Honoring the Elders in the Community - Mufti Minhajuddin Ahmed

Honoring the Elders in the Community

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the Master of the Messengers, and the Seal of the Prophets. And upon his pure and good people. And upon those who follow them with goodness, and call upon them to the Day of Recompense.

As for what follows — Allah, the Exalted, has said in His profound revelation, after we seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan:

My dear respected brothers and sisters, respected elders and students — السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

The Stages of Human Life

The nature of our life in this dunya is that we pass through many stages — many successive stages. When we are born, we are born so weak. خُلِقَ الْإِنسَانُ ضَعِيفًا — so weak and powerless. Allah, the Exalted, has given us hands but we cannot clench them. He gives us feet when we are born, we cannot walk. We cannot even turn over on our side, much less crawl or walk.

Many, most of us sitting here are parents, but we have students here as well. Just to explain how helpless we are — an exaggerated example to express this is that if you take a newborn baby and put it right on the edge of a very high place, the edge of a cliff, it is absolutely safe. You will say, how in the world is it safe on the edge of a cliff? The reason I am saying this is to highlight that it cannot even turn over on its side. If it is on the edge of the cliff, it will remain on the edge of the cliff. That is how helpless the human being is when he is created.

And then as we grow older, Allah gives us physical strength in our youth, and our mental capabilities and strength, and we become proud and arrogant. But then towards the end of our life, again, the physical strength — and sometimes, may Allah protect us — the mental abilities also we lose, and we return to weakness.

This is what is mentioned by Allah in the ayah that I just recited. Allah says in Surah ar-Rum, ayah 54: Allah is the one who created you out of weakness — in a state of weakness, absolutely incapable and helpless. Then as you continue to progress in life, He substituted after that weakness, strength, as you grow into an adult. And again, after the period of youth and middle age pass and transpire, the weakness comes once again.

So we find in the beginning, the children are weak, and at the end, the elderly are weak. These are the weak ones amongst us. And regarding these two groups, Rasulullah has given us special instructions and has exhorted us to be kind and considerate regarding these two groups. Rasulullah mentioned many hadiths — he bracketed these two instructions together, to show mercy to the feeble and the weak: whether they are young children, to show mercy to them; whether they are elders, to show respect to them.

The Prophet's Love for Children

And Nabi personally — he did not only speak and exhort us, but he proved it through his own actions. We see that hadith of Anas ibn Malik. He says: I have not seen anyone who had so much love and mercy and kindness and affection, and would be free in expressing that to young children, than Rasulullah.

This is Anas ibn Malik, who is a young Ansari Sahabi, who is a khadim of Rasulullah. So he is not talking about Qasim, the first son of Rasulullah, or Abdullah al-Tayyib al-Tahir, and Zainab, Fatima, Ruqayya, and Umm Kulthum — all of these daughters of Rasulullah. They were already adults before he had the opportunity to see the interaction of Rasulullah with these children.

He speaks about the example he saw in his time in Medina — the last child of Rasulullah, Ibrahim, the son of Marya al-Qibtiyya. So he says his son Ibrahim, Ibn Rasul, the one who is buried in Jannatul Baqi' — we visit his grave when we go for Umrah and Hajj — he was a mustarda', meaning he was a suckling baby, a nursing baby, and he was in Awal al-Madinah, in the suburb of Medina. Rasulullah had given him to a foster mother.

This is the time when they did not have formula, they did not have other means of providing for children — they would have to have the mother's milk. If the mother was not able to provide, they would have foster mothers. So Rasulullah did not just leave him there and abandon him. He would travel to go visit this baby. This is not an older child that can interact with the father — this is just a nursing baby — and he would go visit him and be with him.

And he would enter the home and it would be filled with smoke. Why? Because the foster father — meaning there is a mother who is suckling the baby and her husband — was a blacksmith, and he would be working, or a bricksmith; he would be making the bricks and he would have an oven where he would be baking the bricks, and the smoke would be coming out of that. It was not a very comfortable place to be in. But Rasulullah, despite the difficulty, would go there — despite the smoke, despite the oven. Then he would take the baby in his hands, and he would kiss his baby, and return.

Rasulullah, having so many responsibilities on his shoulders, and being the mas'ul and responsible for the entire Ummah till the Day of Qiyamah, still had time to go out of his way. This is not in the hujrah next to Masjid Nabawi, in his normal residence — he had to travel to Awal al-Madinah particularly to go and visit his son, and kiss him, and see his condition and return.

