortcoming of mine because one of the first lessons I learned from these parents was how much they turned to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for everything and relied on him completely. But they did come with a hopeful attitude, and that hopeful attitude is very contagious, and that's what our children ultimately that's what they have to see, also, is that we expect the best and we hope for the best. And you know, they say that your children become what you believe them to be, right? So if you think your children are liars, if you think your children are losers, if you think your children are good for nothings, then that is what ends up manifesting, you know. But if we have high aspirations for them and we teach them that this deen is a beautiful, beautiful gift that is my responsibility to pass on to you, and then it's up to you to decide whether you take this baton and pass it on to the next generation, then inshallah our kids will have ownership as well. But it has to, you're absolutely right, it does have to come from a positive, hopeful attitude, inshallah.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

I often wonder, now, you know, I'm I'm asking really if if this sounds like this is just a personal interest of mine, it's only because it is. It's just a personal interest of mine. You know, I often wonder with with parenting, how much have we been deceived by the idea of the nuclear family? You know, I cannot raise my children alone. It's not simply me, my wife, my children, but we have to raise our children in communities that give a multiplier effect to the values that we want to instill in our children. So sometimes I'm thinking it's not necessarily that we're not doing the right things, we're not in communities of people that are also committed to doing the right thing. We're trying to raise our children in isolation against a backdrop of an absolutely riotous popular culture. And that, I mean, that that's incredibly difficult.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yeah, absolutely. I um when I wrote the piece, uh my eldest son was only 12 years old. Um now, mashallah, he's 28. And um I have had the opportunity since then to be able to see kind of what worked and what didn't work. Our kids were our guinea pigs, right? And we were part of this big community, and I've, you know, over the decades been able to see that we all kind of started out with the same hopes and dreams and aspirations for our children, but I've seen certain success stories and certain struggles. Again, obviously it's the tadar of Allah, but it does behoove us to kind of look to connect the dots and see what worked and what didn't work. And I will tell you, Saadabaid Allah, there were a few things I have seen over time, but one of them definitely was people who chose to disconnect from the community for whatever reasons, maybe legitimate criticisms, um, legitimately having their hearts broken or being discouraged or disheartened, but not only disconnecting themselves, but disconnecting their children from the community for a whole myriad of reasons that people come up with, you do see that the results in the children are very, very disappointing. It's much easier to disconnect from the deen, um, from the culture, from Allah, when you don't feel beholden to anybody. You don't feel that you have to answer to anyone, you don't feel there there is some truth to the whole, you know, shame culture that Muslims come from. That what will people think? What will people say? And um many of my friends are are converts to Islam and have raised their children for the first time, you know, in their families as Muslims. And the success stories I'm seeing are the ones who decided to create a like-minded community, family of their own around them, because you need that safety net. And since writing this piece, I've realized the value of so many things that I didn't realize at that time, the value of grandparents, grandparents in our lives, grandparents in the home, elders that the children look to as role examples, as role models and examples, the value of mentorship, especially in the middle school and the high school years, especially for young men, um, mentors other than their fathers, you know, the a greater community of uncles, um, uh the community of teachers and scholars, people who take an interest in us, who care about us. I cannot, it's it's you cannot overestimate the importance of creating a like-minded community. How it really does take a village to raise these children in this day and age. And when we were in Muslim countries, those of us who are born Muslim, you know, and come from immigrant families, back home, you that was kind of just built into the system. It was built into the society. But here you have to actively seek it and you have to actively create it. I can I can give you an example of a couple that I know of who didn't have a big Muslim family, didn't have a lot of practicing people around them, and they they actually uh hired one of my sons, paid him money to come hang out with their son. And their son didn't know. Their son didn't know that my son was being paid to come hang out. They he thought he was coming to help him with homework, to play basketball with him, to review what's put on with him. But these parents realized that if I need to pay for it, I'm gonna pay for it. You know, blood, sweat, and tears. It's gonna take time, money, and energy. It's gonna take all three. And you have to get creative.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yes, you know, one of the wisest things my wife did when our son Najashi was born was that she hosted this um dinner. And it was called The Uncles of Najashi. And she sent invites to a lot of my closest uh friends, and she, you know, prepared, you know, a sumptuous meal, and she gave me speaking prompts, this is what I need you to talk about. And I, you know, when I asked her, why are you doing this? She said, I want other men in the community to have an investment in my son. I want them to feel uh responsible for my son. Um and I said, Why are you doing this? She said, because I want to preempt this, you know, hopefully, you know, my son now is 11 and we're homeschooling. We've been homeschooling for the last three years, um and we both enjoy it immensely. Um but my son wants to individuate. He wants to, you know, kind of you know, seek um, you know, his individuality uh through different with his father. It is good for him to have models of piety that he can gravitate toward that maybe are unlike his father. He might not want to be a dapper smooth, and I'm just you know, you know, you know it it's good for him to have models of piety that he can gravitate toward, that express their Islam differently than his father does. And this is very important. I said, mashallah, boy did I marry an intelligent woman.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

