Suhaib Webb – Fiqh of Nikah – Part Four
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of knowing someone and avoiding awkward conversations during marriage, as it is often indicative of one's experience and indicates their desire. They stress the need for regular research and systems to enforce contracts, legal privacy, and the importance of protecting oneself and others in marriage. Financial ease and community support are also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, alhamdulillah, wa salallahu
wa sallam ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa man wala.
We praise Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, send
peace and blessings upon Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi
wa sallam, upon his family, companions, and those
who follow them until the end of time.
As-salamu alaykum everybody, welcome back to our
session on family law and going through the
issue of marriage, alhamdulillah.
And so this actually, I didn't realize it
was advertised as like an eight week course,
but this is like a long, so we'll
go through marriage, we'll go through divorce, we'll
talk about everything that sort of surrounds this
process.
So that way, as we said in the
very beginning, like you're functional, you have a
functional literacy of what's going on, and my
hope is that eventually what I'm using to
teach you will be like a textbook that
can be taught specifically to like MSA folks,
or even like seniors in high school.
Maybe the reason there's such a high divorce
rate is we don't teach like these things,
and so there's like a smoke and mirrors.
We see when Prophet Musa, what was the
remedy to him being able to have patience?
وَكَيفَ تَصْمِرُ عَلَى مَا لَمْ تُحِيطْ بِهِ خُبْرًا
Like how can you be patient with what
you don't know?
Well, if you know it, then you'll be
patient.
But not knowing is what leads to impatience.
I say that to my five-year-old
like every day a thousand times, right?
But knowing is very important to being able
to slow your life down and to kind
of control things and not be controlled by
it.
So that's my hope.
So as I mentioned, last time I think
we talked about, yeah, yeah, we talked about
the process of getting to know someone and
we went through a section on like dating
apps.
We talked about meeting alone in public places.
We talked about catfishing being absolutely haram at
every level, right?
Not just the physical appearance, that's very Western,
but even like the religious appearance, you know,
lying about a person's religiosity, financials, things like
that, family issues, health issues.
We talked about premarital counseling and we talked
about times where like you have to tell
people, yeah, you're about to marry, but you
may be talking to someone who's like really
problematic and that it's incumbent upon you to
warn those people if it's true, not if
it's just like an assumption.
Now I've seen that happen where people like,
yeah, I told this person, like don't marry
this person.
Why?
I don't know.
I just feel this way.
It's not acceptable, right?
There has to be something.
I'm clear there.
So today we're going to get into the
marriage contract itself.
It may be a little heavy, but again,
like I think there are certain points that
are very important for our situation here in
the U.S. My job as a jurist
in America is to think about us and
I'm not like America first, so I know
everybody's worried right now, but in the sense
of serving our community, we have a unique
set of issues.
So somebody may watch this is being recorded,
their jurists, their challenges, their particulars are different
than ours.
So as we get into talking about the
marriage contract, let's talk about what's recommended before
the contract happens.
So number one is actually it's recommended to
perform the marriage contract in the masjid if
possible.
It's the sunnah of the early Muslims.
And on Friday, if possible, because Friday is
considered one of our Eids.
It's considered like our weekly holiday, Alhamdulillah.
And we know that it's the most favorable
day based on narrations of the prophets.
But like you don't have to burden yourself
to do this.
I'm just saying these are recommendations.
Also, it's good to do it between the
time of Asr and Maghrib because we know
that's the time where dua is accepted on
Fridays, as mentioned in the hadith of the
Prophet ﷺ.
So making it more likely that the supplications,
you know, for the new couple will be
accepted, inshaAllah.
There's also a narration that it's commendable to
do it in the evening time.
Evening means after Asr, from the hadith of
Abu Huraira, who said that the Prophet said,
perform marriages in the evening for its blessed.
The second is related to the actual khutbah,
like what's said, you know, when people get
married.
First of all, it's not an obligation to
have a khutbah.
And this may seem to you and I
like, oh wow, but I'm someone who became
Muslim, I've been in communities where people honestly
didn't know how to do marriage khutbah.
And so the minimum is just to say,
Bismillah, Alhamdulillah, wa salatu wa salam ala Rasulillah.
It's over with.
Congratulations.
Right?
At a minimum.
All Sunnis and I believe also the Jafari
school agree on this issue.
Because the man, when he came to the
Prophet ﷺ and he said, marry her to
me, and he married this man to this
woman without a khutbah.
She said, okay, you both agree and I
marry you, according to Islam.
What should someone say?
I put it in here.
It's the famous, you know, khutbah to Hajjah,
the famous khutbah of the Prophet, peace be
upon him, the small, short sermon that he
would give when people get married.
I put also the transliteration for people who
may need it for themselves.
You can read it for yourself.
I don't want to be redundant.
And I'm sure we've all heard it so
many times.
But that takes us to some questions, especially
for here in the U.S. A chaplain
contacted me, who's out of prison as well
as works on a college campus, and quote
said, I'm not confident in my Arabic.
Is it permissible for me to conduct marriages
and people embracing Islam and English?
And it's a question that we get quite
a bit.
There's a difference in fluency, and then there's
a difference in, you know, trying to make
it through, you know.
So the answer, the use of Arabic is
not a condition for the validity of a
person's shahada.
It's strange.
People become Muslim, and the community makes them
say this thing in Arabic.
But you could say, like, say, like, I
want to buy batik, I want to buy
watermelon, and they'd say it.
And most of the audience wouldn't know what
was being said.
Like, Mashallah.
You know, so like, if someone wants to
say it in Arabic, that's good.
Sometimes they feel more like, yeah, you know,
I've really done it.
But it's not a condition to say the
shahada in Arabic.
In fact, Imam al-Aqqani says, وَفُسِّرَ الْإِسْلَامَ
بِالتَّصْدِيقِ وَالنُّطْقُ فِيهِ خَلْفُهِ بِالتَّحْقِيقِ In Jauhar al
-Tawheed, it's one poem we had to learn.
He said, you know, saying even the shahada
is different over, let alone saying it in
Arabic.
Does someone have to say shahada or not?
That's a, there's a difference amongst Sunni theologians
on that issue, on three opinions.
So then let alone like having someone, maybe
sometimes you have, I'll ask the person myself,
and I've had people tell me like, I'm
embarrassed, like, you know, in front of everybody.
I don't want to start, you know, my
relationship with the community, you know, fumbling through
Arabic.
So it's perfectly acceptable for them to say,
I testify that there is no god but
Allah, and that Muhammad is the messenger of
Allah.
It's enough for them to say, I believe
God is one and Muhammad is a prophet,
actually.
But that's a different discussion.
But that also brings the issue of the
marriage contract.
Well, if neither of them speak Arabic, why
would you do the contract in Arabic in
the first place?
Because the condition of any contract is what?
Is to understand it.
So we see something now that a community
that gets lost in ritual and forgets meaning,
that's a sign of a problem.
Whereas the meaning doesn't matter anymore, what matters
now is the ritual.
That should concern us.