Kissing Hassan and Hussain

One time Rasulullah was kissing Hassan and Hussain. These were more close — Ali is at home, right next to Masjid Nabawi. If you go and see, Bayt Fatima, the house of Fatima, is right next to the rawdah. So Hassan and Hussain were much closer in proximity. And there are many, many hadiths of the interaction of Rasulullah with these young grandsons and how much he loved them.

So one time he was kissing them and a Bedouin Arab was there. He said, "Ya Rasulullah, I have ten sons" — that's great, wow, proud father — he had ten sons. Then he said, "I have never kissed any one of them ever." He had never kissed any one of them, and he saw Rasulullah kissing his grandson. He thought it was something against his manliness, against his macho nature of being a strong, dominating male, to express love, to kiss children and babies. So then Rasulullah said — and this is a hadith reported in Sahih al-Bukhari:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5998)

"What can I do for you if Allah Himself has taken away the love and mercy from your heart? There is nothing I can do for you."

Abu Umair and His Pet Bird

Of course, you might have heard the story of Anas and his brother. He says: "My beloved master, Rasulullah, had the best of character. I had a brother who was given the title by Rasulullah of Abu Umair." And when Nabi would come to visit, he would not just ignore the children — these are not "a waste of time, I have to talk to the adults and get my job done and get out." He would actually interact with the young children, he would joke with them, and he would ask him, "Oh Abu Umair" — he made up a little rhyme for him — "What happened to your bird?" He had a pet bird, and his bird had died. So the little boy was crying. So Rasulullah consoled him about his bird. He had the time to console this young boy about his pet bird dying.

The Vanishing of Haya and Adab

There are more hadiths I had here, but I want to move on before the time ends to the other important part of the topic today. Which is that Rasulullah, as I said in the beginning — for those who came late — we begin our human life as weak. We start off as weak, helpless babies. Then after that, Allah says He brings strength and vigor and energy to us. Then at the end, again, weakness and old age overcomes us.

Alhamdulillah, there is talk that is done and speeches that are given — and this is part of our culture as well — to love children and show affection to children. And that is something of course we can never match the love Rasulullah gave, but it is present in the Ummah to a great extent, Alhamdulillah.

On the other hand, what we are sorely lacking, and we need to revive, and we need to spend time on and to discuss, is the opposite spectrum — and that is respect. Genuine respect from the heart, and adab and etiquettes of treating our elders, the seniors of our community, of our society.

The scholars say that looking at the present condition of the Ummah, there are two attributes that are very swiftly, very rapidly vanishing from the Ummah. Two qualities that are vanishing: haya and adab. One is haya — modesty — and one is adab — respect. And these two things are such that we have to focus on them: as parents for our children, as community elders for our community, as educators for the next generation. And if we do not do so, then we will cry blood later on, and the damage that will be done will be irreparable.

The nature of these two attributes — haya is its own topic. Having modesty and having the sense of shame in front of Allah. To be modest in front of Allah and to be modest in front of the creation of Allah. As haya has been defined: that you have haya, you are modest in front of Allah, you do not want Allah to see you in such a condition that you are disobeying Allah. Not necessarily "what are people going to say?" — but what is Allah going to say? How can I answer Allah? How can I answer Rasulullah on the Day of Judgment? Haya in front of Allah, haya in front of Rasulullah, and haya in front of the people as well.

It is a great branch of the Deen. Haya — modesty — if it comes into anything, zannahu, it beautifies it. And if haya is gone, Rasulullah said, then what is left is despicable. As the poet says — and this is based off the hadith of Rasulullah:

"If you do not have haya, go ahead — do whatever you want."

So we have to work on haya. But the topic today is adab — showing respect for elders.

Adab Must Be Practiced, Not Just Preached

This cannot be implemented by one khutbah or one lecture here and there. But the only way this can actually come into existence is through practice. This is something that is learned practically. If we will implement adab in our lives for our elders, then we will be giving a practical example for our youngsters to see and to experience — what it means to show that adab. One is in the heart, that you have that respect for the elders, and one is in interactions — how you express that. All of these small things, when they come together, they play a major role.

And when you are talking about respect for elders, by no means am I limiting this to just the parents. There is a certain level of awareness and talks that are given about respect of the parents, respect of the mother, respect of teachers. But in general, all adults, all those who are older than us, all those who are seniors — they have a certain right upon us, as the youngsters or the middle-aged amongst the Ummah, to take care of them.