MashaAllah, no, she's genius because that's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah, that's the thing people don't realize. What your wife realizes that it takes time and it takes in in to it takes time to invest in people and you have to start early. And but you shouldn't ever think it's too late. Once you realize, start working at it, right? And it takes time for people to invest in your children, for your children to develop trust with other people. Obviously, we never completely check out, we keep a close eye on all these relationships with people with our children, but at the same time, you've got to put the word out and let people know that I want you to be involved in my child's life, and that's gonna it's gonna take time, but it's gonna be so worth it.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Absolutely. So talk to me a little bit about what you've learned uh since uh you wrote the article. You wrote the article 12 years ago, right? And all of your uh children have you know flown the coupe, so to speak. Your Google Nester. Yeah. Um so now let's let's hear you know a postscript to that to that article. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

So a friend recently told me stop calling yourself an empty nester and start calling yourself a bird launcher. So that's how I'm gonna start referring to myself now.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Yeah, because you you want your birds to launch, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

So instead of focusing on what I don't have, I'm gonna focus on what I do have. And alhamdulillah, my birds have launched. Alhamdulillah. But I will say, um, you know, it's a cliche, but it's so true. I I just cannot believe how quickly it went by. I it just blows me away that what feels like, you know, was a memory from yesterday is and and I feel like I can I can remember every detail of where I was sitting and what I was smelling and what we were wearing, all that for my children, those are just childhood memories, you know. And they say in parenting that the days are long, but the years are short. And it's so true. The days the days used to feel long, but the years went by like that. Yeah, it's it's true, it's true. When I first read that quote after my kids were gone, I cried because I was like, How did I not know that? You know, when you were in the thick of it with the laundry and the the meal prepping and the homeschooling and the getting from point A to point B to point C, and then all of a sudden it's over, like in the sense that they don't need you on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

And I'm good now. My eldest is is 19. Upanallah. What are the ages of your children? So my eldest is 19, she's a neuroscience major at uh the University of Wisconsin in Madison. And then my and she was from my late wife, Alayu Hammuha, who passed away when I was a student at Azhub. Um, and then I have my two smaller children, Najashi is 11, that's Asiya, my eldest. Najjashi is eleven, and his sister will be 10, Makita will be 10 in January. MashaAllah. I've 19, have that kind of end of the spectrum, and then I have 11 and seem to be 10 in Sha'Allah. SubhanAllah. So it's it's it's it's such a a mixed. Um, they're a motli crew, if you will. Think of their experiences. I have one student during the gap year learning Arabi and the Quran and then going into university. I have two small children at home, homeschooling. So, you know, I'm wearing different chapeaux, you know. So I'm talking about college and the danger of bad suba, and then other times I'm here trying to stop children from throwing tantrums, and you know, so it's just yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Yeah, subhanallah, subhanallah.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Yeah, yeah, so definitely one of the things I've realized is one, how quickly it does go by, and um the other thing I've realized is that our children, they really they're not extensions of us. They're not. They have their own paths, they're gonna make their own choices, and we have to love them and accept them in their entirety for who they are and you know what they bring to the table, which may be very different from what we had hoped for, what we had dreamt of, what we had expected. And one thing I've realized from my own family, and even just watching my nieces and nephews, also who are all leaving the nest these days, is that the you know, they don't. Necessarily remember everything exactly what you taught them, but what they do remember is how they felt when you were teaching them. And so if they have positive associations with the deen, and uh they they see the deen, the religion, as a source of comfort, as a source of wisdom, as a source of guidance, as something to rely on as in every moment of your life, as as an ongoing conversation with Allah that never ends, then inshallah they they do, they hold on to that, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Um subhanAllah. You know, I was once speaking at a chaplain's summit in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which is about two hours and maybe thirty minutes from Chicago, where we live. Uh-huh. And my two younger children were with me. And we finished at like 11, and I still had to drive two hours, you know, to get home. And of course, after the it was in a uh a densely wooded area, so I guess it set off some camping like vibes, and after the conference, somebody made a bonfire, and it started making s'ores, and someone started, you know, um uh reading some of the anashid, and and my good friend Shaykh Medim Sidiki saw me kind of you know hastening my children into the car. Hey, come on, we gotta go, we gotta get home. And he said to me, he said, okay, let them have this time with these un-nashid, with these spores, with the community. Don't you realize the hadith of the Prophet are just the good memories of the Sahab? Subhanahu wa ta'ala. We think of them as, you know, we're like these we think of them as you know recensions of hadith. These are just them recounting their good memories of the Prophet. So give your children an opportunity to develop good memories in the context of dealing. Yes. I was like, you guys go to Alpha S'mores. Yeah, I agree. We're not gonna be home until very late without some s'mores, enjoy some under sheet. Yeah. It's very important that they experience those things.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, and those positive memories they do. They're associated with good food, with beautiful locations, with loving adults, loving people, loving community members. All of that comes together to create positive associations with the deen, inshallah. And that was the other thing. This was a piece of advice that had been given across the board from all those families I interviewed, but I've definitely seen the reality of that now that my children are, you know, adults and on their own, is how important it was to have them fall in love with the Prophet. I I cannot emphasize that enough because you know, in order to have them love Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, they have to love the one who taught them how to love Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? And so um that was that was a huge gift growing up that they they were surrounded by teachers who loved the Prophet who taught them about him. Um and Alhamdulillah, it's it's I think, you know, my son when he was in high school, he started the MSA in his high school, and he told me at that time that he could see a difference between because he said all sorts of students came to the MSA, but said that I've noticed that the students who really know the Prophet and who love him, they're the ones who are the most eager to make their prayers on time, you know, in in the high school. Others may come to socializing and you know whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

