Everything You Must Know About The End of Times | Signs of the Hour Ep. 1
5 Signs That Happened in the Prophet’s ﷺ Lifetime | Signs of the Hour Ep. 2
Was Dajjal Alive During The Prophet’s ﷺ Time? | Signs of the Hour Ep. 3
20 Verses of Qur’an That Protect from Dajjal | Signs of the Hour Ep. 4
When 40 Prophets Were Killed | Signs of the Hour Ep. 5
When Only One Sahabi Was Left In The World | Signs of the Hour Ep. 6
Jerusalem to Constantinople: The Promised Conquests | Signs of the Hour Ep. 7
Acts of God: Disasters Foretold by the Prophet ﷺ | Signs of the Hour Ep. 8
The Rise of the Unqualified | Signs of the Hour Ep. 9
The Night the Qur’an Disappears | Signs of the Hour Ep. 10
The Years of Intense Deception | Signs of the Hour Ep. 11
The 10 Patterns of Religious Corruption | Signs of the Hour Ep. 12
A Beautiful Masjid With Empty Rows | Signs of the Hour Ep. 13
Making Halal What Allah Made Haram | Signs of the Hour Ep. 14
When The Love for Wealth Becomes Violent | Signs of the Hour Ep. 16
How Time Is Shrinking | Signs of the Hour Ep. 17
Why The Prophet ﷺ Said People Will Envy the Dead | Signs of the Hour Ep. 18
Why Modern Life Makes Every Death Feel Sudden | Signs of the Hour Ep. 19
Does the Killer Know Why He Kills? | Signs of the Hour Ep. 20
Playing
Have Your Parents Become A Burden? | Signs of the Hour Ep. 21
Signs of the Hour
Have Your Parents Become A Burden? | Signs of the Hour Ep. 21
The Prophet ﷺ described a time when a man would bring his friends close and treat his father coldly. A time when a mother is pushed aside because she has nothing left to give. A time when “a slave woman gives birth to her master.”
Dr. Omar Suleiman looks at one of the most uncomfortable signs of the Day of Judgment: the breakdown of the family, and how we treat our parents once they seemingly no longer do anything for us.
He explains what these narrations mean (and what they don’t), why being kind to everyone except your own family is a warning sign, and why scholars call elderly parents a person’s first real test of power.
And why did Allah specifically praise Yahya and Isa (peace be upon them) for being dutiful to their parents? The answer says a lot about the times we’re living in…
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
00:00So a person puts their mother to the side because mom really can't give me anything anymore. A person is so good to their friends and treats their father with such coldness. Why? Because I don't need you anymore, dad. Their friends say you're the best friend in the world.
00:13Their parents are like, where's my son? Where's my daughter? The father is wondering, where are you? If the people on the outside of your house see your goodness, and the people on the inside of your house, especially those who brought you into this world, don't see that same good, then what's actually driving that goodness inside of you?
00:28Some of the scholars commented on this, and they said that this is the first test of power for a person, is how they treat the powerless in their household.
00:43Welcome back to our class on the signs of the hour. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala to prepare us and to make us amongst those who have a good ending and who begin every day and every deed seeking the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. Allahumma ameen.
00:58So, these next few sections become more uncomfortable, and I realized, SubhanAllah, as I was preparing for this particular class, that there is so much that can be taken out of context.
01:11And so, I'm going to start this one by saying that when we talk about sensitive affairs and trends, as the Prophet ﷺ talks about a trend, we have to find this balance as Muslims
01:25to where we can take a hadith at face value and not take it personally with exceptional situations. So, if the Prophet ﷺ describes a dominant behavior, and then someone is on the opposite of that dominant behavior,
01:39then that person should not say that the Prophet ﷺ does not understand or that this hadith is this or this hadith is that, but rather that perhaps I have an exception. The value of the hadith at face value is still there.
01:51The value of what the Prophet ﷺ is still trying to point out in terms of a trend is still to be taken into consideration. And so, this section is about when family breaks apart, when the home breaks apart.
02:04And this is clearly a genre of multiple signs of the Day of Judgment. And I'm going to start this off with a disclaimer.
02:12At no point is any of this, when the Prophet ﷺ is talking about family falling apart, an excuse for family violence. At no point. It should be a given, but I'll give the disclaimer anyway.
02:23At no point does any of this justify someone abusing another, because when someone abuses another and does not give the right of a person that Allah ﷻ has assigned rights to,
02:35they're not just violating the sanctity of that person. They're violating the sanctity of Allah's law. And so, it becomes personal when Allah ﷻ says, مَنْ عَادَ لِي وَلِيَّ فَقَدْ أَذَنْتُهُ بِالْحَرْبِ
02:47Whoever takes a close friend of mine as an enemy, then I wage war against that person. Or if a person is mazlum, if a person is wronged, then they call upon Allah ﷻ.
