Zina Will Destroy You - The Parents Huddle - Azeemuddin Ahmed

Zina Will Destroy You

One thing we see today is that marriage was supposed to be a protection from zina. Let's talk about zina right now. This is something Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala hates, hates, hates, hates immensely.

How Much Does Allah Hate Zina?

How bad? How much does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala hate zina? Allah azza wa jalla has ordained in the deen that if a person is unmarried and once — once — sleeps with someone who he is not married to, just once. You know, got caught up in an environment, got caught up with the wrong friends, got caught up with something, just once. Allah azza wa jalla doesn't say pull his ear, beta, bad job, girl, bad job.

No. Allah says bring them, bring this guy, bring this girl right here. Where? In public.

If I were to get upset at one of the kids here or someone, say bye, in front of 30 people, he got upset at me. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says bring the whole town, announce it. After Jummah, all of you come in the middle of the town.

Bring that boy, bring that girl, bring that man, bring that woman who are not married. Remember, this is your college group, your high school group. Yeah, bring them.

And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, I want the executioner to come, jallad, and both of them, they need to be lashed and flogged 100 times with a whip. Now, if you see what they used to whip people with, I'll say about myself, I don't think I'd be conscious after the fifth or sixth lash — lose consciousness due to the intensity with which it was applied. It's not your danda at home, you know, that someone getting mad with a hanger.

This is a very powerful tool that is used to deliver extreme pain. One, two, three, four — all the times you and I have been hit by our dads or granddads or grandmothers in our whole life. Can you imagine, put them together, do they even become a hundred? This is one shot, 100 lashes.

Allah says a group of the believers need to be there to watch. You don't have cameras, you don't have live stream, you don't have WhatsApp. This is 1400 years ago. The news has to spread. We have to spread terror in the hearts of the soon-to-commit-zina boys or girls. To say, if you get caught, you're going to be next Friday over here. That's what's going to happen. And honestly, I don't think if anyone witnesses it, we'll ever, ever, ever even hold — seven years later, we won't forget what we witnessed.

Just imagine the screaming and the yelling and the begging for mercy from this 18-year-old, 17-year-old, 15-year-old, 14-year-old — whatever — boy and girl who have committed zina.

If you believe in Allah, and if you believe in the Day of Judgment, then do not allow mercy for them to overtake you. You cannot have mercy at this time. This is called surgery. You're amputating a leg. If you don't amputate the leg, the disease is going to spread across the whole body. The rest of the other parts of the body may even get sick or damaged. So the amputation is painful.

What's happening in Gaza — and SubhanAllah, I don't know what's happening around now — there are people who are having their legs amputated, or other parts of the body, without even anesthesia. Can you imagine the amount of pain and screaming that these poor kids and poor men and women have to go through? But the doctor is regarded as what? As an oppressor? No — he's regarded as the most caring, loving person who is willing to handle the screaming as he does this painful job. He's trying to help the boy. He's trying to help the girl.

The ones who give these hundred lashes and the ones who witness it — they realize they are treating the public. They are treating their own society. This is a very painful surgery, but it must be done. Because if you don't take care of this, it's going to spread like wildfire within our community. And if you have zina spread, game over. That's it. That's a good enough reason to be destroyed as a whole community.

We don't have that many khutbahs about zina, do we? Possibly the only ones you all heard was the one I gave here some years ago. Possibly. It's just not spoken about. They're like, I don't want to hear. But Allah says do not be overwhelmed with mercy for these people, because what you're doing is actually very much needed. A hundred lashes. He might not even survive, by the way. She or he.

The Punishment for the Married Adulterer

Now, if they were married — if they were married and they had an affair, even if they are not living together; she's in Karachi, he's over here, he's in Hyderabad and she's over here — and then they decided to have a relationship outside of the marriage. How about that? Well, this guy is the scum of the earth. And this girl, this lady, this auntie, whoever she is — she is the scum of the earth. You are not worthy of living on top of this earth.

Who says this? Allah and His Rasul say this. That you have committed such a crime. This is unforgivable. You need to go out to the Akhirah. Allah will forgive you in the Akhirah, inshallah, but not over here. Because this sin is going to spread like wildfire. You're a diseased person — like someone suffering from a disease that spreads, like COVID or whatnot. And now we cannot, we say we love you as much, but you gotta go. Sorry. You gotta go stay separately, quarantine yourself.