But I've seen this, I've seen this. Right? I always tell people that being a convert to Islam, I've seen many people enter Islam. And I've seen many people, unfortunately, leave Islam. I've seen people deepen their practice of Islam and I've seen people grow disaffected with Islam. The one thing that is perhaps the greatest predictor of whether or not a person who really Islam, you know, like beautify his or her Islam is do they develop a thoroughgoing relationship with the Messenger of Allah? If they love the Messenger of Allah, this will become a safeguard for the image. And I would assume the same is true for children. Right. Right. Uh and then the other side, and this is kind of my I'll put my air quotes up here. My field work. Um speaking on college campuses throughout the country. I have found that people that have grown disaffected with Islam, usually from Muslim families, the most common characteristic is that they have strange relationships with their fathers. Who they describe as either or both hypocritical and tyrannical. These two things that people that describe their fathers as abusive, hypocritical, tyrannical, I think, and this is just I'm just speculating, which probably means I'm right. Uh but no I'm just speculating. But I think that an authority figure like that in the whole, the way that they engage becomes representative of divinity. If my father is abusive and harsh, then God is abusive and harsh. And I say that in conscience. I realize that's quite a statement, but this is just what I've what I've seen.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Yeah, the the parents are the doorway to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? The mothers are the first madrasa, and the and you're absolutely right. I mean, I that was one thing I saw again and again in my researching, is how many of them told them that they had a pious father who engaged them. And that's that's the key part, is that it wasn't the yeah, it wasn't just piety, it was that they engaged their children because I did see examples of fathers who had the long beards and the misbith in the hand and who went to the masjid for all five prayers, but sometimes it didn't land with the kids once the kids were adults. But then I would see fathers who were just, you know, good Muslims, you didn't necessarily see it on the outward in every aspect, but you saw that their children chose to be Muslims and chose to practice it because they saw a loving, you know, loving embodiment of the deen. Kids need to see that Islam works. They need to see that Islam works, that Islam gives them a life of benefit, it gives them a life of beauty, that Islam is the reason parents talk to each other with respect. Islam is the reason people pay their bills on time, Islam is the reason people don't gossip, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal. And um, you know, that our kids are constantly watching us. That's that's the other thing that you you realize later is that even when you don't think that they're aware, they actually are. And they are they're like sponges and they're just soaking in everything around them, and then when they're squeezed, that's what's coming out of them, is what they had been soaking in the entire time.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

