Family Harmony

Occasion: A summary of a Friday khutbah delivered at Masjid al-Furqan in Detroit on 25 July 2025Source: A transcription of a video khutbah by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

A teacher asked one of her pupils the meaning of the word "sakan" (dwelling-place, tranquility), and he said: "My grandfather's house." She said: "My son, I am asking you for the definition of the word." He said: "My grandfather's house is the only place where voices are not raised and there is no commotion." And when she asked him about their own house, he said that his father shouts night and day, and his mother shouts night and day. So the boy came to dislike the walls of his own home, and the meaning of sakan in his mind became a house other than his own.

From this scene we set out to the question of the family in Islam: how do we live, why do we differ, and until when will this gloom hang over the homes of so many Muslims?

A Message That Came to Bring Happiness

The Prophet ﷺ lived his whole life for Allah, not for himself, nor for his wealth, nor for his personal ambitions, so Allah preserved his remembrance among the earlier and the later generations and kept his influence alive in the hearts of the God-fearing. And who among us does not want to walk this path, the path of an influence that remains after death? It is a difficult equation, but Allah made it easy for us when He taught us: ﴿وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ فِيكُمْ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ لَوْ يُطِيعُكُمْ فِي كَثِيرٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْرِ لَعَنِتُّمْ وَلَٰكِنَّ اللَّهَ حَبَّبَ إِلَيْكُمُ الْإِيمَانَ وَزَيَّنَهُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ﴾ [الحجرات: 7] (And know that among you is the Messenger of Allah. If he were to obey you in much of the matter, you would be in difficulty; but Allah has endeared to you the faith and has made it pleasing in your hearts) [Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt: 7].

The legislative purpose of Islam as a whole is happiness. Allah created us, sent us the messengers, and sent down the Books so that we might be happy in this universe. And He addresses His Prophet ﷺ: ﴿طه ۝ مَا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْقُرْآنَ لِتَشْقَىٰ﴾ [طه: 1-2] (Ṭā Hā. We have not sent down to you the Qur'an that you be distressed) [Sūrat Ṭā Hā: 1-2]. If the Qur'an was not sent down for misery, then are people truly going along with the Qur'an, or do we live in some other valley, knowing the Qur'an only in times of crisis?

What Reaches the Imam's Office

The speaker says that he does not speak about family matters as a psychiatrist or a family counselor, but as an imam who sits in his office at the mosque, and to whom nearly every day a case of problems between spouses comes. Some are deep and have their justification, and most are trivial, such that no time or effort should be lost over them.

In the whirlpool of these disputes, money is lost on lawyers and on running here and there, but this is not the most serious loss. The real loss is children raised in an environment that Satan has filled with his smoke, with no stability and no tranquility in it.

When Emotion Speaks and Reason Does Not

The speaker asks a question that seems strange: when I address you now, am I addressing your minds, your hearts, or your anger? Then he observes that when our Lord addressed people with rational logic, He said: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَىٰ وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا﴾ [الحجرات: 13] (O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another) [Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt: 13]. So are shouting and loud quarrels the language of reason or the language of emotion? They are the sound of an explosion resulting from the anger within the souls, and this anger itself results from suppressed emotions and accumulations over the years: ten years of marriage, twenty, thirty, and three, four, five children.

Shall I Punish, Discipline, or Heal?

When I get angry with my wife, I remember that the children are listening, so I lower my voice a little. Then I ask myself: am I punishing, disciplining, or healing? And the answer I should hear from myself is: healing, because I am a man, and the principle for a man is qiwāma (guardianship, responsibility): ﴿الرِّجَالُ قَوَّامُونَ عَلَى النِّسَاءِ﴾ [النساء: 34] (Men are in charge of women) [Sūrat al-Nisā': 34].

Qiwāma in Islam is standing up to fulfil one's duty. It is not gripping a stick to discipline the one in front of me as though she were a beast, as many people think. Fulfilling the duty may require firmness, and that is natural, and it may require appeasement, calming, affection, and a kind word. Here comes the role of reason, which makes me take a step back before I act.

So if I am healing, I must ask: how is the psychological state of this woman with whom I have lived ten years, or twenty, or thirty? How are her reactions in situations? What is her capacity to cope? Did she grow up in a home that raised her properly? When you think before you act, you will not find at the end of the week a problem, because you treated it from the beginning.

In a practical example: I come home from outside angry, my face full of anger, and my wife receives me with an unkind reception. Had she read the features of my face and known that I was returning angry, and prepared for me a bite of food and water for a bath, she would not have given me the chance to increase my anger. In another example, where the food had not been prepared and I became angry, I asked the children, and they said: Mama's tooth has been hurting her since morning, and the world calmed down. All these remedies cost us nothing but a little calm, tranquility, and focus.