But what should matter is the meaning of
the contract.
You're getting married, like you probably want to
understand what you're saying and what's being said.
So the principle applies broadly to all contracts.
Remember this, including marriage, regarding the validity of
a marriage contract in a language other than
Arabic, Ibn Qudamah, he's a great jurist in
Al-Mughni, he writes, if someone does not
know Arabic, it is valid for them to
conduct a marriage contract in their own language.
So if you're doing the marriage and you
don't speak Arabic, that's fine.
But also if you're the couple, you don't
speak Arabic, that's okay.
As they are incapable of using anything else,
similar to a mute person.
However, they must use expressions that convey the
specific meaning of the Arabic term.
So what we understand to be the meanings
of marriage should be used.
Ensuring that the language includes their particular meanings
associated with the Islamic idea of marriage.
It is not obligatory for someone who does
not know Arabic to learn the specific Arabic
terms of the contract.
So you don't have to learn all those
terms.
It also brings up the discussion about people
who might have to use sign language in
order to get married.
And so we find in classical texts that
it was acceptable.
So we have a large community of people,
oftentimes who aren't served even in our own
non-profits, but let alone in their marriage
services and other things, perfectly acceptable to execute
a contract in that way using sign language,
for example.
As long as they show their understanding of
what you're saying.
Same thing for someone who is blind, who
is in Braille.
The next is publicizing the marriage.
And we're going to talk about this a
lot because there's different scenarios and people tend
to get it confused, as we'll talk about
today.
It's recommended to announce the marriage.
This is different than witnessing the marriage.
Pay attention.
This is just announcing the marriage to people.
Using the daf, the hand drum to publicize
it so that it became known amongst people.
However, as I write, the daf is not
what's important.
What's important is how you, you can send
out cards.
That's a daf.
It's 2024.
You could grab a microphone and like, you
know, someone could sing a song or a
poem or any means that we use to
announce and let people know publicly that people
are married.
Alhamdulillah.
Could even be after the masjid, you know,
after Jummah, someone stands up and says, we
want to announce that our, you know, this
couple was married.
It doesn't have to be the drum is
what I'm saying.
The daf.
The goal is not the what or the
how, the goal is the what.
And oftentimes people get confused with this.
They don't even know how to play the
daf.
They want a daf.
What are you going to do with it?
And the Prophet ﷺ said, the distinction between
what is lawful and unlawful is the sound
of the daf, meaning that the marriage is
announced.
That's why some jurists have the opinion that
publicizing it, you should, you have to.
Because this hadith of the Prophet ﷺ.
But pay attention to this.
It's a lot of sloppiness on this.
And a lot of people following their desires
and doing secret marriages, which are 100,000
% baqwas, shaitan, that are not acceptable.
But this is just publicly announcing the marriage.
People know.
At the time, at the time of the
It's also encouraged to supplicate for the new
couple.
We know there's numerous supplications.
I put some here with their transliterations.
You know, the Prophet ﷺ used to say,
may Allah bless both of you.
May Allah unite you in goodness and well
-being.
Don't say, don't say mabrook.
I know, I know how sometimes a certain
culture say mabrook.
Mabrook in Arabic is a naqa jalisa.
Mabrook actually means a camel that's sitting down.
The word, and I know some Egyptians hate
it, is mubarak.
Okay, so you should say mubarak, not mabrook.
Don't go and correct people.
I'm just, just for your FYI.
Don't go like, start, start hitting on uncles
and aunties and tell them they're saying it
wrong.
Let's tell them.
But for your own information, you know, I'm
sure that people would rather have a blessed
marriage than a bunch of camels.
So say mubarak to Allah.
We're going to talk about now the pillars
of the marriage.
And what is meant by pillar is what's
called ruqan or arqan.
And what that means is something which is
intrinsic to the actual act.
It's different than a condition.
So for example, fatiha is a ruqan of
salah.
But facing the qibla is not a ruqan,
it's a shart condition.
But they're both essential.
So you're, not to get too caught up
in things, but it's sort of an important
designation to know, especially in contracts in Islam.
That the ruqan is something from arqan, like
arqan al-Islam, the five pillars of Islam.
It's something which is intrinsic to the mahiyat
al-fiil, to the essence of the action.
Without it, it can't function.
Or shart is also essential, but it's a
condition which is outside of the act, like
facing the qibla.
So fatiha is ruqan.
The condition of prayer is facing the qibla,
for example.
Wudu, is it going to be a ruqan
or is it going to be a pillar
or condition?
What do you think, based on what I
just said?
Condition, because it's outside of the act, it's
not in the act.
Sujood, is it a pillar?
You two can answer.
You're saving everybody here.
Stop doing that.
Put some pressure on them.
Make them feel some heat, man.
Right?
Sujood is going to be a condition, prostrating
a condition in prayer or a pillar.
Good.
Thank you.
Pillar, right?
Because it's in the act, right?
So same thing now with contracts.
There are certain things that are considered inside
the act itself.
Certain things that are outside of the act
itself that are essential to the contract, but
they're not intrinsic to the act of the
contract.
And that's important when we talk about the
secret marriage garbage soon, inshaAllah.
So the pillars of marriage, a pillar is
a fundamental aspect of something.
Its strongest part, we're talking about legally, it's
a legal definition now, sharaan, is a fundamental
aspect of something, its strongest part, and the
essential component of its essence.
The essence cannot exist or be complete without
its components, without these pillars.
And likewise, marriage cannot be valid without these
three things.
These are the three pillars of marriage.
The first is spouses.
If you don't have a couple, you don't
have a marriage, right?
And we talked about what that means.
We talked about same-* marriage, the invalidity
of it.
We talked about people marrying jinn.
This is all nonsense.
People saying they're marrying jinns.
Ain't married no jinn, man.
Okay.
We talked about non-Muslim relationships.
We talked about a lot of things on
the validity of the spouse, I think on
a first or second session together.
So it is required that both spouses be
free from legal impediments that will prevent or
prohibit the marriage from being valid.
Such impediments include permanent or temporary prohibitions.
It's like a temporary prohibition is like she's
going to Eddah.
Permanent, she's married or he's married.
And she has a condition that he can't
remarry, as we'll talk about tonight.
Get your pins ready.
As in the case of women observing a
waiting period or due to nursing or marital
relations or maybe their family, like brother and
sister.
God help us.
Gets real out in the streets, man.
The second pillar is the offer and the
acceptance.
It's called ijab wa qabool.
It means the proposal and then there's the
acceptance of the proposal.
We talked about early on that the acceptance
cannot be based on duress.
Although culturally, this happens a lot.
Religiously, it's not allowed to force somebody to
marry somebody.
And this could be done on behalf of
the bride or the groom or they can
do it on their own.
Either way is fine.
Usually I ask people, they're asking me to
do their marriage.
Like, do you want to accept it or
do you want your family to do it
for you?
And it's as simple as saying like, do
you marry, you know, I propose to marry
you according to Islam, I accept.
Doesn't need to be overly complex.
There's some difference of opinions that's in the
text.