We're going to quarantine these people where? In the Akhirah. And the Sharia's hukm, the deen — what is it? That this individual, married, male or female, who has chosen to have a relationship even once — once, once — you paid the price in the Akhirah. Sorry, you gotta go.

If it's proven — I'll speak about the proving part next — but just hear me out on this. That if it's proven the husband, this boy or this girl, this man or woman had a relationship — I won't call it a relationship, I'll say a one-night thing. One night, nothing, no relationship. You're away on a business trip, and you saw an invitation, you saw an app, someone invited you, and you fell for it — done deal. If you get caught or you acknowledge it, it could just be a one-hour thing, doesn't make a difference.

Allah azza wa jalla says that both of them need to be brought, and both of them need to be pelted with stones until they have died, perished. It's called rajm. I want us to think about this. What type of pain it must be, not only on them, but the ones who are watching it. The whole community, or a big chunk of the community, needs to come watch this. That these people committed such an act that Allah hates so much — Allah says you don't deserve to live here.

That is what zina is. Brothers and sisters, married men and women, that's what zina is.

Zina Is Plaguing Our Community

So every look — if this is how much Allah hates this — imagine how many hundreds of thousands of times, if not millions of times, zina is taking place in 24 hours a day throughout the world today. Whether in Ramadan or outside of Ramadan, how can we expect Allah's help? How can we expect Allah to be happy with us when such a horrible, detestable sin is happening at a colossal scale across the globe? Everywhere.

A brother last week told me he was in Hajj. In Hajj, one of the brothers — after Hajj being completed, after Arafat, back in Mecca, or in Azizia — he's swiping right and left. In Hajj, with the hujjaj. No place is safe. No place is safe. People are not changing. That's why they go for Umrah and Hajj — they're as [unchanged] as they were before. If you're going to do this type of stuff, imagine what's going to happen to your heart.

So this is the real talk I said I'm going to speak about. Zina is something that is plaguing our community. And every dad and mom who are worried about their kids — about their future — forget about the future. Just make sure they're not committing zina right now. Every single thing is secondary.

If our son and daughter have committed or are committing zina because they're away from home, or in the home, but we have not facilitated marriage for them — then we will ourselves, unfortunately, have to witness that punishment of our own kids. Moms and dads do not think that this is important.

Whatever I know is disgusting, but I know whatever I know is the tip of the iceberg of filth. Of what actually is happening. Because I hang out in masajid. I hang out with masjid-going people. I'm not out there in the clubs, hanging out with that crowd. In the masjid-going people, their filth is all the way up neck-deep. Imagine the crowd that doesn't show up for even Eid — which is the majority of the Muslims. Don't show up for Jummah, don't show up for Eid. What is their situation? What is happening on college campuses today, on this Sunday, in Ramadan? It's crazy.

So dads and moms need to realize that your son and daughter may have achieved outstanding things in university, in college, at work, whatever. But if they have not been chaste — you know, unmarried young men, they're not young now, they're in their 30s, they're not married, but they tell me so clearly what they're up to. And they're like, "Babaji, come, let's hold my hand and walk to the car." Do you know what your son just told me? Do you know what your daughter just confessed to? And beti — you would never call her beti if you knew what she was up to. You would say, I want nothing to do with this. But I don't blame her. I blame you for not facilitating a marriage for her. A nikah for her from day one, before getting to college, to say: this is it — number one goal is we have to get you married and help you remain chaste.

"My Son Doesn't Want to Get Married"

Now, some people say, "Well, my daughter and my son don't want to get married." Have you heard that before? Whose fault is that? One father told me that his son doesn't want to get married. He has, mashallah, done every fellowship under the sun. I said, Uncle Ji, if a man says he doesn't want to get married, he needs help. There's something genuinely wrong with him. He needs therapy, or he needs a doctor. Something's wrong. He's a doctor himself, but he needs — there's something really, really wrong.

Now you're hitting 36, 37, 38, 39 — I don't want to get married. Or otherwise, what's the point when your needs and desires are being fulfilled outside of marriage? Who wants to take on the responsibility? That's usually the case. So this is something I don't want to mince my words on.

