Fatherhood: Time Management And Responsibilities In Islam

The best gift that you can give your wife and your kids? Do you know what it is? There are some husbands, they never spend time with their family. They think that I can compensate just by giving gifts. He just gives the wife the credit card and that's it. As if this compensates. Rasul Allah he says, if a man who spends time with his wife, you spend an hour. You spend a half an hour with your wife and your children. You sit with them, you listen to them, you laugh with them. You ask about their day. You ask about their needs.

Rasul Allah he says that evening that you spend with your family is more beloved to Allah than someone who does i'takaf for three days. Not in any masjid. In Masjid of the Prophet in Medina [Allahu Akbar! Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad]. Do you see how much Islam wants us to preserve our families? That Allah loves the husband who sits with his family more than the one who leaves his family and goes and worships all night for three days in the Masjid of the Prophet.

The best gift that you can give to your wife, to your children, is time. You give them time. There was a young boy, his father never used to spend time with him, always working. He works 70, 80, 90 hours a week. He never sees his father. Yes, there's a roof over the head. There's food on the table, clothes on the back. But you know, children, they need more than money. They need more than a roof over their heads.

They need a father. They need that emotional care, that attention, they need it. So this young boy, he used to get an allowance, and he used to save it until after two, three months, he saves $50 because he asked his father three months earlier, baba, how much do you get paid an hour? He says, I get paid $50 per hour. He spends three months saving $50. And at the end of the three months, he gives $50 to his father and he says, I want 1 hour of your time [Allahu Akbar].

I want 1 hour. There is no amount of money in the world that can replace this type of relationship. It's better, believe me, it's better to live a more simple life and have time with your family, than living in a mansion, and the family doesn't spend any time together. Wa Allah.

Because these kids that have all the money in the world, but they didn't have a father around or a mother around, they are going to have problems later on. They are going to resent you. They are going to feel that you were chasing money instead of spending time with us. And believe me, these kids, they would rather live a more simple life and have a relationship with their fathers and with their mothers.

So we have to ask ourselves, what do we want out of this life? Is it just about driving a fancy car, living in a fancy home? Or is it about having these real relationships?