Hadiths on Respecting Elders

I will share a few hadiths of Rasulullah regarding this. Anas ibn Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, narrates: there came a sheikh who desired to visit the Prophet. An older man came with the intention to visit Rasulullah. Now, the word sheikh here — this word can be used in many different contexts. One is a sheikh who is just the leader of the tribe — he could be young. One is a sheikh who is the king of the country — he could be thirty-two years old. One is a sheikh in knowledge — he could also be young or old. And one is a sheikh which means just an older individual, whether he has nothing to do with being a king or not, whether he is from the royal family or not, whether he has ilm or not. But just by virtue of his age, he is also known as a sheikh, as an older person. Just like you have shaab — one is a young man — sheikh — one is an old man.

In this hadith, the sheikh was an old man, just a random old person, an old gentleman, a senior citizen. He was intending to come visit Rasulullah, and the people were delaying in quickly opening up and giving him a path to enter directly to Rasulullah. Why? Because they enjoyed the proximity of Rasulullah. They enjoyed the company, being near — they had front row seats with Rasulullah. So this old man came, and they were kind of delaying in opening up and giving him a path. So Nabi said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1919)

"He is not amongst us — the one who does not show mercy to the youngsters amongst us, and does not show respect to the elders amongst us."

So this is something that — sometimes we speak against culture and we say, "We cannot bring a culture into the Deen. This is not Deen, brother, this is culture." When it comes to marriages, when it comes to different ceremonies, we say this is your culture — take your culture aside. The youngsters come up with these responses. But in this particular regard, when it comes to adab of the elders, this is part of the culture of the East — whether the Middle East, or the Far East, or the Subcontinent. This is something which is inherently there, and it is not something that you have to give a speech about. It is just autopilot, by default — the children are raised in such an environment that they would automatically give space to the elder when he is coming in.

Now I cannot complain about any other children — our own children. So we have, what, two hundred and fifty children? Don't get too scared — all the students of the madrassa are my children. I don't have to go too far. Just today, this Jumu'ah — an elder was coming, literally with his walking stick, barely able to walk, was entering the door. And the students — my own students — who can I complain to? I have to do my own work. They are standing by the door. And there are so many shoes there — first of all, leaving the shoes in the door.

This is, unfortunately, the condition of the Ummah — that we are occupying the very sacred time of the Jumu'ah to speak about these issues which might seem trivial but at the same time have to be addressed. We are supposed to be a mu'min. Who is a mu'min? The one who removes the harmful thing from the path. You are supposed to remove the harmful thing from the path. And instead of that, what are we doing? We are following the footsteps of Hamalatul Hatab — Abu Lahab and his wife. They were putting thorns in the path. So do we want to be with Abu Lahab? We seek refuge in Allah.

One scholar gave a beautiful — well, "beautiful" may not be the right term — it is a striking example. He explained how despicable a person can be, and what level a person can go to, such that actually cursing that individual can be an act of reward. Very few people have reached that level. And every single letter of the Quran you recite, you get ten rewards — when you are cursing Abu Lahab. Because what is the meaning of la'na and curse? The meaning of curse is ib'aad 'an rahmatillah — to throw a person away from the mercy of Allah. So when you say:

When you recite this ayah about Abu Lahab and his wife, you are actually getting reward for it — not with the niyyah of cursing, but with the niyyah of tilawah. So imagine how mahrum, how deprived, how far this person was from the mercy of Allah. They were putting thorns in the path. So we should be removing them.

So now these mashallah very healthy and strong young men are just standing around there. Then I said: "Are you blind, my dear young friends? You see this man is coming with a stick. First of all, the shoe shouldn't be right there in the middle of the door — all these big mashallah shoes, hundred-and-fifty-dollar shoes, basketball shoes. These big boot-like shoes are there, and you are just standing, watching. Pick it up, clean up all the shoes, make sure that you keep the door open, and allow him to enter comfortably, allow him to be seated comfortably." This is the adab that we see in this hadith of Rasulullah — he is teaching the Sahaba, and we have to remind ourselves and remind our youngsters.

The Companionship of the Prophet in Jannah

Rasulullah has said — this is the warning — the one who does not show respect to the elders is not amongst us. Likewise, Rasulullah gave the glad tidings, because he was a bringer of glad tidings and a warner as well. He said:

"O Anas! Show respect to the elders, show love and mercy to the youngsters, then you will have my companionship in Jannah."