You can read it about verbiage and language
related to expressions within marriage contracts.
This is for students at a seminary, so
I didn't feel like it was something we
needed to go through.
It can make things a little bit more
complicated.
The third pillar of marriage is the subject
of the contract, which is the relationship and
how it's going to impact the individuals involved
and the lawful bond that they form with
each other.
Scholars actually had a lot of great things
to say about marriage because of this, because
people were using their own agency to choose
to live with one another.
And so you have some of the early
Muslims and say like, there's no better blessing
than to find love with someone that you
spend your life with, who is like in
this relationship for being a better person, for
living a life together.
That takes us to a very similar question
like we addressed earlier, and that is, so
we said there are three like fundamental issues
here, right?
The couple, we're not talking about conditions.
I mean, what about the wali?
Is the wali in the marriage or outside
the marriage?
Is the witnesses in the marriage or outside
the marriage?
That's where people start to get confused.
That's why I believe like if we plan
to open a Swiss branch here at Center
DC next year, inshallah, teaching our classes, one
of the things that should be taught is
terms, like terminology.
People like they have a 30,000 foot
understanding of what they're reading now instead of
being constantly in the woods, you know, and
then also people get hurt.
So we talked about the spouses and number
two, we talked about the proposal and the
acceptance of the proposal.
And then number three, the actual subject matter
of that contract.
And there's parts of that contract which are
definitive.
We all agree upon them to our kind
the very clear religious dictates, cultural dictates that
come with marriage contracts.
As we'll talk about in a second, there
are stipulations that can be added to a
marriage contract or stipulations that can be removed
from a marriage contract.
But the question comes up, the validity of
a marriage contract in languages other than Arabic.
So first and foremost, remember like the idea
of having written marriage contract is new.
200 years ago, nobody had paper.
Right.
And nobody were able to.
They actually had to have great records like
the Ottmans and Palestine.
The records are incredible, although there's this attempt
to erase what's going on there.
Lebanon and Egypt, I know for sure the
records were actually remarkable for things that happen.
But still, people didn't walk around their marriage
contracts.
I have an opinion that United States, they
give your marriage contract isn't written down.
I believe it has to be written now.
And it should be recorded somewhere just because
one of the goals of Islamic law is
to prevent chaos.
And so what happens is this chaos.
We're married, we're not married.
Yes, we are.
No, we're not.
I have a case, man, stuff a lot,
man, in Oklahoma where I was born and
raised of an individual who's been frozen in
a morgue for two years who died as
Muslim.
And that's the issue.
Was he married to this woman or not?
They don't have any paperwork.
They got married overseas.
Somehow she came here.
It's a mess, but he's not buried.
So on these issues, I tend to lean
towards where there's a lack of chaos and
stress for children and the family financials and
just leads to sort of a lot of
irresponsibility potentially.
So jurists agree that marriage contract can be
in any language.
Again, it goes back to what we talked
about earlier.
Allah swt hasn't taught us all to speak
Arabic fluently, and that will be an undue
burden on people.
The Quran says Allah will not put a
burden on someone more than they can handle.
What if it's just a side note, I
put it here to kind of create a
break because I know it's very serious.
What if someone gets married in jest, you
know, I was just playing.
Well, be careful what you play with, because
according to majority, that's a valid marriage.
Based on the prophet statement, three matters are
serious, whether you take in earnest or in
jest, divorce marriage and taking back a spouse
after divorce.
It's not something that should be played with.
All right, so don't let people put us
in those situations.
It takes us to our last discussion.
I think we have maybe this or one
more on conditions added to a marriage contract.
So this is a very important section, especially
when it comes to functionality, because often people
ask about the validity of prenups.
You know, especially I know my age, people
get married in their 40s and 50s.
By that time, they have a lot of
assets and sometimes they have children.
So there's concern that, you know, God forbid
this marriage doesn't work and I lose these
assets that I've acquired or the wealth I've
acquired and so on and so forth.
So conditions, adding conditions to a marriage contract.
Is it valid or not valid to have
a prenup?
Is it valid or not valid to have
a prenup?
Wait.
Brothers, what's the answer like?
Okay, that's it.
Yeah, it's valid.
Bye.
Let's get into it.
Let's talk about it, because I know sometimes
in my experience, people don't like to talk
about this before they get married.
But let me just say this, your ability
to have the awkward conversations before you get
married is often indicative of your readiness for
marriage.
Because marriage is about having awkward conversations.
Right?
Sorry.
Why are you laughing, bro?
Your wife's here, man.
Wife's not even here.
What I'm saying is, what I meant by
that is that you love the person enough
where you can have very uncomfortable conversations.
You can push through it because you have
a bond with one another.
And so oftentimes, what I've seen when people
want to get married, like, oh, I can't
talk about that.
Why?
Why are you self-censored?
Why are you self-censoring yourself?
You need to be with a person that
you don't have to self-censor on.
Because eventually, it comes out in the what?
In the wash.
And usually when it's bent up and held
in, it comes out in an ugly way.
I haven't said this for two years.
Why didn't you say it?
You're the one that held it in.
So oftentimes, I encourage people, actually, you should
have these uncomfortable conversations before marriage so that
you're able to gauge yourself emotionally.
How emotionally mature am I to have these
conversations?
Thank you so much.
And then also, how do you work through
disagreement?
You want to create a resume of that.
So prenups, right?
Everybody woke up with a prenup.
And conditions and stipulations are things that you
should learn about and be able to talk
to.
So just opinion on stipulations in marriage contracts.
A marriage contract with specific conditions are called
It's considered valid by consensus, no matter what
the conditions are, except in cases where it's
like, you know, if I marry you, you
know, then this person can marry your friend.
My dad will marry you to me if
your dad will marry your sister to my
brother.
It's called shigar.
Or I'll marry you to my, I don't
want to say me because I love my
daughters too much, but somebody will marry their
daughter to someone else in exchange for their
daughter.
Or if someone were to marry, like a
friend of someone, okay, I'll marry your ex
-wife, we'll consummate and I'll divorce her so
you can marry her again.
This is in the books of fiqh.
So those kinds of conditions obviously are like
not allowed, right?
Sort of egregious things.
Some conditions are valid in binding, making the
contract fully enforceable while others are invalid and
are simply ignored.
So the contract will stay, but the conditions
are forgotten.
If the conditions are invalid, they would stay
with the contract.
Although there's two opinions about the validity of
this that we're going to talk about in
a second.
So the majority of Sunni madhhabs, the Hanafis,
the Shafis, and the Madakis, I'm trained in
the Hanafi and the Madaki schools.
The majority of scholars believe that conditions added
to marriage contract are generally invalid unless they
meet the following criteria.
Number one, the condition is naturally required by
the contract.
So like a natural outcome of marriage, it
comes with marriage.
Number two, the condition supports or complements the
contract.
Number three, the condition is specifically permitted by
Islamic law.
Sometimes Islamic law allows, it's just not in
the contract.
They want to put it in there.