Dads and moms, I know most of us are young parents, but inshallah, that's why you can do something about it. Your goal should be: my daughter and my son — number one, which college? I don't care. Which profession? I don't care. Number one is I have to make sure my son and daughter are chaste. These are the goals I'm sharing with you. If you ask me what my goals for my kids are, number one: they've got to stay away from the wrath of Allah. Everything else is secondary. If we have to do three jobs, we'll do it to save them. But what we cannot afford — cannot afford — is to pack them up and send them to hell. Because Allah did not bring them and gift me these kids as people destined for Jahannam. Allah gave me innocent children. And the mistakes I'm making as a parent may well be the reason they end up going to hell — because of wrong priorities, because of wrong decisions. It's the poor kids — it's not their fault. The decisions are being made by moms and dads.

So we need to be able to say that career is not the maqsood. Education, everything is afterwards. Number one is chastity — that my boy and girl remain chaste.

The Eyes Also Commit Zina

Now, for the immigrant community, they think that falling into zina is just something so wild, so out there. "My son and daughter would never do that." My mother, hafidha Allah, she says that when she was in medical school in the 1960s in India, amongst Hindus and Muslims, she says even a Hindu girl and a Hindu boy knew that in public, in medical school — in medical school, mind you — you can't be openly boyfriend or girlfriend publicly in the 60s. Whatever nonsense you wanted to do had to be done under the wraps, privately. You definitely, definitely, definitely could never hold hands or make out in medical school publicly.

Now, SubhanAllah, you'll go to a Muslim event and see a boy and a girl at a coffee shop today — outside of a coffee shop — which I myself have witnessed so many times — that this is definitely not brother and sister, the way they're holding hands, the way they're sitting across from each other's table in the month of Ramadan, at iftar time or after, walking to each other's car, dropping her off at the car. You'll see it right here down the street. That's just the norm. There's just no shame anymore.

At a Muslim event, a guy and a girl. When I used to give talks to universities in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 — especially those days — I remember some of the talks, eventually I got disconnected, like what's going on? Because they would attend a talk, a boy and a girl would come into my talk holding hands at the MSA. And they would listen to a talk on hellfire and whatnot, and they would sit there and nod their head and listen — mashallah, engaged, asking questions — and then hold hands and walk out.

And I'm like, okay, this is not working. This is not working. Because they're listening, they're engaging, but it's not really seeping in. That's where I realized I really need to get them out of that environment. They're in a smoker's lounge and you're talking to them against smoking. They're just not getting it. You have to get them out of that area and bring them to the environment of the masjid.

Then in this beautiful environment, inshallah, maybe even a half-hour talk will do the job that a three-hour talk is not doing over there. Because as long as they're surrounded by sin, the sin is like that smoke that intoxicates them — that blocks their ability to understand what they're doing wrong. So we can do a fishing expedition, go do talks there, but you have to bring them here. Otherwise, they will continue to sin and normalize the sin that they're doing.

So this is one important thing for the young dads and moms sitting here. As you think, which hifz class should I get my son into? Which Islamic studies class should I get my daughter into? Alhamdulillah, there are a lot of resources here — amazing institutions, amazing Islamic schools, amazing part-time programs, amazing things happening that did not happen 20 years ago. But my request to you is: make sure your boy and girl don't fall into zina. That's it. That's all I want. He doesn't need to be a hafiz. She doesn't need to be an expert in Arabic. She doesn't need to win the Sira competition. She needs to stay away from zina.

And zina is not just intercourse.

The Prophet ﷺ said: "The eyes commit zina." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6243)

Pornography: Not Just a Man's Problem

I did not even read this article, but it was sent to me late last night. This is an article from Substack. The title: "The Silence Is Killing Us." Porn addiction in the Muslim community is not just a man's problem.

41% of American women view online pornography each year. 3% of women self-report feeling addicted — though the figure is almost certainly a vast undercount, because who wants to report, especially women, that they have an addiction to pornography? 76% of women ages 18 to 30 have watched pornographic material. 76%. More than 60% of adolescent girls have been exposed to pornography. And one third of all pornography viewers are women. Yes, you read that right.

I want you all to read it. It's silence because who wants to speak about it? I actually had some of my female students at Dar es Salaam in the Tanweer program. Some of them said, "Shaykh, you know, mashallah, we hear the ulema addressing — or at least you do — issues of watching haram, addressed to men. How come people think this is not a female problem as well? We never hear women being addressed on this topic."

They told me about drugs. They said, "You talk about drugs and marijuana to the men." And alhamdulillah, we have a very wide range of students in our program from across the country — from Florida to Arizona to California. Many of them who didn't even wear hijab before. Many of them who work. We have a student who works in a VC firm. So you kind of get an idea, from the Tanweer program, of what's happening around the country.