You know, I was I was talking um with Dr. Shannon Jackson, who, mashallah, have been you know blessed to enjoy, you know, uh his companionship and his instruction, uh, his tutorage, you know, over the years, and we were talking about the verse of uh Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but the rahmet mean Allah he lived in a whole butt Allah says it is by God's grace that you are gentle with them, referring to the Prophet and how he engaged your Sahaba. Um and Allah says, if you were callous and hard-hearted, people would have fled from you, they would have departed from you. And he said this verse tells you that truth is not enough. Even if the Prophet was callous, was abrasive, was hard-hearted, he still would have been the messenger of Allah. But even if if what you say is true, but it repels people, like it's not expressed with gentleness, people will still flee from it. Even if it's true, your your your your your engagement must be principled and kind in order to impact people, in order to affect people. And that's always stuck with me. You know, I've always thought about that in connection with parenting, that you know, as one of the principles you you mentioned in the article, um, you know, fun wasn't hard in our house, right? But we tried to keep the atmosphere, the environment as pure as possible. In the sense that, you know, I want to be principal, but I also want to be gentle.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Right? Yeah. You know, aful maliki ib ka'ulk, the king's pardon, preserves the kingdom. You know, so you want to be gentle. Yeah. You also want to be principled.

unknown 32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

It's difficult for parents to strike that balance.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

It is, and I I remember a female scholar once telling us that it in parenting advice, she said, beware of the dangers of don't. Beware of the dangers of don't. That children shouldn't just grow up constantly hearing, don't do this, don't do that, you can't do this, you can't do that, because then they start to see their religion as a religion of restriction and constriction if that's all they're hearing. And this point can be misunderstood. I had somebody rip me apart on the internet because he cherry-picked that one point and tried to suggest that what I was saying was water down the religion and be afraid of telling your children no, when absolutely not. Of course, the kids, all of us need to know about boundaries and limits, but we have to be creative, especially in the early years, so that kids aren't constantly thinking, well, why does everybody else get to have fun? Everybody else gets the lights and the glamour and the glitch, and you know, our our our lifestyle is you know dull and boring. And so we just we have to bring some creativity to it and we have to do it within our limits and with our principles. But you know, especially if you're not raising your kids in a Muslim country, um, you're going to have to be creative and you're going to have to think outside of the box, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Yeah, no, I I think I think you know what you mentioned earlier about, you know, as parents, we need to commit to living inspiring lives. You know, and showing our children that this is not only inspired by Islam, but this is this is uh this in fact emanates from Islam, right? It is because of Islam that we're able to live lives of dignity, lives of grace, lives of beauty, lives of inspiration. You know, if you um if you have a you know a very dysfunctional environment and an environment in which people are just unhappy, right? Um it is going to be very difficult to convey to people being raised in that environment. You should want this for yourself. Exactly. Exactly. Don't you want to be like this? Someone taught me a word. I had never heard this word, and I I love language. Matrophobia.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Matrophobia. Okay. Matrophobia is a fear of becoming like your mother. Oh subhanallah. Matrophobia.

unknown 35:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

But some Muslim women, when it comes to their disaffection with Islam, it's matrophobia.

unknown 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

They look and they say, I don't want to be disempowered and badly treated and taken for granted and unhappy like my mom. Yeah. SubhanAllah. Yeah. Really, as families, we have to think about this. Yeah. I would, I would, I would, you know, my my my goal is for my children to see my wife and I, um uh, or me and my wife as um um you know exemplars, you know, people that you know we would want our lives to look something like that. To have a Muslim family and to eat together and to pray together and to learn together and to travel together. You know, that's what we're also aspiring to create. As soon as we get an opportunity to get away from this, yeah. You know what I'm saying? So I I I I think that's very, very, very important. So talk to me a little bit about entry and homeschooling. And you're one of the founders of entry.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah, one of the founding families.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