02:56There's no hijab, no veil between that person's dua and Allah ﷻ, even if that person is a disbeliever. What that tells you is that at no point should any of these hadith emphasizing family
03:08and condemning the idea of breaking family apart mean that a person should tolerate actual harm, actual abuse, and the violation of what Allah ﷻ made sacred. So I'm going to get that disclaimer out of the way right now
03:22because when we read the hadith, we should read them in that light of the general trends and not in light of the exceptions. And so, we've talked about sort of the breakdown of society. We've talked about the breakdown of the individual.
03:36We've talked about the unfulfilling nature of wealth and people seeking their happiness and wealth. And now we talk about the breaking up of the family.
03:46And the Prophet ﷺ said several things about this particular topic. And in one narration, there's value in always reading the whole narration because you can connect some of the dots. In one narration, which is an authentic narration in Tirmidhi,
04:01the Prophet ﷺ said, that when public wealth becomes a system of private spoils,
04:13SubhanAllah, look at what they're trying to do with Gaza right now. Look at the way the public wealth and the public interests are used for actual private interests. And he said,
04:25And trust becomes a system of looting. And zakah becomes for penalties. And there are multiple ways to talk about that.
04:38Like the loss of the incentive to give charity. Like you have to pull charity out of the people. SubhanAllah, our Islamic civilization was not built through meeting the bare minimum of zakah.
04:49But we can certainly say that we have found ourselves in this situation where we have widespread poverty, partly due to the fact that Muslims are not all paying their zakah. Right? So zakah becomes like a penalty. Then the Prophet ﷺ says,
05:11The Prophet ﷺ said, while treating his father with coldness. So the Prophet ﷺ said,
05:29So at that point, a person should await the landslides and the earthquakes and the transformation of our outer appearances. So let's break this down, inshallah ta'ala, and what the Prophet ﷺ is talking about.
05:40The Messenger of Allah ﷺ is talking about the shift in who we honor and the redistribution of priority here. What he's not saying,
05:54because I have to say it from the very beginning, is that you can abuse your wife because your mom wants you to. Or you can deny her rights because your mother wants you to. But what he is speaking about is that the womb that bore you because it no longer gives you anything.
06:08I want you to read it in the capacity of this hadith. Right? The womb that bore you because it no longer gives you anything. Mom has gotten old. She's no longer in your house or you've moved on in life. And she's no longer the one giving, but you're in the place of giving.
06:21You no longer feel a sense of ingratitude towards her and you direct instead your obedience, and this is to the men, towards your wives. So where are the extremes here? On the one hand, you have the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ
06:35about the men who were trapped in the cave and the person who takes the milk to his parents. Right? To make sure that his parents are taken care of. But also, again, takes care of his children as well. There's no neglect here.
06:48This is not an idea of neglect. And on the other hand, you can have the other extreme, which is again the denial of rights in the name of honoring one person's rights. How do we find ourselves in this particular hadith
06:59and how do we read it in the nature of what is going to come? Right? When a person honors their parents, they're bringing the pleasure of Allah ﷻ, the barakah of Allah in their lives.
07:12By the way, what I tell couples, especially when they first get married, is don't treat your in-laws like adversaries. If you want your wife, if you want your husband to have a better chance of going to Jannah,
07:24incentivize them being good to their parents and honoring their parents. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is it immediately becomes a battlefield. People immediately draw out their territories. Right? And if a person is driven by greed, then they're driven by interest.
07:38They'll only treat those well who they feel like they can get something out of. And so this kind of becomes the sidelining of the parents. And so, Jannah is at the feet of your mother.
07:51Right? And a good wife and a good husband would actually want that their spouse treat their parents well and have the rida, the pleasure of their parents, because if they don't, then that's going to have an effect on the barakah that comes into that household as a whole.
08:05Again, this does not mean you tolerate abuse, but it also means that you don't escape accountability for neglect. For neglect. So a person puts their mother to the side
08:18because mom really can't give me anything anymore. And the Prophet ﷺ said, and a person, barra sadeeqahu wa jafa abahu. A person is so good to their friends and treats their father with such coldness.
08:32Right? Why? Because I don't need you anymore, dad. Right? So all of their husnul khuluq, all of their good character, everything great that comes out of them, their friends say you're the best friend in the world.
08:45Their parents are like, where's my son? Where's my daughter? Where's my daughter? Right? The father is wondering, where are you? And by the way, that's one of the signs of nifaq. One of the signs of hypocrisy is that a person is good to their friends
08:58and bad to their family. That they channel their ihsan. And I'm not just talking about like when you're younger or teenagers. No, I'm talking about even when you get older. If the people on the outside of your house see your khair, see your goodness, and the people on the inside of your house,
09:12especially those who brought you into this world, don't see that same khair, don't see that same good, then what's actually driving that goodness inside of you? And so the mother is put to the side, the father is put to the side. There's a dryness, a cruelty, a coldness
09:26that turns towards the father. Now, the more extreme version of that is the first thing the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said in the hadith of Jibreel Alayhi Salaam. When Jibreel Alayhi Salaam asked the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
09:40tell me about the signs of the hour. And he said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, an talidal amatu rabbataha. That a slave woman gives birth to her master.