Number four, the condition is a common and
accepted practice.
So for example, let's say she lives somewhere
where women don't do housework.
That's the custom.
Or the opposite, where women do the housework.
So one of them wants to put that
in the contract.
That's supported by custom, but they would have
to agree on it.
I'm just giving you as an example.
Yeah, you need to join that WhatsApp group
so you can get the free book, man.
Shameless plug.
The condition is naturally required by the contract,
meaning that marital life comes with certain things.
It naturally comes out of being married.
The condition supports or complements the contract.
The condition is specifically permitted by Islamic law.
So example number two would be like, okay,
we're going to do post-marital counseling.
It's going to support the overall health of
the contract.
The condition is specifically permitted by Islamic law,
but it's just not mentioned in the contract.
Like we'll make dawah.
The condition is a common and accepted practice,
meaning that it's a common custom.
Like for example, one furnishes the house, says
it's done by custom, just hypothetically.
So that can be put into the contract
as a custom.
There's some evidence that they use for this.
Number one, the Prophet ﷺ forbids transactions which
combine conditions, saying the sale with the condition
is forbidden.
So they say that the statement of the
Prophet ﷺ applies to all contracts.
You can't just start adding conditions to contracts.
Although there's details to this, by the way.
Number two, Imam Malik narrates in the Mu
'atah that the Prophet ﷺ prohibited urbun, which
is like if I buy something from you,
I put down a deposit, but then you
cancel, you can keep the deposit.
It's the worst transaction in history.
So the Prophet ﷺ said, thank God you
said this is not allowed.
The last or the second is the Hanbali
opinion.
The Hanbali school allows conditions in marriage contracts,
except in two situations.
Number one, the condition contracts the purpose of
the contract.
So like I'm going to marry you and
I'm never going to be there.
It's like, well, why are we getting married?
I'm marrying you and I'm going to join
SpaceX and fly to Mars, right?
It's kind of undermines the contract.
The purpose of marriage.
His mercy and rahmah.
Number two, the condition has a clear prohibition
against the shariah.
So like, yeah, I'll marry you as long
as I can, you know, rob banks.
I don't think that's going to work, brother.
So here we see something that the Hanbalis,
they're much more liberal in their allowance of
what can be concluded into the contract.
That's why the majority of jurists in the
Muslim world take the Hanbali opinion.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kuwait, most of the
Arab countries, Turkey, regardless of their madhab.
Madhab business is for cocomelon people.
It's cocomelon Islam.
You don't go to a faqih and say,
I want this fatwa on this madhab.
That's not his job.
If you want that, you go read a
book by yourself.
The job of the faqih is to make
the law alive for you and to live
and to serve you.
Not to preserve the past, but to preserve
you in that moment.
You have to be very careful of this
sometimes.
So the Hanbali madhab now is allowing there
to be much more sort of leeway on
this issue, and we'll talk about why in
a second.
Here are some of the evidences of the
Hanbali school.
Number one, the hadith of the Prophet, al
-Muslimuna ala shuruteem, statement of Abdullah ibn Masud,
but there's also a statement in Bukhari that
the Prophet ﷺ said reconciliation is permissible amongst
Muslims except for what's forbidden.
Muslims are bound by their conditions, al-Muslimuna
ala shuruteem.
They are bound according to the conditions they
make.
Unless a condition allows what is haram or
prohibits what is permissible.
Also the statement of Sayyidina Umar, entitlements are
determined by conditions.
You are bound by what you stipulate.
Sayyidina Umar is saying this in the context
of a case, a court case.
You're bound by the conditions you made on
yourself.
Third, the principle of mutual benefit in contracts,
like the overall job of a contract ideally
is to protect people and benefit people.
Especially religious, like marriage contract.
It's meant to benefit and protect.
So the primary purpose of contracts is the
mutual benefit, I define benefits here for you
now, of the parties involved making it permissible
for them to modify or enhance the terms
to achieve the purpose of marriage.
But my personal preference in doing this for,
and on the Council is my personal preference
in seeing the growth and complexity of the
community in the U.S. over the last
30 years is the Hanbali school, personally me.
Conditions are allowed into the marriage contract that
allows conditions.
It creates a clarity that is often lacking
when couples are fighting.
I've seen this all the time.
People start to get, people get divorced no
longer as just as they were before they
got married.
They're not going to be like, well you
know, I have so much clarity now and
I want to make sure I do this
right.
They're like, I want to kill this person
for the sake of Allah.
Right, that's what it is, like we have
to be honest.
And so at that moment, what do you
do to preserve and God protect us?
Clarity in the face of anger, cathartic emotions,
and in family.
I remember one time at Dara Iftar, not
to respect to my Egyptian brother, you know
there was a fistfight at Dara Iftar.
I was there man, between families, people throwing
chairs man, you know, and I was like,
dang dude, getting lit up here in Egypt.
I had to call the police.
So how do we, how do we, and
everyone has a story.
Everyone has a riwayah.
Everyone has a narration.
So what can be used at that moment
to protect us from all these emotions and
fighting and also protect people is if there
were conditions put into the contract before the
contract, before the marriage happened.
So it creates a sense of balance.
It protects us from instability and chaos.
It protects also men.
Oftentimes men, they lose everything.
So it can, it can be used in
a way to, and it protects women who've
been married to a man for 30 years.
And he's like, well, you're getting nothing by.
She raised the kids.
She gave her life.
You know, the brother went to grad school,
went to medical school.
She helped out.
And now he's, he's out the door.
I've seen this happen.
So this preserves justice, preserve clarity, and also
allows us to like get all the ratchets,
excuse my language, out of the way.
All that fighting can stop.
We have a document.
Boom.
Bye.
Yes, ma'am.
Sorry.
I'm not sure if you've covered this already,
but Tom, are there specific things that should
be in a marriage contract?
Like, like by default, and that's what you're
talking about.
Then we'll get to that next week.
The guts of the contract.
Before we got into the contract, like let's
get, I was thinking before we actually, you
know, get there, we'll address some of the
things prior to that.
But it's a good question.
So that's my personal preference.
Um, just in what I've seen family members
are also rarely able to exhibit the justice
needs to navigate marriage disputes, man.
My mom is going to ride or die
with me.
This is how it is.
Unfortunately.
Right.
This is how it is.
My mom's not even Muslim.
She'd be like, in my max it.
I'm out of the humble.
She started dropping the moms on you.
She don't know what she's talking about, man.
Call her a suit of law.
Like, dang, this is a white lady.
Are you Muslim?
I am Muslim.
My son is let's contract serve as a
means to stabilize the situation.
We want stability.
And also, man, if you have kids, you
don't need to end your marriage and this
massive Jake Paul Tyson stuff.
That's not how you want to end it.
I'm serious.
You want to end it because you're going
to have to co-parent.
And so you got to think about all
those kind of broader implications of what all
this means.
Keeping things civil as possible.
Allah says, Allah says to men in particular,
release them in kindness or retain them in
kindness.
Didn't say release them like in wretchedness, right?