Somehow the girls started speaking amongst themselves. Drugs? You guys have a drug problem? And I'm just listening. Yeah. And they all start talking about what's happening in their Islamic schools in Florida, what's happening in Islamic schools in New Jersey, what's happening in Islamic schools right here in Chicago and Lombard and the suburbs. And they talk about the girls' bathrooms — how they smell before 8 o'clock, and how the girls smoke weed after class, and how they use school clubs to smoke. They have pencils that look like pencils, but they actually have weed in them — a weed pen, not a pencil. It looks like a pen, but it's got weed in it.

E-cigarettes and weed and all these things have infiltrated the women's side, the girls' side. But the thing is, the hijab is the biggest barrier from us figuring out what the girls are suffering from. Because it just makes it look so innocent. Like, oh, really? You're just the mashallah, the princess. You would never think of doing anything wrong. So they put that hijab on, and what she's up to, Allah knows best. Because the way our guys look, they just look mischievous — you can see it. But who says that to the girl? Oh, mashallah, my sweet princess.

She is sweet if she stays away from sin. But we have to, as dads and moms, know what they're exposed to. And you can't think that an Islamic school, or anywhere else for that matter, is a safe place. Because we're not blaming any Islamic school — I honestly don't. Islamic schools are what? What you see in Islamic schools is a slice of the pie. It's just a reflection of the Muslim community. Who are they? Whose kids are they? They're our kids. At the end of the day, they are Muslim kids. They are part of the ummah of Rasulullah ﷺ. They're our community. So what's happening there is horrible.

Divorce Cases Due to Pornography

I know of divorce cases that have come to me because of this very same issue. There are wives in the same bed next to the husband — the husband is watching haram. That's one case. Number two, the woman is watching haram — or the husband goes to work, or she goes somewhere, and he gets hold of her phone and sees all these things.

I had a man who had a breakdown — he broke down because he loved her so much. One day he got her phone for something. And he saw all the things she was doing six months before they got married. And SubhanAllah — she was a hafidha of the Qur'an. A hafidha of the Qur'an. And he just couldn't believe it. He was berserk. He was crying. He was melting. Oh my God, it was a big scene when I was dealing with it. And he's like, "I can't believe it. I gave her my heart. I loved her so much." And then she had been involved in so many different things. Hafidha of the Qur'an.

Hafidh and hafidha means nothing, zilch, zero, in my opinion right now. That is the state of the fitna. If it's minus two degrees outside, does it make a difference if you're a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, a Mufti Sahib — does it make a difference? The cold is going to get to everybody. It's how well are you layered up? That's the key thing.

So when it comes to zina, it's not about what your credentials are. Who cares about your credentials? How well are you layered up?

Layering Up Before Marriage

Before marriage, what does that look like for your kids? It means staying away from pornography — all forms of it. Staying strongly rooted in dhikr, in majalis of dhikr, with ulama, in good sohba. Not staying too long out in the cold. University, high school — what is that? Cold. Even if you've got the strongest, most amazing layered-up jacket, after one hour it's going to hit you. You've got to come back in.

That's what university is. When the kids say, "Baba, Ammi, we are very busy on the weekend, we got projects, I can't come home" — my dad, hafizahullah ta'ala, every single break in South Africa, I'm talking about the 90s, early 2000s when we were studying — as soon as madrassa closed, as soon as the last exam finished at 10 a.m., he said, get on the next flight and come home. No excuses. All three siblings — we'd fly home all the way from South Africa every single break. He said, no, you're not going to stay there.

"Can we please go for a vacation?" No. Go afterwards. And his philosophy was that a son — or even a daughter — should never get accustomed to living outside of the home. If you live outside of the home, it's for necessity, not because you enjoy it. That's how he raised us. He would say, home is home. You go outside to do your work and you run back as soon as the work is done. As soon as you get comfortable living outside, game over. Powerful. SubhanAllah.

And that's what happens. There are people who spend so much time in university and in college that they honestly feel awkward staying at home. Because you're just used to being out. And this was not university — this was madrassa, a beautiful place. May Allah protect our madaris and all of our institutions, all of our mashayikh and our ulama. So imagine what happens with our sons and daughters when they're at university age. How quickly you have to make sure that they are back home.