I mean, I I I see that with your focus on parenting, this appears to be just a natural confluence that you know you're also concerned about education. But talk a little bit about you know, entry, you know, it's it's establishments, where it is now, and and just why homeschooling, are you a proponent still, or yeah, have your opinion changed? Uh all of those are are you know interesting to me.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yeah, so my whole journey with education started, I always wanted to be a language arts teacher. I was inspired by an English teacher of my own as a child, and I uh but one of the things that happened when I started teaching in the public schools was I am never doing this to my kids, right? And so, you know, so many times I would think there'd be students, I I would think if I could only work with them one-on-one or if I had more time with them, I think I could make a real difference. And um, I do understand that every family has their own situation and people need to see what works for them. There's no cookie-cutter answer. I don't believe in like everybody has to do this, you know, and there's only one answer to to life's problems. Um, but I I fell into it, it's interesting. I fell into homeschooling, not really so much for religious reasons as much as it was for trying to get my son ready to meet certain milestones. He was my my first son in the early years, always took his time with each milestone. And I was really nervous when kindergarten came about him being labeled as being slow or being put in the slow group. And I didn't want him to grow up with low self-esteem or thinking that he wasn't as smart as everybody else. So a friend of mine suggested, she said, Well, you know, legally, uh, by the state of California, they're not required to go to kindergarten. Why don't you just keep him home and work with him and get him up to speed, and then next year you can send him to school. And that's just kind of what ended up happening. Every year I would think, oh, maybe next year I'll send him. But I just kept holding on to him because what we were doing was working, and I enjoyed my time with him and the community we were building. And so there was a group of four families we used to get together, and as we had more and more children and we're getting overwhelmed with homeschooling our own kids, we said, you know what, let's come together and help each other. I'll teach all the kids language arts, you teach the kids math, you teach the kids science. And so we grew like that. We were in a friend's home, there were four families, then it grew to eight families. For a number of years, there were eight families, you know, working together, 24 children in one person's home. And more and more people here in the Bay Area started taking an interest and asking if they could join. We were just known as the the co-op back then, asking if they could join our co-op, but we couldn't. We couldn't, you know, the we were we had our limitations being in somebody's private home. So the friend whose home we were in, she suggested, you know what, how about we open this up to the to the public? You know, we interview families, uh, make this so that other people have the opportunity to join as well, and then it'll be good for our kids too. They'll have a bigger circle of friends. So, you know, a few of the families, around four of the families, said, peace out. This isn't what I signed up for. I didn't want to be big part of a much bigger project. Four of us stayed on, and we uh, you know, had a community meeting, we interviewed families, we handpicked who we were going to invite to join our co-op because being like-minded was very, very important to us. We didn't want anything being undone in the educational setting that we were trying to reinforce them at home. We wanted the school environment to be an extension of what was going on in the home. And so that first year in 2007, we were 18 families, we became a nonprofit, we named ourselves Ilm Tree, ILM Tree. ILM is an acronym for inspired learning for Muslims. I didn't know that. And then it's the Arabic word Ilm, and then it's which means knowledge, and then it's a pun, Elm Tree, Elmtree. And you know, and what's interesting is uh our my good friend Sarah Kim, who started this whole initiative.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

I know the kids.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

You do know the kins, right? So it was in her home that we had the co-op, and you know, she was the one who said, you know, henna, there's Zaytuna College right up the the hill from us. Well, where are the students gonna come from who are gonna one day go to Zaytuna College? Right. So so it originally we had even thought of calling ourselves the olive tree as a play on that that we were gonna, you know, one day feed into Zaytuna College. But we, you know, became a homeschooling cooperative and eventually grew up to 35 families. And the kids uh they have a ranch, and the ranch had a big home on it that now is where Elm Tree, the homeschooling cooperative, is with all the different classrooms. We're really big on outdoor play and getting dirty, getting in the uh the elements, working with animals. And we uh, you know, our Islamic studies program, the the teacher who developed the Islamic Studies program, he said every year when the students choose their favorite teacher, their favorite class, I want them to say it's Islamic studies. And that's literally what happened every year. The Islamic Studies teacher would be the one who could be voted for. And but mashallah, we've you know, our our first batch of students now, many of them are married, have children of their own, are considering coming back to Umtri with their children now, mashallah. And uh we used to think, what's gonna happen to Umtri once we're done? You know, how is this gonna continue? But mashallah, you know that saying, build it and they will come, right? It's true. It's there's such a need for quality Islamic education and for a support system. It's it's hard for many people to homeschool on their own. But when you're with the community and you're doing it cooperatively, it's uh it's a lot, you know, you you get the support that you need. But one of the things that makes Ilm Tree stand out compared to many other Islamic schools is a very, very tight, uh, strong media policy. And we are really big on you know how much time the kids spend on screens, uh, what they're watching for entertainment, we hold each other accountable. Um and all the parents have to agree, they have to sign this agreement about what you know the limits are, and if those if that contract is broken, they're called in for meetings to you know talk about what's going on. So they're held accountable, you know, it's not just something you sign and then just look the other way. And we've seen the results in the kids, mashallah, over the years.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

So so so let me let me let me play uh Angel's Advocate here. Uh-huh. Right. How would you respond to a criticism that that's a little invasive in Draconian to, you know, uh monitor yeah children consume uh of entertainment in their own homes with their with their parents on their own free time?

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Yeah, that's how would you respond to that criticism?