Said do so with like some decorum.
One of the ways we can preserve that
is a contract is what I'm saying.
Because people can't be left to it.
Can't be left to it.
Imam Anasafi writes about that verse, meaning you
have the choice.
If you wish, you may take her back
and retain her with kindness and goodwill.
Alternatively, if you wish, you may refrain from
taking her back, allowing the divorce to happen
while avoiding harm.
We talked about this very early on with
the goals of Islamic laws, keep people away
from being harmed.
And it's unfortunate.
It's hard to find, man, because we haven't
put the support financially specific in the U
.S. to create the institutional support we need
to protect ourselves.
Nobody complains about the peanuts on Southwest, man.
So if you pay for peanuts, you get
peanuts, man.
That's how it happens.
Doesn't mean people need to pay, but scaling
institution, scaling religious institutions that they do a
good job.
Impact and outcome based on the majority opinion,
if such conditions exist that do not.
So if we take both schools and we
apply them, OK, each of them have a
very different outcome.
The first opinion is that largely conditions aren't
allowed to be introduced into the contract.
So what that means is that those conditions
are rendered void, but the contract is valid.
That's the majority.
But according to the Hanbalis, if someone puts
in the contract that if this happens, we're
divorced.
The conditions stay, but what stops?
The contract.
The opposite happens.
And so I have also experienced how that
creates a level of discipline and focus that's
kind of needed now.
It's not like this ain't the old days,
man.
People are wild.
And so sometimes these protective measures are important
so that people think four times before they
do something, not just think twice.
So the first opinion, yeah, these conditions may
be there.
They're rendered as invalid, doesn't matter.
The contract stays.
We'll talk about the application of this in
a second.
The Hanbali school, which is supported by the
actions of many of the early Muslims, the
contract will be rendered invalid potentially or impacted
and the conditions would stay.
Everybody understand?
Everybody with me?
Examples.
The husband stipulates that his wife will not
work and that she will stay home and
focus on the home building.
She refuses.
So they agree to it.
They wrote in the contract.
They both signed it.
They agreed to it.
In such cases, he has the right to
end the marriage based on the conditions they
agreed according to Hanbali school.
Number two, she stipulates that he cannot marry
a second, third, or fourth wife.
It was in the contract.
If he does, the marriage is void.
They agree.
They signed us.
Ibn Qadamah, I mentioned him earlier, says if
she stipulates that he must not move her
from her home or city, must not travel
with her, or must not marry another wife.
What do you mean by travel?
Back in the days, I hid in the
Silk Roads for like 10 years.
Not like going to freaking Atlanta, man.
Okay.
Or must not marry another wife, then he
is obligated to fulfill these conditions.
If he does not, she has the right
to annul the marriage.
This has been narrated from Amr Sa'd Ibn
Abi Waqas and Amr Ibn Aas.
People think this is simply imam stuff.
This ain't simply imam stuff.
We need to be very careful of that.
Because we're not a community that calls each
other names.
As mentioned, we're a community that talks about
things academically.
Maybe somebody says, but this is sunnah.
Actually, getting a second wife isn't sunnah.
It's considered permissible according to all four madhabs.
It's not sunnah.
We need to be careful with this.
We'll talk about it in the future.
But also, what about the sunnah of marrying
someone that's 25 years older than you?
We can't be selective in our application of
the sunnah.
I mean, if we're going to be passionate
about it.
But here, imam Khalil, he says, it's permissible.
Not sunnah.
That's all four madhabs.
So therefore, that's why this condition would be
there.
Sheikh Ibn Baz, Sheikh Ibn Baz, rahimahullah, was
asked about this issue, and he gave the
same answer.
He's Hanbali.
Number three, if they structure a financial agreement
for, God forbid, post-divorce, and the settlement
of their assets and their wealth, noting certain
stipulations and conditions, that becomes binding upon them.
So that's your answer to Prerna.
Any questions about this before we move on?
Yes, ma'am.
So, can you explain how the condition would
override the actual contract?
So, does it mean that you're automatically divorced
if that condition?
So, let's say you conditioned on this guy
that if he moved out of the country,
you can divorce him.
So now, that's your agency.
You have the right to choose now.
So, it doesn't mean like suddenly, okay, we're
done.
Right?
We have to be adjudicated, ideally.
But the power of annulment is in the
hands of the one who laid out the
condition.
But it'll be annulment.
No.
Yeah.
So, this is where it gets sticky, because
this would be a court-ordered divorce, which
usually is called fasr.
And what that means, it's a permanent divorce.
It's not one, two, three.
So, we have a very important principle.
We'll get to it when this a divorce
in the future.
Talk about divorce, right?
Because divorce is a big topic that people
should learn about.
But anything which is court-ordered in Islam
is considered a permanent, irrevocable divorce.
Yes, ma'am.
And how you like go through divorces, Robert?
I think it kind of falls under this.
But I don't know, a decade ago, I
took this course on the woman allowed to
ask for one of the men's divorces.
And I was curious how that would work
within the contract.
I don't understand the question.
I'm sorry.
So, apparently, not apparently, but women currently is
within the right dimension as to if they
want out, they do something called Fada.
They can't do a divorce themselves.
But apparently, if women are allowed to ask
for even one of the man's three divorces
within the contract, is one of those their
condition?
And I was curious how that kind of
works.
I'm unaware of that, sorry.
My apologies.
But we'll talk about Khula.
Yeah, you look for, I mean, because it's
a lot out there.
I'm sure it's, yeah, it's an ocean.
Family law is huge.
And there's millions of cases that have happened.
But we'll talk about Khula in the future.
We'll get to it.
Yes, sir.
So, you went through specifically the Hanau School
of Thought when it comes to prenup and
additional conditions added to generic contract.
But the four conditions that you, that was
highlighted in the class for the other schools
of thought, none of them contradict having a
prenup or having conditions added.
It just moves the forward in those realms.
So, wouldn't it be permissible even in those
schools of thought to have, allow for conditions
to be added or a prenup to be
added?
They're not as easy as the Hanbaris.
They're going to make you, they're going to
make you kind of work through things.
Okay.
And so it can get complicated.
Okay.
But surface level?
Legally, it gets lost in the words.
Okay.
Understood.
And then what happens is you run into
people that may not be thoroughly trained.
And so you go to them, you're like,
hey, I want to put conditions on my
contract.
Oh, there's no conditions on our medev.
Well, there are, but they may not be
at that level, no offense to them to
be able to help you navigate that.
We talked about this, how people, how people
were gurgling that like marriage is half your
religion.
We went through it and you guys are
like, we all thought that was Hadith.
It's in Bukhari.
It's like, it's not Bukhari.
It's not a Hadith, right?
Statement of Tawus.
Same thing happens even within religious.
Taqlid is important, but also Taqlid becomes sort
of a unhealthy sort of way to not
do work, right?
Not to do proper research.
And so just blindly following what's said without
thinking is easy.
It's convenient, but are you really serving people?
I'm serving people.
So essentially key are the three schools of
thought.