Locking Down Devices

So we said: be layered up before marriage. What does that mean? That means we are protected from misuse of the phone. I recently spoke to a person who, alhamdulillah, owns a tech company — very much involved in the tech field. I asked him about his kids, and he said all of his children — he has four or five children — they know there is no such thing as a phone until 18. I was so proud of that. I said, alhamdulillah.

Maybe he's not able to make it to the masjid for every salah. Maybe not reading three juz a day. But at least on this point, he's got his head screwed on right. That it is my love for you that I am saving you from having a phone.

So, dear young dads and moms, that should be, in my opinion, a set standard in your home. No child is going to have their own device. Whatever you need to do, you do it on a desktop computer in the kitchen or in the living room. Our age group — the young dads and moms here in their 30s and 40s — if you had access to the Internet when you were 14, 15, 16, 17, you know what the Internet can do to you. So I think you have a better chance of saving your kids than the older generation. Because they don't even know what this poison, this virus, can do. We have an idea of what this stuff does. So you can be a smart dad and a smart mom.

Whatever happened to us, leave it. We know that this can destroy us and destroy our innocence. And innocence is like a vacuum-packed item. Once you remove the plastic, you can never put it back on. Once you lose your innocence, you can never bring it back. Once you've seen something wrong, you cannot erase it from your memory. You don't want your nine-year-old or ten-year-old who knows, mashallah, 29 or 30 juz — and he's done so well, he won the competition — but now he has filth in his brain and you can't remove it.

We can still do it. We can still save them by simply locking down our devices at home. My own device should not have access. I've told you this last week. This device is locked. You can search it all you want. You won't be able to see any harm on it. For multiple years I've had the Android family link on it. Now it's an iPhone, but it's still locked down. Is it frustrating? It's very frustrating. I can't download. I'm traveling overseas, I need to download an app to get into the country for immigration — and I can't. I have to wake up my wife and say, "Can you type in this password?" I'm serious. And I said, I'm going to always keep it like this. I don't care. The little bit of inconvenience is so worth it.

And I've locked up YouTube on here for the past three, four months. It's been amazing. Alhamdulillah, I've been creating a three-minute daily reminder that's on Instagram and YouTube. People have told me they've benefited from it tremendously, but I haven't yet watched even one because I don't have access to it. I post it on my WhatsApp every day, but I never watch it because I don't have access to it. Alhamdulillah, I don't need to. It's fine. As long as people are benefiting — mashallah.

Honestly, it's not that big of a deal. You just lock it out. What's the biggest thing? If you've got little kids, that's the biggest thing to protect from. Because they're going to grab your phone on Sunday morning when you're sleeping after Fajr — they slept early and they didn't have your Taraweeh and Qiyam al-Layl and all that. So they can grab your phone, search it. Go ahead, search it. There's nothing there. You can't go on YouTube Shorts. You can't do anything.

My spouse — same thing. Locked up YouTube. Now, you can't hear the Dar es Salaam programs or the du'a I do — I don't care. Don't listen from the phone. Open up the laptop and listen from there. Just don't listen from the phone. So you have to, as dads and moms, put yourself through some small inconvenience to protect your kids from much, much bigger harm.

Salam Guard and Password Accountability

We talked about controlling the phone, controlling access to pornography, early marriage, ensuring a positive environment, and doing all homework and computer use in a public space. No matter how much your child pushes back — "Please, I'll read one Qur'an a night, just give me an iPhone on Eid day" — no, my friend. You can read five surahs, no problem, but you're not getting a phone. Is 18 the magic age? No. The age, I say, should be nikah. Whenever you get married — 17, 18, whatever — that will be an incentive to get married earlier too.

And this is not only for boys, by the way — everything I'm saying is for girls as well. Everything I'm saying is for girls as well.

We have something called Salam Guard, which is free. One of the software engineers at Dar es Salaam, one of the students, developed it. It's a free resource that, without installing anything new, teaches you how to go through your phone or laptop and use the built-in capabilities to lock it down with a password.

Can it be broken? I'm sure. If you're a computer geek, there's always a cat-and-mouse game. But when you set the password through Salam Guard — don't make the password yourself. If you make the password yourself, nothing's going to happen. If you make the password yourself, it's like an alcoholic saying, "I'm not going to drink." That's not going to work. You cannot be around alcohol. And when you get an urge, make sure you run and go get your sober friend.

When you type in the password on Salam Guard for your phone, make sure you give it to your spouse if you're married. And if you're not married, give it to a trusted friend to type in the password. Some of our teachers at the Tanweer program have an Excel sheet with the passwords of all the students. They come, give in their phones, purge and delete all the apps, then go to the App Store and lock it down so you can't download anything.

