Everyday questions › Parents and children
Parents and children
Being someone's child and raising your own: duties to parents, parents who are harsh or absent, what to teach children and when, siblings and the wider family.
- How much do I owe parents who were abusive to me?
- At what age should my children start fasting and praying?
- How do I raise children who keep their faith in a secular school?
Example phrasings, not quotations. Each one runs a search.
Latest answers
26 segments in 16 recordings, newest first
10 Mar 2023video
LatestHow did Imam Malik come to study religion?
His mother gently steered him from singing to study, and that choice made him one of the most influential figures in Islamic history.
machine4 min 32 s17:40on YouTube
22 Feb 2023video
LatestShould scholars publicly condemn a scholar said to have joined in a libation ritual?
Mufti Abu Layth does not think people have to condemn the scholar; to Mufti, pouring some water at a protest, as the scholar says he did without knowing the ritual's history, is not a big deal.
machine8 min 47 s5:12on YouTube
22 Feb 2023video
LatestIs there an LGBTQ push in media and schools?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees there is a disproportionate LGBTQ push in media and objects to sexualising young children, calling it hypocritical that polygamy cannot be described the same way.
machine4 min 27 s20:23on YouTube
22 Feb 2023video
Is it okay for adults or children to change gender?
Mufti Abu Layth says gender transition is an adult's own choice after professional advice, but children should not be put through it until they can decide for themselves.
machine6 min 27 s28:41on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestCan I fast for a fixed 12 hours when the days are very long?
Follow any timetable you like; Mufti Abu Layth endorses the al-Azhar-derived fatwa that a fast of twelve hours or more is valid for anyone who needs it.
machine6 min 31 s3:21:50on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestCan I skip fasting because of work, exams or health, and what do I do instead?
It is your call: make the fast up later if you can, or give fidya if your situation will not change, which Mufti Abu Layth bases on the plain wording of Quran 2:184.
machine6 min 38 s3:28:21on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the great love Muslims have for the Prophet a kind of prophet worship?
Muslims' love for the Prophet is not prophet worship: people need a human figure to love, and for Muslims it is the Prophet, though praying to him is wrong. He strongly disagrees with the shaykh and calls it an unnecessary battle.
machine8 min 56 s48:28on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Has Islam become a religion about Muhammad rather than the religion he brought?
No: there is a deep human need for a human archetype, not someone to pray to, and for Muslims that is the Prophet. He adds that his own life changed in the Prophet's mosque.
machine4 min 21 s55:37on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is following the Sunnah like believing in the Trinity?
No: following the Sunnah is of course not akin to the Trinity.
machine1 min 08 s1:16:17on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are children held accountable in Islam for bullying or hurting others?
Children are accountable, he says, in a way suited to their age: the laws for them are lighter, but a child who harms another does not get a free pass.
machine1 min 49 s2:38:10on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it haram to hit someone in the face in boxing or MMA training?
Mufti Abu Layth says hitting the face in sparring is fine; the hadith against striking the face concerned discipline, not fighting practice.
machine3 min 43 s2:10:39on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
At what age should children start learning about Islam, and what should they learn?
Keep early religious education basic and natural, such as reading the Quran, the prayer and the stories of the prophets, with deeper study when children are older; he admits it depends on the child.
machine3 min 55 s36:00on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
The snowman fatwas: building a snowman as an idol, or permitted by the dolls hadith
Mufti Abu Layth plays and mocks two fatwas on snowmen, one calling them idols and one permitting them by a hadith about dolls, saying such reasoning makes Muslims a laughing stock.
machine6 min 49 s1:45:37on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it haram for a mother to kiss her child on the lips?
There is nothing haram in a mother kissing her child; he says the haram lies in the perverted comments, and the Prophet kissed his grandsons.
machine6 min 32 s26:01on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow do I heal my inner child, and how should I raise my children?
Mufti Abu Layth says we are an extension of our inner child and that reconnecting with it can be unnerving but healing; with children, go with your heart and build a qualitative bond.
machine13 min 51 s12:51on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it OK for Quran teachers to beat students?
Beating students is categorically haram; he says even a classical manual for teachers forbade forceful discipline of children.
machine5 min 08 s42:20on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can I hit my children if they don't pray?
Yes: he says hitting children over prayer misreads the hadith, and that children should be drawn to prayer by example and love, not fear.
machine1 min 59 s46:48on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Edip Yuksel write a reformist translation of the Quran?
The guest describes translating the Quran with Rashad Khalifa and says the Sunni religion distorted the message, beginning with adding Muhammad's name to the shahada; he calls Sunni and Shia translations deliberate distortions and says the Quran was betrayed through hadith.
machine8 min 32 s12:57on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran ban slavery, and what does 'what your right hand possesses' mean?
The guest says the Quran abolishes slavery as the greatest crime, since owning a slave is to claim to be a rabb like Pharaoh, and that what the right hand possesses means contractual marriage. Mufti Abu Layth holds that slavery is abrogated through trajectory hermeneutics rather than by an explicit ban.
machine10 min 29 s1:08:39on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If the Quran abolished slavery, why is there no explicit verse saying so?
The guest says rabb is used in the Quran only for God, so that owning a slave is shirk and la ilaha illa Allah is itself the abolition of slavery. Mufti Abu Layth notes that rabb has ordinary linguistic uses and that non-Muslims recorded Muslims as owning slaves.
machine7 min 51 s1:19:08on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is al-kitab the same book given to every prophet?
The guest says owning a slave is shirk, that kawthar means abundance rather than a pool, and that al-kitab is the one divine law sent to every prophet, whose goal, peacemaking, is secular while iman is distinct.
machine2 min 37 s2:29:34on YouTube
6 Nov 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
What should I think about when choosing a name for my child?
Mufti Abu Layth says parents should think carefully about the names they give their children, especially names that will be mocked in the West.
machine4 min 31 s0:03on YouTube
14 Aug 2019On Current Events
Does Islam allow gender transition for someone diagnosed with gender dysphoria?
Where there are legitimate biological concerns and medical input, he believes it is permissible, but he opposes sowing doubt about gender in children.
machine5 min 11 s0:00on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
LatestWhy do cases of 'possession' in Muslim communities so often involve women with trauma?
Because, Mufti Abu Layth says, such cases are usually breakdowns of a psyche tormented by control, suspicion, forced or cousin marriages and abuse, which the stigma around mental health stops families from acknowledging, so they call it jinn or magic. The hadith that every disease has a cure means go and find it.
machine3 min 55 s55:02on YouTube
13 Feb 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Is the evil eye real in Islam?
Belief that a look can cause disease or disaster contradicts tawhid; the evil eye is simply envy, whose harm lies in how it is acted upon.
machine6 min 50 s0:00on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Why are so many 'possessed' people in the community women?
Dissociative disorders that look like possession occur mostly among women with histories of trauma, excessive control, pressured or forced marriages and childhood beatings. The psyche breaks down under such treatment just as the body reacts to injury.
machine2 min 37 s1:45:48on YouTube