Yes.
So with the Mufti from one of those
schools, I mean, it's a little bit complicating
the verbiage and can navigate to it on
a brief meeting.
Two conditions.
Excuse me.
I don't know if anyone had that flu,
but we had it for two weeks.
God help you.
It's the serious, serious business.
You have mentioned like what's normal in society.
Like what if you start coming up with
conditions to remedy what's going wrong normally.
So normally is what's normal amongst the righteous
Muslims, right?
That's our cultural reference.
Not like what, I don't know who's doing
what out there, man.
You know what I'm saying?
It used to, you know, starting like, like
we're thinking now within the purview of like
Islamic normal, like the righteous people, right?
Righteous is like normal.
It's not like, you know, just a super
pious people, but like what's normally accepted, right?
So like mahr, that's why there's never an
answer on it.
We'll talk about it, but you can't, you
go to a book of fiqh, like I
need to know the mahr of like, I
want to get married.
What's my dowry?
It's like, there's no number.
It's left to where you are.
It's left to your custom.
Yes, sir.
So two people right of the ark, can
they, what do you leave them for what
is to dance game to like, bring in
and you know, to bring in a, to
like get it notarized, but that suffice as
a marriage contract.
What do they have to go from the
state?
So I was going to, I started learning
your name.
Yes, man.
That's a great question.
So next week, we'll talk about, or two
weeks from now, like, what do you, how
do you make sure this works?
Because you can write it all day long.
If it's not notarized, nobody cares.
And if you don't actually get it written
by a lawyer, nobody cares.
It's been my experience.
Even out of court settlement divorces that I've
seen written by a local Imam, they go
to a judge and the judge is like,
I'm sorry, man, I can't do anything with
this.
Right.
So yeah, this is a great question.
Shaba, you, you, you want to take this
to next week or two weeks, you know,
someone that's a lawyer who has a Sharia
background as well, or works with the moms
and they write it for you.
And then you get it notarized.
Absolutely.
You know why I like doing this?
Because when I do this, people are like,
man, this is really serious.
It's your marriage.
It's very serious.
Like, what do you think it is?
Right.
That we shouldn't have an attitude that it's
akhadna minkum mithaaq.
It's mithaaq.
It's not even an ahad.
It's an incredible, incredible covenant between you and
the person.
So that's what I mean by creating the
systems that bring a sense, the stronger the
scale is sometimes, the more sanctity something has.
Right.
So there is a sense of, you know,
I need to do this right.
At the same time, some people might not
be able to do all this.
We don't want to make it impossible for
people to get married either.
There's a, there's a unique balance here.
But I tell you, if you have assets,
you have things like that, you know, middle
-aged folks, man, protect yourself at all times.
Because, you know, you never know.
And God protects us.
I had a family member, non-Muslim, got
taken for like hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You know, this 80-year-old man calls
me, I got a 23-year-old girlfriend.
I'm like, nothing, thanks.
You Jahiliya non-Muslims, man.
Right.
You know, and I had to give him
a long lecture.
He's like, you Muslims always telling people what
to do.
She loves me.
I got, imagine, he told me he has
definition in his shoulders.
He's 83.
83.
So I said, bro, that's wrinkles, bro.
That's not definition in your shoulders, man.
I mean, he got mad and hung up
on me, but he died.
He died.
And it was actually my father.
And she took everything from him.
Everything.
So, you know, hey, man, protect yourself at
all times.
And then protect people around you that are
older than you.
And just lesson learned.
So quickly, briefly talk about the conditions for
a marriage's validity.
And then we'll get back to the contracts,
as I said, in two weeks.
But now we're talking about conditions and conditions
being things that must be there, but are
outside of the act.
So the contract is in the act.
The couple is in the act, right?
The acceptance and proposals in the act.
The first is the namaher.
We'll get into it in more detail because
it's a discussion that needs to be had.
But it is required, even if not at
the time of the contract.
But it is required.
And what do we mean by a condition
for validity, meaning that the outcomes of the
marriage like happen, inheritance, distribution of wealth, children,
maintenance, right?
The rights of marriage happen when the contract
is valid.
When the contract's invalid, those things may be,
they need to be looked at.
So one is the namaher.
And it's required, but not at the time
of the contract.
Sometimes people make a big deal about it.
It should be agreed upon.
Sure can, you know, if you're doing the
marriage for the couple, you want to ask,
right?
You guys agree on it?
Okay, that's good.
You don't have to know even know what
it is.
If you're doing the marriage, if they say
they agree, they agree.
But it should be known amongst the couple
before consummation.
Because the validity of the contract, now the
contract, one of the outcomes of the marriage
contract is physical relationship.
See that?
Yeah, we know it's just a good.
Yeah, that's where I had it next.
Good.
That means I'm doing a good job.
What if a severance of stealth?
That's a problem, man.
Again, we don't have systems to, you know,
a lot of times people get mad at
the imam.
So we don't have the, we don't have
like detectives to go and like do things,
but you know, like this guy never paid
me maher and you know, imam said, hey,
but he didn't help me get my maher
back.
How?
Like what do I do?
Like, is it sinful?
Go back?
Like it's up to her if she wants
to stay.
So if they're still married, if they're still
married and she's like Habib I get it.
It's fine.
No problem.
Take your time and whatever, you know, and
you get to stay, but you never gave
it to her years in at this point.
Like the, what happens then it's up to
her or no, it's pizza.
It was like, not you.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
So we're 10 years in.
I'm like, what I just walk into what
happens at that point.
She should go to Hawaii.
She go to Hawaii and tell him, look,
you need to, you need to like, tell
this, forget about it.
You're 10 years in.
Why?
It's so unacceptable.
When you say it, like, is it up
to her again, whether or not she wants
to stay since the condition.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not a strong enough condition to be, that's
the reason to be upset.
Oh yeah.
We just don't have systems in place to
enforce any of this.
That's the problem.
Right.
So we have to think about it in
many ways.
This is state law, right.
Or federal law.
Like we're not going to be able to
step on people's toes.
And that's why, you know, I, I lean
towards on these kinds of issues, relying on
the state because it's not, it's not that
your mom can't do anything.
He just, he can't do anything.
Right.
I've had it where the spouse disappears for
a long period of time.
And so they're like, can you help me,
you know, find this person?
Like how?
No, I mean, I wish I could, but
I don't know.
Like, what do I do?
How do I find a person?
Well, I've been in, in cases in DC
district court where the person went overseas and
that judge found them overseas and sent them
a registered mail that if you don't respond
to me, I will be annulling your marriage.
That's power, right?
We don't have that kind of power.
Right.
So sometimes we want, I think we have
to frame discussions with people.
Like at the end of the day, you
probably got to go to court for this
because it's just going to, it's why sometimes
when you deal on issues of ahwala shaqsiyah
with the nabusi, you feel like you're in
a circle.
There's no answer because there's no, there's no
enforceable power.
Right.
Well, can you go tell them the fear?
I can tell someone to fear Allah all
day long.
Then they'll fear Allah.