"I Have No Faults"

The speaker tells of a recent meeting with a married couple: he asked each of them: if there were something in your character that needs to be fixed, what would it be? The husband mentioned something small in himself. He asked the wife the same question, and she answered at once, honest with herself: nothing. This is how some people see themselves before the other party: you are the only accused, and my Lord will admit me to Paradise because of my patience with you.

And the speaker said: how can a relationship be built this way? Most of our family relationships are built on emotion and reactions: she did not prepare the food, so I got angry and flared up, so she was upset and went to complain to her family, and we ended up before the judge in court. And the cause is a dish that was not cooked, or was cooked, and had I asked about its cause I would have found a simple matter.

He also said, meaning men in particular: what brings us down to the ground most is a sweet word, a smile, and a bite of food. And he said that the greatest problem in our family life is that our problems are, for the most part, not real; rather we pour out inside the home what we receive from outside influences, among them high ambitions formed from looking at the female friends and people around us, the furniture, and the brands, so all the anger comes out in the home. And in the end we have a great victim called: our children.

Where Will Your Ambitions Live in Twenty Years?

In the second khutbah the speaker asked those present a question that needs half a minute of silence: where will your ambitions live in twenty years? One of them may say: I want to live in America so that my life becomes rosy, as though people in our countries think that behind our houses there is a money tree from which we pick every morning. So he asks him: and to achieve this dream, how much do you need to work, be patient, sacrifice, and spend?

And if I want to be in Paradise with the Prophet ﷺ, how much effort do I need to reach that? Some brothers may accuse us of leaning toward "softness" when we speak about patience with women, and he says: "Dear Shaykh, don't be so on their side." So the speaker answers with a single question.

The Lesson of Sūrat al-Taḥrīm

The speaker says: the Prophet ﷺ, in the highest of stations, once forbade himself a food to please his wife, so the saying of the Most High was revealed: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ لِمَ تُحَرِّمُ مَا أَحَلَّ اللَّهُ لَكَ ۖ تَبْتَغِي مَرْضَاتَ أَزْوَاجِكَ﴾ [التحريم: 1] (O Prophet, why do you prohibit what Allah has made lawful for you, seeking the approval of your wives?) [Sūrat al-Taḥrīm: 1].^[1] The speaker points out that seeking the approval of the wives was not the object of reproach; rather it was mentioned as a prelude to the matter the sūra addresses, which is the inner conversations within the family: ﴿وَإِذْ أَسَرَّ النَّبِيُّ إِلَىٰ بَعْضِ أَزْوَاجِهِ حَدِيثًا﴾ [التحريم: 3] (And when the Prophet confided to one of his wives a statement) [Sūrat al-Taḥrīm: 3]. So Allah shows us thereby the measure of sacrifice required of men so that homes may remain standing.

The Outer Wall and the Inner Walls

A simple question in which we are honest with ourselves: which walls of the house are stronger, the outer or the inner? The outer, without doubt, because it endures the winds, the dust, the rains, and the dangers of thieves. And we clean the outer wall less than we clean the inner walls, because more endurance, patience, and resilience is expected of it. So do you see yourself as an outer wall or an inner one? Our Lord created you a man, so do not ask for more tenderness than is necessary, for it is the wife whom we pat and whose feelings we soothe.

The speaker gives an example in raising children: when we quarrel because of the children, the husband says to his wife that what is inside the door is her affair, but what is from the door outward is "men's work" in which no one interferes. Then he asks: do we raise our male children on tenderness and patting, or on resilience, enduring the fluctuations of circumstances, dealing with people, earning a living, and perseverance? This is the making of men.

Making the Homegrown Imam

The speaker comes to an issue he has known closely for fifteen years: many mosques in America are without qualified imams, so it is either an imam who has not studied the sharia well, or an imam whose voice is good in the Qur'an and whom we put forward, and he is not the imam who solves people's problems, judges between them, rules on the forbidden things, and speaks about the future of Islam. And bringing in imams from abroad has become difficult.

From here he sees that making a homegrown imam is a duty upon Muslims in Western society, and it needs a "factory" of defined specifications in which minds that are good at shaping this product come together. The police academy graduates a police officer who monitors the speed limit on the road, and the Imams Academy graduates an imam who is also an officer who checks the speed limit, but in the hearts and minds, in married life inside the homes, in feelings and emotions, in solving problems among people and making the future of this Ummah.

Between Voice and Sakan

We return to the boy and the word "sakan." The boy wanted a home in which voices are not raised. And the way to that, as the speaker presented it, is that reason should precede emotion, and that we begin with what costs us nothing: calm, a sweet word, a smile, and a bite of food.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: In the transcript the speaker did not name the food the Prophet ﷺ forbade himself, nor the wife. The reports differ about the occasion of revelation of the opening of Sūrat al-Taḥrīm (honey, or his female slave Māriya, may Allah be pleased with her), so only what the speaker said is kept here. The verse contains a question concerning forbidding what Allah has made lawful, and the speaker's discussion focuses on the point that seeking the approval of the wives is not in itself what is being rebuked.