[vNGiDaFX]

Alhamdulillah, It has now been a bit over 3-4 months since I have [re]started practicing the deen. I have been down this road before, where I practice for a while, then get caught up in the world again, but Alhamdulillah I know this time in my heart that Insha'Allah this time is for good and I will die practicing our deen, whenever that may be.

Without getting into details, growing up in the USA, I was involved in the western way of life for a good part of my life, may Allah swt forgive me.

Over the past 3-4 months there have been some drastic changes in myself, and I seem to be becoming sort of distant from the rest of the family. We are your typical Pakistani family, a few brothers and sisters in the house, and my father. My mother is deceased, may Allah swt keep her under His protection and grant her Jannah. Ameen.

Alhamdulillah, I am blessed to have an amazing family, so this is not a complaint about my family. Rather, I am seeking advice from those who may have been in/are in similar type situations, and those with more knowledge of the deen in general.

This past Ramadan was a life-changing experience for me. Though I didn't give it anywhere near the attention that one should give to Ramadan, I fasted for the first time in a couple of years (add insult to injury, I was a shameless addicted smoker for the past 8 years or so, and it was so bad that I even neglected to fast the last couple of Ramadans since I wouldn't be able to smoke, Astaghfirullah). So by the grace of Allah swt, I fasted, I guarded my salah, went to Taraweeh, attended lectures at the mosque, immersed myself into reading up and increasing my knowledge about the deen, YouTube lectures (go Wisam Sharief & Nouman Ali Khan, and many others, Masha'Allah!).

Please make dua that may Allah swt forgive my sins and keep me on the straight path.

So, following are some of the changes which have occurred in me over the past few months :

1. Salah is priority -- period. No if, ands, or buts. That means if I am out with family somewhere, we will make arrangements to stop somewhere so I can make salah, even if it is doing wudhu at a gas station and praying on the street. The rest of my family makes salah but they are not consistent, and Subhan'Allah, they do not do it outside of home as such, unless at another muslim's house.

2. I always, always try my sincere best to make Eesha salah in the masjid with congergation. So far I don't think I have missed once since Ramadan, Alhamdulillah. This caused a bit of friction between my family and I when guests were coming over and I chose to go to the masjid instead of having dinner with them (I had made another post about that).

3. Beard -- I have been growing a full beard, Sunnah-style.

4. Completely given up music, movies/TV, etc. The most I watch on TV is the news for a few minutes, maybe a documentary/discovery channel/history channel type show here and there, but as soon as they show something which I don't need to see, such as women or other temptations etc, I say "bye bye" and hit the "off" button on the remote. Alhamdulillah

5. Always wear my pants well above my ankles.

So what's all this got to with the family? Giving up the above means that now instead of spending time with the family in the evening or whenever we all happen to be home, which used to be while watching TV or something playing on the TV, etc... now I spend most of my time in my room, either making salat, watching lectures, learning more about Islam, and the daily dose of uselessness on FB (my next thing is to give up FB as well and only use it for Islamic/dawah purposes should I ever get to that point, Insha'Allah). So, giving up some of this stuff has cut into my 'family time' and I am communicating less and less with them.

Also, we went somewhere which was about an hour's drive, and they wanted to listen to music on the way, as is the norm with us. I had anticipated that and brought my headphones, so I listened to Quran recitation loudly on my headphones the whole way while music was playing in the car... to block out the music and keep my heart soft and clean, Insha'Allah. I'm not even sure if that is the right thing to do, or if I should be playing Quran recitation in such an environment, but I felt that's what I had to do at the time to protect myself, unless I was going to put some earplugs in my ears or something (which is not a bad idea). : )

So, that meant no conversation with the family during the drive... when we usually used to talk and joke around the whole way on such drives, so, more cutting into 'family time'.

Main issue :

My younger brother (I am about 29, him 26) and I used to be best friends. The more I started practicing deen, the further we seem to be moving away. Though I try my best to first try to improve myself before others, I can't help but tell him to make salah, don't do this/that etc, things which he's not supposed to be doing (he doesn't do any grave sins Alhamdulillah like drinking etc, but I am talking about music/tv/mingling with non-muslim friends, etc). So we always seem to end up arguing over one thing or another, and I end up quoting ahadith & ayats, which to be honest with you I am not even qualified to do and I try my best not to get that far, but I can't seem to help myself.