Now, can someone go get another phone? For that, you say: brother, are you here to get help or are you here to play tricks? I'm not here for that. If you want to play tricks, be my guest. Just get out of here. But if you're here to get help, then be honest. If you have an urge, I almost bought a phone — come clean. Alhamdulillah.

The Phone Addict — A Case Study

One dad — his son was an addict. A phone addict, all the time. And when you're a phone addict, that affects your class attendance, that affects your salah attendance. When you come to class, you can't do your homework. Your eyes are shot red. You don't know what's happening. Just completely messed up.

I asked him, "What are you doing on your phone?" Just random things. So I called his dad after three, four, five months. He was 18, 19 years old. When he said he was going home, I called his dad and said, "Make sure when he goes home, your son does not come back with a phone. Because he's a phone addict. I tried everything here and I just can't get through to him."

The dad told me, "He doesn't misuse his phone. He just watches cartoons." You know what he was watching? Anime cartoons. I said, that's why your son is failing. Because you, as a dad, do not know what anime cartoons are. And that's why you're supposed to hand them over to me to let me deal with it, instead of coming between me and him. Because I know what this is. This is a death sentence. If you get your son or daughter binge-watching anime cartoons, because that's what it is — the power of it is in its addiction, the series — amongst many other filthy things in there.

How can you say it's just a cartoon? This is the Dajjalic part of anime — it sounds like what? A cartoon. So the average uncle and auntie says "cartoon." But this is not some innocent cartoon he didn't grow out of. No, this is poison. That's why it's called a Dajjalic thing — because it's packaged as "anime cartoon." No, it's anime poison.

So anyway, he came back without his phone. His dad sent him without it — otherwise, I told him I'm not having him back here. I cannot have a guy who's an anime addict.

But what happened? One day, one of the brothers in charge of making rounds in the houses — checking how beds are kept, how rooms are — he lifted up this kid's pillow and sure enough, there was a brand new phone. So he brought it to me. I called the kid out of class. I said, "How's life going? How's life post-phone?" Oh, yeah, it's tough. I get these random desires to go back in — SubhanAllah — but I've been holding up.

I said, "I want to appreciate all the effort you've done." I gave him a gift bag. "This is your gift." Oh, really? Jazak Allah khayr. He had his phone in there. I said, "Book your ticket and go home, brother." That was it. I said, I can't help backstabbers. If you cheat and lie with me, I will not be able to help you. I'll help you till the end of the earth, inshallah, but I cannot help people who do things behind my back and lie to my face.

You could have said, "I bought a phone." Come clean. I'll still help you. Allah says if you break your promise and make tawbah 70 times in one day, Allah is still willing to forgive you. So if you're working with addicts, yes, I understand you're an addict. But you can't lie. Or at least tell me, "I'm a habitual liar too." Some guys have actually done that with me, and I said, "OK, thank you for letting me know — I'll keep that in mind. We'll work with that too."

The Anime Addiction — Another Case Study

Another young man, 14–15 years old, was doing so well in his class. After that, he started dipping. For dads and moms whose kids are in high school, college, or grade school: when you see your kids' grades dipping, their face drooping, they don't want to talk, they want to stay longer in the bathroom — hello. Forty-five minutes in the bathroom. You're not a 65-year-old constipated man. What are you doing in there for 45 minutes? A 45-minute shower? Connect the dots. Fill in the blanks. That's the point.

Where is our intelligence? We're CEOs and CFOs, but we can't figure out what's going on in the bathroom. All of us are going through this together. No one is safe.

The telltale signs of addiction: eyes that are red, can't make eye contact with parents, grades are dipping, more depressed, can't hold full conversations, even the handshake is flimsy. No interest in normal conversations. Extended hours in the bedroom — lights off, so-called sleeping. Extended hours in the bathroom. These are all things pointing toward an addiction to pornography, anime, or something else.

So when asked, this 14-year-old eventually confessed to anime addiction. He's doing his hifz. He's studying. He's doing schoolwork. He told me that in the last two weeks — how long is an anime episode? Twenty minutes. He said in the last two weeks he had watched 500 episodes. You do the math. That's an entire one week — out of two weeks, one full week was spent watching. And I'm just sitting there scratching my head, doing the math. And he said, "Yeah, basically that's all I do. Bathroom, food. Just watching." This is a 14-year-old's addiction. The mom and dad obviously don't know about this until we saw the symptoms and addressed it.