What could be a greater gift than to have the companionship of Rasulullah in Jannah? Some people came to one sheikh and they said, "We want to increase our desire for Jannah. Describe for us Jannah, describe for us the beauty of Jannah." Like Ibn al-Qayyim, rahimahullah, has this beautiful book — an amazing book — which has all the hadiths of Jannah. There are chapters on the palaces of Jannah, the rivers of Jannah, the fruits of Jannah, the clothes of Jannah, the markets of Jannah, how you see Allah in Jannah — all of these beautiful blessings of Jannah, a guide to the souls, to the land of bliss and eternal happiness. So they were expecting some type of speech like that about Jannah.

So he said: "What blessing of Jannah can I describe to you that would be more encouraging you to strive to acquire Jannah? In Jannah you will have Rasulullah. You will see Rasulullah. Can there be anything that you would desire more than to see Rasulullah? He will be there. What other blessing of Jannah — you will have the opportunity to meet him. Is there any bigger attraction that could ever be there?"

So this is what Rasulullah is saying — if you honour the elders, then you will have my companionship in Jannah. This is the highest level of expectation, desire, ambition, arman — hope — that a person could ever have. When a Sahabi, in a long story, pleased Rasulullah to the extreme level, he said: "Ask me anything that you want. What do you want? Whatever you want, ask." Those are the amazing moments to capitalize on. So what did he say? "O Rasulullah, I seek your companionship in Jannah — your eternal companionship." That is the ultimate thing to ask. At the ultimate moment, he asked the ultimate thing. So Nabi said, "Okay, inshallah, I will make du'a for that — and help me in achieving that by excessive sajdah, and inshallah you will reach that."

Honoring the Elderly as Part of Honoring Allah

And subhanallah, if anything beyond that — we have a hadith in Sunan Abi Dawood:

Rasulullah said: "Indeed, part of the respect that you owe to Allah is that you honor the grey-haired elderly people." We cannot be respectful of Allah, we cannot fulfill the right of Allah, without honoring our elders.

Rasulullah said: "The blessings, the barakah — they lie with your elders." And if we need further motivation, then you will receive the rewards for this respect you show to elders in this worldly life. This is the principle of the Deen — that the reward is comparable to and proportionate to the action that is done. In this case, if you are going to honor elders, what will happen? Rasulullah said: whenever a young man honors an old man — not necessarily because of his knowledge, not "oh mashallah, he is a great Mufti or a great sheikh," or "he is a great pious person" — why is he honoring this man? For his age alone. That is the reason he is honoring him. Because of his age — that Allah will appoint for him someone to honor him, and respect him, and serve him in his old age.

The Prophet's Example with Abu Qahafa

And we see — was Rasulullah himself honoring elders, or was he just teaching others to honor elders? Who is the eldest of the Ummah? Who is the greatest of the Ummah? The most senior of the Ummah was Rasulullah himself. That is why when somebody asked Abbas, "Are you older or is Rasulullah older?" — in case you are wondering what type of question that is, which uncle would be younger than or the same age as his nephew? Well, not necessarily so, because the grandfather of Rasulullah, Abdul Muttalib, had multiple wives. The same day that Abdullah married Amina, the parents of Rasulullah — the same day, Abdul Muttalib also got married. The father and son got married the same day. And that is why when Amina became pregnant with Muhammad, the same time Abdul Muttalib's wife got pregnant with Hamza. And that is why Hamza, being the uncle, and Muhammad, being the nephew — they both drank the milk of the same foster mother, the slave girl of Abu Lahab. That is why he had uncles who were younger than him, or the same age as him.

Somebody asked Abbas: "Are you akbar — older — or is Rasulullah?" Look at the adab of his response. He said: "He is my elder — even though I may be older in years." Meaning he is akbar, he is greater than me — I have more years than him, but he did not want to say "I am bigger than Rasulullah." So Rasulullah, whether he was younger than anyone or older than anyone, was the most respected of everyone. Yet he showed respect to elders.

One example of that is Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him. In the entire galaxy of one hundred and twenty-four thousand Sahaba, he has many unique virtues. Amongst his unique virtues and khususiyyat is that he is the only Sahabi whose four generations are Sahaba. No one else — in the entire galaxy — has four generations who were Sahaba. Meaning they all accepted Islam at the hand of Rasulullah and they believed in his time. So his father, himself, his son, and his grandson — all four generations of Sahaba.