09:52A woman gives birth to her master. Now, subhanAllah, this part of the hadith has multiple interpretations and they don't contradict each other. Some of the scholars said it literally means the spread of slavery, once again,
10:06or the buying and the purchasing and the loss of morality to the point that a person would buy and trade and sell their own parents. So that's one literal interpretation of it, right? That it just becomes a trafficking operation, slavery,
10:20and a person does not have a problem even selling their own parents. So it's neglect, abuse, even selling their own parents. And may Allah protect us.
10:31Some of them spoke about it in the capacity of zina, adultery, right? Because rabbataha can mean mistress as well. That zina becomes so widespread that it even touches the home between parent and child. May Allah protect us.
10:45And the third one, which is the one that Ibn Hajar Rahimahullah Ta'ala mentioned, that's the most general and the most comprehensive, is that a child treats their mother like a slave. You give birth to your master,
10:58the child starts to talk to the mother, starts to talk to their parents like they're slaves. They give their parents orders, Disobedient, harsh, cruel.
11:11And so there's an inversion here. And by the way, subhanAllah, the beauty of reading this hadith with the previous hadith, which I know makes a lot of people uncomfortable, is to say that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is not saying that it's a good thing
11:23for a person to treat their child like a slave. No, you treat your child like a child. But the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is showing the extreme switch in dynamic of a relationship
11:34that the nature of service and khidmah should be from the child towards the parents. And ihsan, we learn it, excellence, from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is how to treat your kids, right?
11:46But then that relationship inverses as well. Of course, there's some modern scholars that share this, and I won't say it's an interpretation, they say it's a reflection. When they would say that the colonized Muslim world
12:00gave birth to its master of the colonizers, right? If you look at the ilm and you look at the sciences and you look at all of the advancements that were produced out of the Muslim world
12:12that fell into the hands of those who exploit the Muslim world and colonize the Muslim world and put the Muslim world in its place, right?
12:21It's as if a woman gave birth to her master, right? That suddenly you become the slaves of those who use the tools of your own making, of your own inventions, the brilliance that came out of the Muslim world.
12:34And that's a sad state of the ummah, and there's no doubt about it. That wouldn't be, again, the interpretation of the hadith, but perhaps a reflection that you could take from it. Another thing, subhanAllah, from this hadith that's really interesting is the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned the lowering of the parents
12:48in the same hadith as the raising of towers. People are building high skyscrapers, but they're putting their parents under their feet. And there's something to say about that,
13:02that if a person is driven by greed, then even their families become obstacles or tools in the pursuit of that greed, right? I would step on anybody to get here, right?
13:15And so there is something prophetic here about the contrast that the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is giving to us. So let's talk about what this means, first and foremost, in terms of parents and what the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
13:29said in this regard. Of course, the ulama mentioned in this chapter, that your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him and that you show excellence to your parents.
13:41Allah Azawajal put tawheed right before the treatment of parents. And Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah says that the greatest sign of decay in a society, you can find it in the way that the parents are treated.
13:55In fact, if you look at Bani Israel in its last days, the greatest sign of decay is how they treated their parents. And by the way, that's one of the tafaseer of Zakariya Alayhi Salaam, when he asked Allah Azawajal for a child
14:09and Allah Azawajal specified, that Yahya Alayhi Salaam was obedient to his parents because that was rare at that time. Isa Alayhi Salaam, Jesus peace be upon him,
14:24right? Obedient, loving towards his mother because that's a rarity at the time, right? It's as if Allah Azawajal is setting the scale right. And so right before the loss of tawheed, the loss of iman altogether is the loss of the treatment of parents.
14:37And that's what's being mentioned here as well. And of course the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam especially mentioned the one whom old age reaches with their parents in their lifetime.
14:49man adraka walidayhi indal-kibar ahaduhuma aw kilahuma thumma lam yadkhulil jannah And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned the hadith that, you know, may his nose be covered in dust. May he be humiliated.
15:03The one whose parents reach old age in his lifetime, one or both of them. And he does not enter jannah through them. Some of the scholars commented on this and they said that this is the first test of power
15:16for a person is how they treat the powerless in their household. And that means their elderly parents and their spouses and their young children. That's the first test of power. And if a person fails that test of power,
15:29even with those who brought them into existence or those who came into existence through them or with their spouses, then of course they're going to fail the test of power outside of their houses as well. And so there's a level of ingratitude
15:43and there's a level of cruelty and there's a level of coldness that comes through the mistreatment of those that are inside your house. And of course it also represents the lack of pursuing jannah because our parents are not a burden
15:57but they're gates of jannah. And basically if you don't see them as gates of jannah, then you see them as an inconvenience. You see them as being in your way, rather than the gates to your way
16:08for Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala to enter you into jannah.