The 10-Year-Old and the Video Game Console

I had a ten-year-old come to me. This was sad and cute at the same time. A chota bacha. I led salah, and this boy came right to the musalla. "Mufti Sahib, assalamu alaikum." This had never happened to me quite like this before. A kid comes and speaks to me in cute Urdu. Right as I'm on the musalla. I'm like, ji, how can I help you? "My mom has said to come meet you." He came from somewhere else, another community. What happened? His dad took away his video game console and he wanted to get it back. So I'm the qadi, the hakam — please come to me.

His dad walked out of the musalla just then. He sat in front. "Ji, Mufti Sahib, this is my son." What's the issue? "We have a problem at home. I work, my wife says stay home, she's the mother. We've noticed that on the weekends our son plays video games. We let him play every day in the evening. But weekends, it's free time, so I'm at work and wife's at home doing her own thing. She lets him play video games. What we now found out is that for the past few weeks, this boy wakes up at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning to start playing video games — 8 a.m., 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m. — 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. That's 20 hours straight, multiple weekends."

And the fact that it took them so long to even figure it out and come forward — I'm like, what am I witnessing? This happened about three years ago. There are some serious flaws in parenting that are happening in our community. This should be like a jailable offense — child abuse, essentially. Don't you think so? How do you let that happen? 20 hours on Saturday, and he probably gets another eight hours sleeping, then right back to it. This is called addiction. Whose fault? Mom and dad's fault.

So we as young dads and moms sitting here, we have to make sure we don't just answer to the governments and courts of this dunya, but more importantly, the court of the Akhirah. When Allah azza wa jalla says whatever happened, happened because you wanted to just watch your soap operas, wanted to talk to your girlfriends, wanted to enjoy your night out with the guys — and that's why you threw these devices at your kids and said, "Keep yourself busy with this while I hang out with my friends." Isn't that the case? This has become the modern-day cheap, free babysitter. That's what it is. For our own enjoyment, we are making our kids suffer.

Protecting Our Kids: Layering Up Before Marriage

So I was talking about layering from zina — pre-marriage. Let's talk about the three layers pre-marriage. Protecting ourselves from the cold. What are the things?

1. Controlling access to the phone and pornography.
2. Young marriage.
3. Environment — making sure they have a positive environment.
4. Computer and all homework done in a public space.
5. Not letting them be away from home for extended periods of time.

And everything I'm saying is for girls as well. Everything. Not just boys.

A Case Study: The LGBTQ Club President

I got an Instagram screenshot — someone shared it with me, and I knew the boy. This was about four or five years ago. A desi Muslim, beautiful Islamic school graduate, introducing himself as president of the LGBTQ club of the entire 30,000-plus student body university. "Thank you. I'm honored to be chosen as president of the LGBTQ club."

His father didn't even know what LGBTQ meant. I called him. He's from a different state, three and a half hours away by flight. I sat in a bedroom of someone's house in a program and spoke to this father for 45-50 minutes. He's like, "Thank God my wife is not here. She would have a heart attack." I said, "No problem. I'll talk to her tomorrow separately if you need me. This is something to have a heart attack over."

He couldn't fathom it. So he started searching online, and of course his son's name was there. And then he told me after that — "You know, whenever I used to talk to him on Wednesdays, he would always say, 'Baba, okay, I got to run to a meeting.'" And it shows right there: Wednesdays at 6 p.m. the LGBTQ club would meet. And then every long weekend or holiday — "Baba, I'm busy. Projects, projects." And SubhanAllah — it was COVID time, right after COVID. He said in COVID, this boy would lead them in Taraweeh at home. He had a musalla laid out in his bedroom, his kufi there.

May Allah guide him. May Allah guide him. I remember him a lot. SubhanAllah. It's not impossible for Allah to bring anyone back. We ask Allah to bring him and all those boys and girls who are in this horrible situation back towards the full deen, the deen of Islam. Allahumma ameen.

But this is why I'm sharing this: being close to home is very important. And we need to add having a very open relationship with our kids. Where you say, "Whatever you want to blurt out, blurt it out. I'm not going to get mad at you." If you say, "Baba, I have an attraction to a boy" — you should be able to tell me that. If a girl says, "Ammi, I have an attraction to a girl" — all right.