A few weeks ago, Alhamdulillah, my brother and I started a business together. The business requires us to go to different meetings to meet clients etc. At that time, he had a small issue with my beard being 'un-groomed', because I was refraining from touching it until it reaches a fist's length, and was trimming my mustache only. He (politely, but several times) told me that I need to do something to clean up my facial look a little bit since we are going to be seeing clients etc... so that turned into another argument many-a-times and I ended up giving him lectures on the importance of keeping a beard and not touching it until at least a fist length etc.. and he kept telling me that he is not telling me to degrade the value of my beard but rather clean it up a bit and look professional (he keeps a beard himself but trimmed a bit). Eventually I cleaned up the edges and trimmed some of the hairs which were hanging out just a teeny-tiny bit. So Alhamdulillah the length of my beard did not get effected and I cleaned up the edges a bit while keeping the natural shape.

In any case, this bothered me that he seems to be concerned about looking good in front of "clients" more than trying to look good in front of Allah SWT. So, this kind of kept bottling inside of me.

Next, wearing pants above my ankles. He also approached me about that that wearing them so high above my ankles looks kind of weird, so I don't have to wear them down to the ground but I should try to wear them right at my ankles/right above my shoes so they look 'presentable' at least. Another argument later, I lowered the folds just a bit (currently folding all my pants, Insha'Allah, will get them shortened by tailor), so my pants were kind of right at my ankles... a little low for my comfort, but in an effort to make my brother (who is the love of my life and the heart of our family, and Masha'Allah Allah swt has blessed him with a heart of gold) happy while keeping with the deen, I did so.

But, this also kind of kept bottling inside of me, that he's caring so much about how we look in front of people when we should be concerned with how we look in front of Allah swt.

Next, we were going to meet with a couple of clients, who are Jewish. They can only meet us on Friday afternoon, as they stop work early on Friday and don't come out all Saturday due to religious purposes. So, my brother made an appointment with them which was cutting it close to Jummah prayer, so I asked him to let them know that it's cutting close with our Friday prayer so if we can move it around a bit. He told me that they can only meet on Fridays and this is the only time they can meet, because they are Jewish & leave early on Friday, etc.

This angered me a bit and turned into another argument, the fact that there's a slight possibility that we may miss Jummah because of these clients... and the reason for that is because they are Jewish and they need to practice their faith! So we're going to run circles around them and let them practice while we throw our Jummah away? This turned into a very heated argument and he made it clear to me that his intention was not to miss Jummah and he had made dua to Allah swt to let the meeting go well & quick so we could make it to Jummah.

Alhamdulillah, we made it to Jummah no problems, but again, this kind of bottled up inside of me that we're willing to compromise our faith for the faith of others, whether that actually was the case or not.

So, similar examples kept happening over the past couple of weeks... arguments over my pants being too high, looking weird, beard not groomed properly, not listening to music in the car (no arguments over this as he was very respectful of my decision to give up music but it still came up), me giving him religious lectures, etc, etc.

Today, may Allah forgive me, I said some things to him which I really shouldn't have. The argument again started with the fact that we were going to see an 'important' client who also happens to be Jewish, and I saw him looking at the bottom of my pants & making a face. So, another argument over pants above ankles and the whole thing.

But, this time everything that was bottled up inside of me blew up, and I made statements such as "brother you're too concerned with looking good in front of people & appearances, you need to strengthen your imaan, you need to go to the masjid more often" and I unintentionally blurted out something like "if you had imaan you wouldn't care how mine or yours beard or pants or anything looks because we're following the deen".

So, in that statement I implied that he did not have imaan, which was not my intention at all. That killed everything, big argument, a lot of yelling and screaming later, he kind of told me that it's over between us, we will only deal on a business basis and talk about necessary household matters such as bills, etc, and that's it -- "we're done".

Of course we are brothers so Subhan'Allah we always fight and make up a few hours or a day or two later... but this time I went too far by saying "if you had imaan...", whether I meant it or not. He told me that who am I told judge whether he has imaan or not (and he is right), and that I think I am better than everyone else (which I do not think at all but that is the perception he and some other family members of mine are getting), etc, etc.

My starting to practice deen as completely as I can understand to do it, has started causing more and more friction and distance between my family members and I.

When it comes to completely running away from movies/music/etc, or going to masjid for salaah every single morning and night, among other things, I usually end up hearing (polite) statements like "you're being too extreme" and "Allah doesn't want us to burden ourselves with the religion", etc. I know they mean well, but Alhamdulillah I don't think I am burdening myself. In fact I have tried to make sure that it doesn't become a 'burden' because that's when one gets discouraged and moves away from deen again.

Sorry for the long post brothers and sisters but I really need some advice.

How do I deal with family and practice deen 100% at the same time?

!