SPEAKER_01 43:53

Well, we have gotten that criticism, and luckily now that it's just part of the reputation of the umtree that they have a very strict media policy. Anybody who's wanting to join knows about it and you either agree to it or you don't. You most people who are coming to Umtreo are wanting that kind of support system. But the truth is, Allah, when kids are allowed um, you know, unmonitored, unfettered access to the internet, to media, it literally hits like a virus and it just goes everywhere. It affects everyone, it affects classes, it affects other students, it affects siblings, it really, I mean, and we've seen it all over the years. And so, you know, and and obviously it's we teach them, you know, by the time they graduate from military, we only go up till eighth grade. By the time they graduate, they are taught media literacy, they are taught how to make healthy choices for themselves, how they're going to be using the internet. Um, you know, so it's not like they're completely like shut off, you know, from the world.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

So you know, I I I think that I heard someone say that one of our struggles as a community of parents in the US is that we don't act on what we know to be best for our children. There's this part of us, and this is this is definitely just a liberal tendency, that that sacrilizes choice. Right? So much so that we even want an eight-year-old. It's his choice. I've heard people say that. Right. He should be able to choose. I want him to like, I want him to feel personally connected to what he does, to what he chooses. And you know, it's it's on the one hand, it's such a cultural, it's such an American cultural phenomenon that it doesn't really, it's not shocking to me because I live in the cultural menu that is that sensible. It's like, oh yeah, right.

unknown 46:03

Think about it.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

How silly is that? Yeah, yeah. This is someone who's eight, nine. Why would you think that they had the the the discretion, right? They had the the sound judgment required to make good decisions about anything.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

And you're giving them a false sense of control as well, right? And and with kids uh that age, you model healthy choices for them, but you have to do the choosing. And then they learn how to choose healthy options, right? I I remember hearing the story once of a four-year-old where the parent gave him a choice parents gave him a choice for everything because they wanted him to feel like you know, he had autonomy, they wanted him to feel investment. And the mom told the story about how one day it was time to go grocery shop shopping, and she told him, put on your shoes, honey, we're going to Trader Joe's. And he just looked up at her and was like, What's my other choice?

SPEAKER_02 47:06

You know, he gets to choose which grocery store we're gonna go to, you know. And that's when the mom realized, oh no, okay, this is okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

That's that's a mom, that's your B.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

Yeah, you know, yeah, you know, there's there's authoritative uh parenting, there's authoritarian parenting, and there's permissive parenting. And authoritative parenting is the parenting that we want to go for. Permissive parenting, it's known as jellyfish parenting, it's where parents don't have a backbone, they don't have a spine, they're like, you know, constantly whining and needling with their children to do what they need them to do. Then there's authoritarian parenting, like the parenting you had described earlier, the tyrannical parenting where it's my way or the highway. If you don't listen to me, you're gonna see the back of my hand. You don't have a choice in the matter. And that's also known as brick wall parenting, right? And then authoritative parenting, which is known as backbone parenting. It's it's known as where you know you say what you mean and you mean what you say, and you give your children healthy options to choose from in the early years, and then later they're able to make healthy choices on their own, inshallah. That's that's what parents should be trying to claim is that authoritative parenting.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

And see, I think like for me, as someone who converted to Islam, um I really didn't have, and a lot of converts are afraid to talk about this. Some some converts even don't even like to have this mentioned uh publicly. But if we're being honest, we don't know a lot about the intergenerational sustainability of Islam. That's not, you know, I my Islam was not produced by any family traditions or uh community commitments, or my Islam was produced just by personal conviction. You know, I was personally convinced, personally compelled by the message of Islam, and that's how I entered Islam. So when raising my children, I tended to put a lot of weight on personal conviction. I remember one night, and I I normally use Ramadan to revise the Quran, so I pray tarawih usually in the home. And so I I asked my eldest, would she like to pray tarawih with me? And she said, no. I said, okay, good, man. And my wife, who was raised in a Muslim family, her, you know, my my mother's mashallah, accepted Islam two years ago, but her parents kind of laugh, which is the happiest day of my life. I need to make so much more effort, man. But that's a that's another another topic for another day. But my wife was raised in a Muslim family with Muslim parents, and she said to me, make her pray at least, you know, four, six, eight uraqa'at of Taraweek. Make her do it. And I said, no, you know, you know, la ikraha fidib, you know, this is this is not, you know, uh, this is not, you know, uh inshaah. Allah is not saying la turihun nasa ala. This is khabr. Allah is telling you, la iqrah al-fidin, you know, there is no ikra. Indeed, I just want to leave it alone. And the more I thought about it, and she said, well, I'm just I'm just telling you that if you want to teach someone to to appreciate Islam, to love Islam, sometimes it's necessary to preempt them. You're not just waiting for them to be compelled.