Can your kids speak to you like that? I ask you — ask your wives, ask the aunties and the women sitting here. This very week, I had to speak to a mom and dad whose son confessed to me of having same-gender attraction. A hafidh al-Qur'an, very good, leading Taraweeh and everything. But he's got a same-gender attraction, and it's gotten pretty advanced according to what he's telling me. He has a boyfriend, making out, everything. Got it?

But I take these as patients. I don't just say, "Next, let's go." Whatever has happened has happened. Let's move on with solutions. If I were an ER doctor and I start passing out at blood and gore, I can't be an ER doc. So as a scholar, as an imam, alhamdulillah, I deal with this with the will of Allah the way a physician and surgeon does.

So I called the dad and mom and spoke to them for half an hour. And the mom was like, "No, but he's a good kid." I said, "Listen, I'm here to help you. I'm not here to argue with you. If you want to understand what I'm saying — what your son is diagnosed with — listen. Otherwise, let's go. Stop talking about what happened in the past and crying about it. It's not going to help. Cry in front of Allah. Allah is the only one who's going to help. I can't help you breaking down. Who's getting harmed in the process? The child. Because the more you cry and the more you're in denial, who suffers? The child. I have solutions for you — one, two, three. Get to work."

Part of that solution is you've got to cry in front of Allah every night. Your son will get out of this. Your daughter will get out of this. Is this happening very rarely? No. It's happening much, much more often.

The Islamophobe Who Once Led Jummah

Just last night after Taraweeh, I spoke to a dad in a long-going case. His son and daughter-in-law are married, they have kids. The daughter-in-law used to wear hijab — very muhajjaba, practicing deen, fasting, salah, everything. The son was very regular in salah, helping establish Jummah at his place of work. I know them from 2007, 2008. The boy. Now he's a successful professional. Father of two or three.

He is now not only an ex-Muslim, but a hardcore Islamophobe. Both — husband and wife. They hate Islam to the core. I had a very challenging conversation with the main person. It was really bad. Like most of you — probably all of you — would have walked out. You'd say, "I can't handle this." Cursing the Prophet. Cursing Allah. Cursing Islam. But that's what you have to handle when you're doing this type of work. When you're a plumber, you've got to close your nose and do your work.

So I told the dad: "Your son does not have any philosophical, theological confusions. Absolutely not. Wallahi al-azim. He does not need a mutakallim. He does not need an aqeedah expert. He doesn't need a major in philosophy to speak to him. That's not his problem. We already did that. We checked him out. He has a spiritual problem."

Dear dads and moms, if you need to understand the situation of your kids, that's where people like me come in — to do the diagnosis. Please stop diagnosing yourself and giving wrong medication. I'm not saying I'm the expert at everything, but alhamdulillah I'm connected with so many scholars, my shuyukh, my own teachers, constantly connected overseas for spiritual remedies.

I told him last night: "Stop thinking this is a philosophical issue. Focus on spiritual remedies." I gave him some adhkar to do, some ayat to read. I said, "Wallahi, inshallah, things will change."

The Power of Spiritual Remedies

I mentioned there's a brother whose daughter left Islam — after having studied deen, very successful in her deen, very strong in her Qur'an. But she said, "I'm no longer Muslim." He forced me — please come, address her confusions. And I obliged. I went, and I brought some other experts too. As I had expected, we didn't get anywhere. But alhamdulillah, the father then took interest in spiritual remedies — not some exotic thing, just reading different ayat of the Qur'an, nawafil, things of that sort. Without even talking to her — eight months, nine months — mashallah, she came back fully. Fully. Back to Islam. Back to the deen. Reading Qur'an. Everything. Alhamdulillah. So it works. It works.

You're dealing with a big, massive shaytan that's making people attracted to the same gender, making people go towards zina and all sorts of things. But that's where the importance of ruhaniyya and spirituality comes in.

Coming Next Week: Layering Up After Marriage

So we spoke about layering up before marriage. I actually wanted to discuss layering up after marriage today, but inshallah we'll dedicate that for next week — which means intimacy in the marriage and all the issues that cause problems in that. That will be next week's topic.

But right now we're speaking about this because the purpose of marriage — one of the big purposes — was to protect from zina. You heard the first portion of the talk. But today, nikah is not saving people from zina. That's the sad part. Even after marriage, people are falling into haram. That is a very huge win for Iblis's army, and a huge loss for us. So please come with questions.