They're not going to fear Allah.
Especially when it comes to like money, like
fear Allah, give the mahr.
I'm good, bro.
I'll meet Allah.
It's like, wow.
Okay.
So we'll talk about the mahr is coming,
but yeah, it's part of the contract that's
not being fulfilled.
The second is testimony of two upright men.
It is a condition that two upright male
witnesses witnessed the marriage.
And there's a difference of opinion.
And this is where people get confused within
the maliki school.
Some maliki say it does not have to
be at the moment of the contract.
And this is where people pulling off this
secret marriage garbage.
However, we're going to clarify something in a
second.
And they should, neither of these two people
should be the Wali.
Because the Wali benefits from the contract.
How could it be a witness?
Like this is a conflict of interest here.
But the Wali is witnessing a contract that's
going to help his family potentially.
A marriage is not about it without the
testimony of two upright men.
Testimony by one men and two women is
acceptable.
Although some difference had no, the testimony of
two immoral men or two men of unknown
integrity is not valid.
Although now that doesn't apply.
That was years ago.
People live in the village.
Everybody knew everybody.
That's what Sheikh Ahmad Al-Sawi is great
Egyptian scholar 200 years ago.
He's like, again, how do you have the
ability to go check everybody's background?
Like people come to get married all the
time.
So what some scholars do now is they
say, you know what?
Increase the number of witnesses.
Like, so maybe two signed the actual contract,
but like you have a lot of people
there.
So that way, like the integrity is preserved.
Upright Muslim?
Yeah.
Yes.
I was getting into the situation one thing,
but a friend was just fathering a daughter.
And so she was raised by a single
mom.
And so there's a question regarding like her
witness and her lawyer, that like her mother,
like, would there ever exception to that your
situations where like, it's, there is a male
figure within the, like for us family that
it's like.
We'll get to that.
We're going to talk about the Wali in
detail.
That's a big one.
Good.
And these are real issues, by the way.
And also you have orphans, have nobody and
new Muslims.
A lot of times we don't have anyone
to look after our interests.
Do you, I mean, true whiteness people have
to know that people getting married could like,
give you like a standard range.
Let me like.
So it's going to fall into the same
as like, if they're unknown, like again, you
know, ideally, but sometimes you need, I've been
in a measure where I'm like, I need
people to witness this marriage in Boston and
people walk in the office.
Like, I'm like, are you righteous?
Are you righteous?
Are you righteous?
Righteous?
Who's going to say no.
I'm a horrible person.
That's the righteous person right there.
Right.
Shack.
Imam Badji relates from Imam Malik that if
a marriage is conducted without witnesses and there's
no witness prior to consummation.
So they just pop out and say, Hey,
we got married last night.
The marriage must be annulled.
And the couple separated.
And again, this is a legal separation.
So that's a permanent irrevocable divorce.
It's not like three strikes.
I'll badge supports this.
He uses what's called subtle, subtle means to
protect from harm.
Why?
Because you've all heard the famous Hadith, you
know, that a marriage must happen with two
witnesses and a Wali, right?
The Hadith is weak.
It's a very weak Hadith.
It's very weak.
So for that reason, some people started to
say, well, oh, so you don't need witnesses,
but the Hadith is strengthened by practice, by
precedent.
We don't have early Muslims getting married without
witnesses.
We don't have people walking around, just showing
up and saying, Hey, last night we got
married.
And our badge, he was a great, he's
from Portugal.
He writes, you know, very interesting.
He's like, if you don't have witnesses, this
could lead to chaos.
People are just going to show up and
say, yeah, we're married now.
No, we're not.
Yeah, we are.
And it's like, that is again, the idea
of stability.
Then you have the precedent of the practice
of the early Muslims.
And then also the logic of protecting each
couple, like protecting each part of this contract.
Without witnesses, it could lead to serious problems
as far as like, vuln and injustice.
Someone could say, yeah, I married this woman.
She's like, no, you didn't.
Yeah, we're out of the park.
Just got married.
Right?
So it could lead to chaos.
So here, what bad he's arguing about, why
he uses, is something called protecting people from
harm.
Sud to shut.
Dura means like something which can hurt you.
So how do you preemptively close certain doors?
Like when Allah says to Adam, his wife,
don't come close to the tree.
This said, don't eat it.
Don't come close.
Because in Islamic law, usually prevention is better
than cure.
I want to wait.
Imam Haramain said that the ignorant judge is
the one who waits for people to fall
into necessity and then says, oh, it's a
necessity.
Like the smart judge is the one who
acts before necessity happened.
The smart faqih is the one who protects
people before they fall off the cliff.
I don't wait till you fall off.
Oh, no, grab this rope.
Right?
No, no, you want to be there before
that happens.
But we'll talk about there are, there are
evidences, by the way, we'll get to it.
So don't worry.
Allowing a marriage without witnesses could lead to
widespread corruption.
This is badgy.
As individuals found alone together, admitting to sexual
relations could falsely claim they were married without
witnesses can go either way.
Thereby nullifying the punishments of adultery and the
inappropriate seclusion that comes with, like we talked
about last time.
Thus, the absence of witness invites corruption at
many levels.
But there are evidences for that.
For example, Surah Al-Talaq, verse number two,
Allah says, وَأَشْهِدُوا ذَوَيَ عَذَلِ مِنكُمْ وَأَقِيمُوا شَهْرَةً
لِلَّهِ Allah says, and bring witnesses, two just
witnesses, from amongst yourselves.
Talking about marriage.
Also the statement of Sayyidina Umar Al-Khattab
radiyallahu anhu, some people came to him and
said, we did a secret marriage.
We'll talk about secret marriage, sorry, next time,
because of time.
He said, this is a secret marriage and
I do not permit it.
If I had been informed earlier, I would
have stoned you.
I would have punished you.
He considered it zina.
Radiyallahu anhu.
Of course, no one's going to do that
here.
We're just navigating the history to understand the
law.
Yes, ma'am.
When you say secret marriage, do you mean
like a wata'a?
No.
Wata'a is going to be a temporary
marriage.
We didn't talk about it.
But then the Sunni fiqh is not allowed
to say, for example, in the contract, I'm
marrying you for six months or 60 days.
Right?
No, it should be long term.
So it's called ziwaj mu'aqqat.
And yeah, I make it like a time
limit.
That's mu'aqqat.
What we're talking about now is without witnesses,
without anyone knowing, we just, people just show
up and say, yeah, we got married.
Any questions?
Yes.
Without what the contract is saying are valid
witnesses for the validity of the contract, which
are the two men.
So a marriage contract is valid with the
testimony of two upright witnesses, even if the
witnessing occurs, according to some malikies, after the
contract, but before consummation.
The contract and the witnessing need not happen
simultaneously, according to them.
I don't agree with that.
I don't agree with that.
I don't agree with that.
And I'll explain why in a second, because
it leads to problems.
And as I said earlier, my thing is
the path of cure.
You start telling people, yeah, you know, you
can get married, but the witnesses don't have
to be there, you know, prior to consummation.