unknown 50:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

Do it and you'll learn to appreciate it later.

unknown 50:58

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

You'll you'll you know, your tastes might not be uh evolved to the to the requisite level to appreciate this now.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

Yeah. But yeah, absolutely. I'm and I and I just couldn't understand that until much later.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Yeah. I I was when you were saying that it was reminding me of this 10-year-old girl. I remember, you know, every time uh the kids would get up to pray, every time, you know, we there there'd be jamauts, she would just go off with a book or go off with the toy or like, you know, do her own thing and never join the other children. And and at that time I was a young mom too. I think my kids were the same age, and I we were all kind of learning how to teach our kids to pray and whatnot. And uh I remember asking the mom who was older than me, so I you know, I thought she maybe had some secret that I didn't know. And so I asked her, I said, you know, I've noticed your daughter, like when when everybody gets up to pray, she she never joins in. And she said, Well, well, you know, I don't believe in forcing uh my and the mom was a convert, so she said, I don't believe in forcing children to pray. She sees that prayer is a priority for me and her father, and it's not required of her right now, and when the time comes, she'll pray. And uh her reality is seeing people pray around her, and that's what's important. And I was like, Oh, okay, I didn't know if that was right or wrong. I just accepted it. But the interesting thing was the mom came back to me a couple of days later and said, you know, henna, it's interesting when you asked me that question, it kind of sparked something in me. And later at home, I sat my daughter down and I said to her, you know, honey, you're coming of age now, and prayer needs to be a priority, and you need to be taking the time out to do wudu and at least do the fur prayers. And um she said that I noticed that my daughter listened so attentively and so eagerly, and she said the next day she was the one who came and woke me for fajr, and she like eagerly put her prayer mat next to mine, and she said, you know, what I realized was it wasn't just gonna happen by osmosis. She needed to be told what the expectations were of her, you know, and she she needed to be told that this is a duty and you have to rise to it and not just expect that the kids are gonna just get it on their own or are gonna choose it.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Yeah, I mean that runs, I mean, for a lot of us as converts that have grown up, you know, in this very distinct kind of cultural milieu, that runs so contrary to our instincts. You know, we uh we are a community converts, literally reared on personal conviction. That's all we you know, that's that's what we have. So if we see someone that lacks personal conviction, for us it's almost like you don't have anything. Yeah. If you don't have personal conviction, you don't have anything. As you get older and you start raising children and you start experiencing family, you realize that some people are holding on not just by of course, you know, personal conviction is what we will be judged on. Family expectation keeps the door of personal conviction open. Somebody knows in my father, in my mother's home, this is going to be unacceptable for me not to pray. No matter what I do when I'm away, no matter what you know I'm struggling with personally, to be here, this is expected of me. Yeah. Right? That keeps the door open so that personal conviction can be perhaps developed later. Allow someone, in the name of personal choice, just to completely jettison all expectation, all requirement. Maybe personal conviction becomes more distant. Right. Right? Because they lose touch with the deen. They lose touch with, you know, uh Islamic normal shit, even. Right?

SPEAKER_01 55:04

And I I and I think there's so there's there's some merit, not to being heavy-handed, but being intentional as a being intentional and you know, what we call healthy discomfort, you know, it's it's good to make the kids uh for that to be normalized in their lives. I had a college student call me just last week, and she I don't know her. Somebody just recommended that she call me for advice, and she told me that now that she's on her own and she's at college, she's really questioning, starting to question why she does what she does. Like she does her prayers, but questioning like why am I doing it? Am I doing it just because my parents told me to do it? What do I believe? And feeling like she's just kind of going through the motions, like it's rote for her. And so, you know, we talked about a bunch of different things, gave her a lot of different pieces of advice. But one of the things I said to her was that, you know, we worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with our body, mind, and soul, right? And because you don't feel that your mind and your soul is into it right now, doesn't mean that you should have your body abandon it as well, right? Force your body to still come to the prayer, to still obey Allah and pray to Allah that He brings your mind and your soul into it as well, right? He's He's the one in charge of our minds and our souls, and we need to keep calling on Him to make things clear to us, to give us conviction, to but it doesn't mean that you then abandon with the body as well. And that seemed to resonate with her, you know, it Alhamdulillah. To recognize that it's a blessing that if you're worshiping him even with your body, it's a blessing, right?

