Our khutbah today is about family. In our religion family, being a husband and wife is a sign of greatness of Allah. In Surat Rum, verse 21, Allah says:

‘And one of His signs is that He created mates for you from yourselves that you may find rest in them, and He put between you love and compassion; In this there are sings for people who think’.

Being a family is also big blessing from Allah. However, family also means responsibility. Family means affection, love and also responsibility and duty. One of our duty, especially of men, is to give enough allowance [nafkah/nafakah], for example, they must provide accommodation, food and drings and clothes and other important expenses. However, our responsibility does not finish there, there are also important responsibilities:

Our important responsibility is we should treat our family, our spouses and our children with respect, consideration and good akhlak: Nabi s.a.w:

‘The best of you are those who are best to their families, and I am the best of you to my family’. [Tirmizi]

Another important duty to our family is that we must save and protect our family from the hellfire. In surah At-Tahrim verse 6:

‘O you who believe, protect yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones […]’ 

If we look at the ayah carefully, it says, protect yourselves first and then protect your family from the hellfire. Why because if we try to save ourselves from the hellfire, it automatically means that we are good role models. We ourselves be conscious of God, have takwa and then we should remind these to our family. According to scholars of Islam, this ayah means that we should first ourselves work in the obedience of Allah, avoid disobedience of Allah and order our families to remember Allah, then Allah will save you and your family from the fire.

We should first ourselves love Allah and his messenger and then teach our family and children to love Allah and his messenger. We should also stay away from haram and the places that might lead us to haram and then teach our children to stay away from haram and haram places.

We should make dua for ourselves and for our family and our children. The Quran gives the dua of Ibrahim for himself and for his children as an example and expects us to make the same dua for ourselves and for our children. Ibrahim AS said that [rabbicalni] ‘O my Allah, make me to establish/perform worship, prayer and my offspring accept our worship’

May Allah bless us and our family with strong iman and save us from the hellfire.