Man, people run wild with stuff, man.
And, you know, it's just unfortunate.
However, even in that situation, those from the
maliki school who say that, you know, you
can get married and then the witnesses have
to witness before consummation.
There has to be witnesses before consummation.
If there's not, then it's considered void.
The marriage is void, because it's a condition
of what validity.
So the validity of the marriage is gone
because the condition is gone.
Understand something?
So some people, I remember in Egypt, actually,
it's happened.
That people took the maliki piece and said,
oh, well, the maliki say you can marry
without witnesses.
So everybody's trying to get married without witnesses.
No, but there has to be a witness
before consummation.
Right before you actually live together, that is
a condition what's called shabt siha.
It's gone, then the marriage is void.
Why am I saying this?
Because it's not only people that are bad
that do this.
I've seen religious, quote unquote, leaders use this
stuff, man, to secretly marry people.
There's a reason I'm talking about this.
And also, if someone doesn't want to marry
you publicly, is that really what you want
to marry to?
You want to marry someone who celebrates you,
right?
You want to be married to someone that
honors you.
You honor them, right?
It's not something that happens, you know, in
the alley, on the DL, you know?
No, that's not marriage.
That's a problem.
Some have misread the med hat's position similar
to those who claim that the school allows
dogs.
Don't ask me about that now.
While the med hat differs over the presence
of witnesses at the moment of the contract,
it does not differ over the obligation of
witnesses before it's consummated, that it agrees upon.
These are two different situations with two different
rulings and two different scenarios completely.
What is agreed upon is that before consummation,
the marriage must be known more on this
soon.
Talk about it in the future.
My preference, because within the med hat, by
the way, there's a difference of opinion.
Today, and I will address this topic, you
know, some people think that, oh, well, you
know, so then I can, I can do
a secret marriage.
You know, times are hard.
We're surrounded by fitna.
So you're going to be a fitna.
You don't put out fire with firemen.
However, this is incorrect.
Instead of corrupting the institution of marriage, we
need to strengthen it and shore up any
cracks.
It should be facilitated.
We need to get rid of the racial
prejudice that sort of dictate who we allow
young people to marry or older people to
marry even.
And also we should make sure people have
financial ease in marriage.
When you like stick it to the guy
or stick it to the girl at the
beginning of marriage, they're struggling to get their
legs under them.
So financial ease should be the default for
choosing a spouse not to bling.
That being said, especially since this fitna has
impacted some religious teachers and educators.
I agree with those malikis who hold that
witnessing must happen simultaneously.
So there's two opinions in the school, right?
One is it doesn't happen to happen simultaneously.
That's the one you see everyone talking about.
But within the school, there's this very strong
opinion that at the moment the contract is
signed, there has to be a witness.
I agree with that opinion based on that
verse and then also chaos man leads to
problems.
Allah says that you must bring two just
witnesses.
It's not Quran man.
I don't like it when people use a
lot of language to kind of skirt the
impact of the Quran.
Like that's very clear.
If you said some ushq the way either
a minkum.
Allah says you must bring two just witnesses.
And I also apply this to divorce that
we'll talk about later on.
I take the opinion of the Jafari school
that also divorce should be witnessed.
Why?
Chaos.
Absolute mayhem, right?
And I've seen it in different ways.
Some may know that the prophet's marriage to
Safiyya.
You know, some people know that the process
and he married Safiyya then he came out
and they were married and they said, oh,
there were no witnesses.
But let's ask ourselves an honest question.
Who's like to prophesize on him?
And who's like Safiyya?
Nobody.
And also that hadith is not, it's not
definitive.
And it's just the way it's narrated.
Someone may have witnesses, we should assume someone
did witness it based on the verses of
Quran.
The prophet says something he's not going to
contradict what's in the Quran.
What are the consequences of consummating a marriage
without witnesses?
And we'll stop here inshaAllah.
Number one is the marriage should be, this
is agreed upon by everybody, by the way,
the marriage should be annulled.
And this is talaq bayyin.
We'll talk about the future.
It's a bayyin, it's a, excuse me, irrevocable
divorce.
Sure.
You're not being annoying.
You know, man, bad decisions sometimes bring about
bad outcomes.
But we'll talk, we're going to talk about
that later on as well.
Zina and kids and all that stuff.
I've kept this unit together, even though I
know there's like exceptions, but just curious.
Such a big oink, it's like.
It is, yeah.
It's tough.
I don't know of any differences on it.
I'll look into it.
I think it's a great question though, because
I can see the argument there.
Number two, the punishment of adultery.
Number three that, and we'll talk about this,
is debatable.
No paternal lineage established.
We'll get into that later on.
What does the child out of fornication take
the father's name or not and all that.
We'll talk about that in the future.
How do you blame the child?
Child didn't do anything wrong.
Number four, exemption from punishment in cases of
doubt.
Like let's say there's legitimate ignorance, there's legitimate
doubt, there's, you know, whatever.
This happens a lot, man.
Let's say there was only one witness.
So in that situation, we're not going to
impose all this stuff on people, right?
In America, none of this is going to
happen, but talking about this now just to
let us feel, you know.
So say the marriage was announced, you know,
but like who the witness is, no one
knows.
It was announced, right?
Obviously like that is a miscue on their
part.
It wasn't like they were trying to hide
their relationship or up to something wrong.
Let's say they only had one witness they
didn't know.
It's different.
And there's a lot of, to your question,
there's going to be a lot of judiciary
sort of leeway in how this is applied.
We're talking about now, these are like statutes,
but the application may be different according to
the situation.
So here's something someone wrote.
Even if the couple knew that witnessing was
obligatory and consummated the marriage without it, their
actions prohibited, but the punishment could still be
waived due to ambiguity if the marriage was
publicly announced.
So it's like they announced it, everybody knew
about it.
They just, oh, we didn't have witnesses.
Obviously, again, it goes back to what I
said earlier.
They're not trying to hide something.
And this is for marriages that don't have
contracts.
Or they had a contract.
Again, I've seen it all, man.
I've seen contracts with nothing on it.
You know, nowadays you see some weird stuff,
man.
So there may or may not be an
actual written contract, but they're telling you like,
yeah, we're married.
We got married.
I've unfortunately seen people get married.
They don't know who married them.
And that's why we should clean this up.
Like this needs to be more, like, I
believe every city should have an office for
this stuff.
It should be funded.
It should be supported by the community, community.
And that's what those people do.
They deal with everything, marriage, divorce, not misogyny.
It's too hard on nonprofits to handle all
this.
They're already burdened with so many things.
It should be almost like what care is,
right?
But it should have it.
We should have our own office, you know,
in each city for issues related to marriage
and divorce.
It should be funded by the community.
We pay some sheikh and sheikha.
That's what they do full time.
That's their job.
And they have a team, you know, and
they can even adjudicate at a certain level,
work with the court systems.
That's what they do in Texas, by the
way.
So we get what we scale.
You know what I mean?
Any questions before we let everybody go?
Yes, sir.