SPEAKER_00 56:48

No, that was very wise advice. So in the in the time that I have remaining, mashallah, I just want to give you space to just offer um not simply advice, because mashallah, we're going to um post links to the article where they can read some of your advices, um uh, but also just a word of encouragement. You know, you have launched birds. You're still, mashallah, you're a bird launcher. Uh-huh. I'm giving you credit for that coinage. You're a bird launcher. Um, for those of us still in the struggle, trying to rear uh Muslim children that are prepared to um succeed, make a contribution to their communities, but more importantly, are Muslims rooted in principle and virtue uh and love of God and love of the messenger of God, alayhi sallallahu alayhi wa sala. Maybe you can just take a couple minutes to just give us uh mujas now, just a piece of a concise piece of advice that we can we can hold, insha'Allah.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

You know, there's a lot. I I what I would say is that many parents get discouraged or disheartened by what they're seeing in front of them in that moment. And what I would want to remind parents of is that the story isn't over yet. And what you're witnessing in your children that you may not be pleased with, that's just a snapshot of one moment. And inshallah, what you hope is a long life, right? Inshallah, inshallah. And tomorrow's another day, and the story's not over yet, and there is nothing, nothing more powerful than a parent's dua's. And so we have to hold hold on tight to that rope. Like ultimately, it all does come back to du'a. We we do what is required of us, we facilitate, but we call on Allah every step of the way, and we have to believe that those duas are going to be answered, but in Allah's time, not in our time. I mean, I one of the stories I tell in my article and uh even in different talks is of a friend who, you know, did everything quote unquote right. And then her son called her in college and said he wasn't praying anymore. And his words were, I'm not feeling the deen. And when she told me that, I was a young mom at the time and I wasn't very sensitive, and I just blurted out, like, why aren't you freaking out? Why aren't you freaking out? What how can you tell me so calmly that your son is saying he's not praying or that he's not practicing the deen anymore? And she said, I'll never forget what she said. She said, Because I have a high opinion of my Lord. And she said, from day one, I have been praying for my children's iman, for my children's yaqeen, for my children's deen. And I don't believe that those du'as just disappeared into thin air. I believe those that those du'as were heard and that those du'as are going to be answered, but they're gonna be answered in Allah's time, not in my time. And my child has his own journey. He's he's not an extension of me, he is his he's his own soul. And I did what was required of me on the day of judgment. I can stand in front of Allah, and I can, inshallah, inshallah, I can say, I I did everything that was asked of me, and I'm not in charge of the outcome. And same, you know, referring to stories of the prophets of Nub and Adam alayhi salam and uh, you know, Yaqub Ya'qub alayhi salam, who, you know, they were disappointed by choices that that their choices that their children made. And these were people who are directly guided by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so realizing that the outcome isn't in our hand, we our parenting is another form of ibada, and we just have to do it day in, day out, and hope for the best. And then one day her son came back. You know, she kept an open-door policy. Her husband and she continued praying, the rest of the children continued praying, the son would come home from college, wouldn't join the jama's, the parents would get up and pray and just showed him that we're moving forward towards our Lord with or without you. You're welcome to join us, but we're still moving forward. And eventually, Alhamdulillah, he came back and he even did makeup prayers to make up for the time that he wasn't praying. He's a believer, alhamdulillah. So that was that was a snapshot of his life that she witnessed in college, and she didn't allow it to derail her, she didn't allow it to have make her have a bad opinion of her Lord. And Alhamdulillah, that's what we have to remember is to have a good opinion of Allah and just tie our camel in the process and hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

Well, this was uh a wonderful conversation. It was um, you know, you provided me with uh much food for thought, some very powerful uh reminders. And it's just good, you know, fess ultum la ta'alemu to ask the people who know, if you know not, I am raising um my children and to talk to a bird launcher, to talk to someone that is um has has has traveled where I aspire to travel, um was just uh mashallah, reassuring. That's that's that's the word that I would use for this conversation. It was it was really reassuring. So thank you for taking the time to speak to me, to speak to our viewers, uh and Adam. And uh please give our best to all of the folks in the bay, all of the folks at uh. I was actually in the bay just like two weeks ago. I was at May Allah keep us um in each other's company. A meen amen. And then after we meet him, inshaAllah, in each other's company. Inshallah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Amin, a meen, ameen. InshaAllah.