His father was one of the last people to accept Islam — ironically, even though Abu Bakr was the first one. And when did he accept Islam? On the day of the Conquest of Mecca. So the hadith is in Tabaqat al-Kubra of Ibn Sa'd:

لَمَّا فُتِحَتْ مَكَّةُ — when Mecca was conquered — جَاءَ أَبُو بَكْرٍ بِأَبِيهِ يَحْمِلُهُ — Abu Bakr brought his father Abu Qahafa, who, eight years earlier at the time of Hijrah, was already blind. Now he was an old man. He carried his old father and brought him, the old man, finally, حَتَّى يُبَايِعَ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ — to take the bay'ah on the hand of Rasulullah.

What did Nabi say? He is the Prophet of Allah, he is the Fatih of Mecca, the conqueror of Mecca, he is the leader of the entire Ummah. If you have an issue, you want to come and accept Islam — come to him, right? Makes sense. But he said: أَلَا تَرَكْتَ الشَّيْخَ فِي مَنْزِلِهِ — "Why did you bring the sheikh here? You should have left him in his home. I would have walked and come to his home to formally accept his Islam. If he wants to take the pledge and bay'ah on my hand, I would have walked to his home — because he is an old man."

Then he brought him and sat him respectfully in front of him. And then he passed his hand on his chest and said: "Oh Abu Qahafa, accept Islam." Then he accepted Islam.

Abu Bakr's Tears of Love for the Prophet

This is the famous incident when he accepted Islam. What happened to Abu Bakr? You would imagine he would be so happy. Could there be any happier moment? If you ask any revert or convert brother or sister — the common denominator, the biggest grief and depression they carry in their heart — we can never imagine it — is that their beloved parents, or their children, or siblings, or spouse did not accept Islam. And they wish and desire they accept Islam. So this is the day when Abu Bakr's father accepted Islam. He should be so happy. His face should be shining. Instead, he started crying. He burst out crying.

So Rasulullah was also surprised. He said, "Ya Abu Bakr, your father accepted Islam — day of happiness, distribute the sweets, be happy! Why are you crying?" So he said — he was sobbing, he broke down crying — and then he said: "Ya Rasulullah, today this was my heart's desire for all these years, that my father accepted Islam. Finally he did. For a moment I was happy. And then — when my wish was fulfilled — I remembered: you also had a wish. The one who was like your father — because your father died before you were born, your mother died when you were six, your grandfather Abdul Muttalib died when you were eight — from eight years all the way until twenty-five, who got your marriage done, took care of you, got you involved in business, till after Nabuwwah, supported you? Who was that? His uncle, Abu Talib. Your heart's desire was that Abu Talib accept Islam. And you tried so much. On his deathbed, you tried to invite him towards Islam. But he did not accept Islam. And Allah consoled you in the Quran:

"You cannot guide whom you wish — Allah guides whom He wishes." So he said: "When I was happy for a moment, I remembered your grief. My desire got fulfilled; your desire did not get fulfilled. And I was overcome with grief. And wallahi, if there was any way possible to make a deal with Allah — that I could trade the Islam of my father for the Islam of your uncle — wallahi, I would be willing to make that trade."

So Rasulullah started crying. And he did not say, "This is hyperbole, this is exaggeration, this is a lie." He said: "You are true in your claim. You truly do love me so much."

Conclusion: Honoring the Uncles Who Built Our Communities

In any case, there are more hadiths, but the time has now passed. I wanted to conclude with this: we really have to make this a priority. And the only way we can do so is through our own action. We have to show our youngsters how to show respect to elders — to truly honor them. Not only by giving them a place to sit, by letting them speak, by spending time with them, by taking care of their needs. But also, as is mentioned, take advice from them. They say in Arabic: don't ask a philosopher who will give you theories — ask the one who has experience. Honor the grey hairs and honor the white hairs of the elders of our community.

Instead of just sitting back and complaining — this is a problem with my generation — we look down upon the elders. Maybe they have an accent. Maybe they cannot speak English as beautifully as you can, or as I can. But everything in this country that has happened — all of the institutions we have, and all of the great work that is being done in this country — was done by these, our so-called generation we call the uncles. We are very quick to criticize the uncles. I am not saying they are free of faults. But everything that is there around us — all these institutions that we are just benefiting from — these Islamic schools, these masajid, these centers, these organizations — they were all founded by the group we call the uncles, who immigrated to this land and had to overcome much greater challenges than we are facing.

We are on the receiving end. We feel such a sense of entitlement. Everything was given to us on a gold platter. They had to travel across oceans, come here, face the new culture, the new society, and overcome these hurdles. And they have done great work. May Allah accept them, give barakah in their lives, may Allah grant them lofty status in Jannah, and may Allah allow us to respect and honor them.

وَآخِرُ دَعْوَانَا أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