Mr. Google And Facebook Village

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

Raising children to be good people, good citizens, good children, good spouses, good parents, good...is a mighty task! We no longer have that village where our grandparents/parents used to grow up in, where righteous and pious uncles/aunties would help their parents teach them good manners and virtues.

Instead we have the village of Mr. Google and Facebook (and the like), which have opened an onslaught of windows of not necessarily good things from which our children, as well as the unwary, learn and get advice.

Does this mean our children are finished? No, of course not, inshaAllah. There is still hope. We can create a village for them, starting with you as its first inhabitant.

If we teach our children not to be selfish, 90% of the job is done.

Start by living this famous hadith ourselves as we are their foremost examples:

None of you truly believes (in Allah and in His religion) until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.

[Bukhari and Muslim]

The idea is that we love for other Muslims what we love for ourselves. We should care for and help one another. Loving goodness for others is part of loving them. We love good things for them as much as we love those things for ourselves. We wish other Muslims to be better than us in worshiping and manners and at the same time we strive to be better than what we are now. We treat them the way we want them to treat us. We are merciful and compassionate in our treatment of others.

Part of good treatment of others is excusing them and giving them fair chances. For example, if a person commits a mistake, then we should find excuses for them and not jump to conclusions. There are many ways to excuse others who did mistakes, so we can live together peacefully and avoid confrontations. If they commit a sin then we love for them that they leave the sinful act. We advise them out of our love for them. We should choose the best words in our conversation. Good words can bring happiness to people's heart and can avoid confrontations and quarrels.

Allah says,

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّـهَ وَقُولُوا۟ قَوْلًا سَدِيدًا

O you who have believed, fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice.

[Qur'an Al-Ahzab 33:70]

وَقُل لِّعِبَادِى يَقُولُوا۟ ٱلَّتِى هِىَ أَحْسَنُ ۚ إِنَّ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنَ يَنزَغُ بَيْنَهُمْ ۚ إِنَّ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنَ كَانَ لِلْإِنسَـٰنِ عَدُوًّا مُّبِينًا

And tell My servants to say that which is best. Indeed, Satan induces [dissension] among them. Indeed Satan is ever, to mankind, a clear enemy.

[Qur'an Al-Isra' 17:53]

So this is where we start building the village for our children to raise our grandchildren and so on.

We each have a role to play and there are changes to be made. We cannot aimlessly go through lives today the same way as yesterday, this year the same way as last year or 5 or 10 years ago. If each one of us understand our role and make a change, our children will have a huge and peaceful village to grow up in, in no time.

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the early Muslims and the Companions, Allah be very pleased with them all, suffered persecutions and many trying times and fought selflessly in battles just so Allah's words can come to us. We should learn and apply them in our lives.

May Allah grant us a righteous community and tawfiq to the highest station. Ameen.

Please don't forget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam