Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Discussing Healthy Muslim Marriage on The Today Show
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I'm excited, we've got a special guest. We do we do, who is Chef
Abdul Rahman use of Nigeria. It's a British Muslim scholar. He's
educated in both Islamic and Western traditions. And he has the
unique experience of serving as an imam in Muslim communities on both
sides of the Atlantic ATS in Southern California and over five
in the great city of London, which is really okay.
In this great city where we are right now, this evening, of
course, we'll be talking to of the Mangueira about his new book
called The Handbook of a healthy Muslim marriage, which is an
indispensable marriage guide. Now with a wealth of experience and a
warm, sympathetic thought tone. The author of the recommended use
of manga brings the insight of a scholar with 1000s of hours of
spiritual and marital counseling practice, and Islamic in addition
to this crucial subject, topics range from how to find a partner
and deal with in laws to developing spouse intimacy, and
the unfortunate divorce. If that does that first point is what
people want. That's why a partner how to find it in a hilarious way,
of course.
Chefman generous, lovely, Chris. Yeah. How are you? How are you
guys doing?
You guys, so excited. We are. This is an important topic. Yes. We
want to keep things Halon when finding a partner. Now listen,
what inspired you to put this together? Because there's so many
people out there that are giving tips, advice on the topic of
marriage, right, what differentiates your book, I guess,
you have to be qualified to write a book. And I don't know if I'm
qualified. But what justified or what kind of prompted me to do it
was that I've been married over 25 years. But over 20 years, when I
wrote the book, it was a few years ago. And I'd been dealing with
people's issues or marriage related issues for over 20 years.
And I was like, Okay, I need to write something now, because
you're having to say very, very similar things all over again, to
each person that you speak to. So I thought, let me put it down. So
it's more of an anecdotal book, right? Yes, it's got some fic and
jurisprudence and rulings in there. But most of it is
anecdotal. I actually did not read any other book on marriage before
I wrote this one, right, just purely from experience, and then
my own research into the Hadith, and so on. So much, a lot of
people as as a scholar probably come to you as well, from from an
advisory perspective, right? We have input into Absolutely, you
have to be a counselor, whether you like it or not as a scholar,
as an Imam, and so on. You have to be a counselor. So Alhamdulillah I
mean, people have found it practical, and it's done its job,
I think, in the sense that I don't have to explain everything, each
time, the nitty gritty of things, people are using it in that sense
now. 100. And you know, I remember years ago, I might say years ago,
I make myself really sound really older. But even if you ate as
early as the 80s and 90s. Yeah, we say when we were talking about
things about relationships, things about divorce, I remember as a
Muslim saying, this wasn't a Muslim issue. In fact, I used to
say, this isn't a sub Asian or Asian issue, or it's a very
English thing that the English have lost the, the the importance
of a family and remember in the 80s, everyone was seeing, like,
remember Prince Charles and Diana divorce that was interesting at
the time. And what did you think this was never an issue that would
affect our community yet? The reality is it is and it's becoming
more and more profound in our community now. And really, it's
something that hits all of us at some point is what makes this
worse is that it's happening. It's a reality. But people don't know
how to do it, how to do a proper divorce. If people knew how to do
a proper divorce, they'd actually do it in a way that's safe. And
then you've got a way back. But people are they've they've got
this cultural issues where divorce has to be three times they say,
which is absolutely wrong. That's actually a point of no return.
Right. And they don't understand that divorce can be done with one
sitting in one instance, if people just knew that it make life so
much easier. So this book is about marriage. But one of the
penultimate chapters is about divorce, because I think if you're
gonna get married, you better know how to do divorce, just in case
you get to it, because a lot of people are getting to that trough.
Right? That's why that's a very important chapter. In fact, when I
do Nikka, like when I Solomon is a marriage, sometimes I would
actually bring up the point of divorce in that. And some people
are like, Why are you talking about divorce when people are just
getting married? Yes. And so I think the main reason there is in
a marriage ceremony, you actually get a lot of people who hardly
ever listen to lectures. Right? And I find that the opportune time
in the nicest way possible is to speak about divorce, because
divorce is a reality, unfortunately. Right? So when
people do go through the lights, sometimes people do make mistakes.
Now, it's just how to do it in a proper way. Absolutely,
absolutely. I remember I think, because I remember from firsthand
experience within my family as well. I remember when it happened
with one of my relatives, the point I said to them, Look, it's
we always saw it as a bad thing. And you know, the to, to to say,
or the phrase local gang, and what will society say that this
marriage has ended? And I said, Well, look, if you look at what
Islam has prescribed, there's there's a whole surah and iars
which talk about how to deal with this and amongst the Prophet, the
compassion of the Prophet and so so we saw
or divorce and it was it was brought as an example so that we
could learn as Muslims how to deal with such a scenario. And so Allah
the Sahaba used to do it quite, I mean easily. Because if it if
there is a breakdown and there are unfortunately breakdowns because
life has become more complicated personalities a lot more
sophisticated. And you know, you don't get what you expect
sometimes. So yeah, there could be incompatibility there's a way of
divorce. And the one of the most beautiful verses in the Quran,
which I have to explain to people is we're in year four raka yo
vanilla who Kalam insanity, which basically means that if they do
separate, finally, if they have to separate, Allah will enrich each
one of them, through his vastness. And I think that's what people
need to then focus on. Because what's going on is that people get
depressed. Yeah, they, in fact, some people refuse to divorce,
even though it's broken down for three years. I'm like, are you
waiting for a miracle? No, I don't want to do the wrong thing. You're
not doing the wrong thing anymore. This is the right thing to do that
because the Quran says, Don't leave them hanging. Let them go
now. But Subhanallah there's people who refuse to do this,
sometimes. There's a way to do it, do it properly, if it has to be
done. I know we've gone on to divorce. Yes, but the key things
we want to talk about the celebration of a marriage and of
course, unity as well, right, of course, and I guess this is what
you started off with, which is, you know, if we understand
divorce, then we can look out for things maybe in the marriage
themselves, maybe we can avoid or whatever. I've got the plastic
version of the book, can I have a look at this?
I can maybe flick through I mean, just look at this. It's just very
comprehensive. Tell us like, if you were to choose the most
impactful chapter, you know, the hidden gem, which one would it be?
I don't know. There's, there's there's just so much and you've
got Quranic verses I can see too. So everything is of course
reference. Yeah, not everything is referenced. And it was double
referenced and made sure about that. But I think there's a few
chapters. So for a lot of people, there's a, it depends, I mean, are
you at the beginning, so you're looking for a partner. So I've
actually got that section, which includes the philosophy of the
whole thing, that approach to the whole thing. I've got actually 50
sample questions that you could ask to a prospective spouse,
right? Don't make a no, no, don't go with 50 questions. You just
want to select from there, what are going to be relevant to you,
because there's so many things you need to ask. It's very important.
So that would be relevant for those starting off those who are
having issues now. So I've got a chapter in there that discusses
the main issues were which, which problematize a marriage. So that's
anger in laws. So I deal with each one of these, how to deal with a
law that the the husband is the most crucial point in his social
skills and communicate socially. That's another one. So the the son
in law, the son, he's got to look after his parents and his wife,
he's an act as a go between he can't swerve one way or the other.
So we tried to give a lot of practical tips of how he can play
that.
You know, arbitrator, what's the biggest tip on that? Because as as
as a son, as well, as a son, and a husband and a son in law, right? I
finally got three women in your lives, Rachel and try to be
reconciling as possible, so that you can't convey everything you
hear? Yes. So you hear mother saying something, you can't convey
that everything to your wife, because that's gonna upset her.
Right? you digest that? Yes. And you deal with that. And then you
also have to do what the Prophet Muhammad said is that the liar is
not the one who would you call it?
Who, who's who who's a bit you can say generous with the truth? Yes,
that uses illusive language in order to reconcile people. So
sometimes he will have to say, okay, my mother said some really
good things about you. Because she must say something good. Yeah.
Right. So you magnify those points, right. And you have to not
become impacted, because it's easy to become impacted both sides.
True. That's why you just have to play the arbitrator. It's a tough
place to be. But Allah make it easy for you. Absolutely. And then
there's a lot of marriages where the underlying issue and this is
hardly ever spoken about is the intimacy issues. Very seldom
brought up, right, you hear a couple, they've got issues. You've
got to, you've got you've got a couple and you've got issues,
they've got issues, and you speak into them, and they're all
superficial issues. You're wondering, why is your marriage so
messed up with the so small issues, there's something deeper
down, finally eventually comes out? There's intimacy issues,
right? So I've got a whole section on intimacy, because Muslims
sometimes don't understand the importance of issues, intimacy, in
fact, the Prophet salallahu Salam, many of our past scholars have
written about his Hadith so explicit, you'd be surprised about
what I mean, I don't want to start speaking about these things right
now. But it's a very important chapter to basically spice up your
life for the right reason, right. And a lot of marriages on the
rocks because of this now, especially in a hyper sexualized
world, where there's so much going on outside so many vices available
and so easy. It needs to be done properly, right. And there's Halal
there's a lot of Halal that can be done. Yes. A lot of halal and it
should be no absolute to save the marriage and to just make life
better. Absolutely. So yeah, there you go. So, not upset that and how
how significantly does
Communication feature there's because one of the problems and
again, just speaking from experience, and from people I
know, they always say to me, what do you talk about with your wife
when you go out now? And I've got all these the kids, and then you
realize that after so many years, all you're doing is talking about
children? What happened to the, you know, in the early days, oh,
it was amazing that everything had a silver line, wherever she said
it was like magic. But now, you know, just talk about your, you
know, somebody asked me a question how,
after being married for 710 years, does the love increase? Like how
would you define an increase in love? So I got to think about
that. And I don't think the love increases, I think it just becomes
more profound, right? So there's always a love if you've got the
right relationship, but I think over time, since you get to know
each other, much better, their likes and dislikes. So what will
happen is, eventually, is that you will, you will appreciate the
other person more, your love will become deeper, more refined, more
sophisticated, because you know, your partner much better than
before. That's what Allah says, Would you rather be in a coma with
that? Omarama I've dealt with older people like 20 years older
than me and mashallah, the love was amazing. I was like, how did
you get that love? Yeah. So he says, Look, there's no touching,
there's no intimacy left now. But the love is amazing. Love has to
become more profound and powerful over time. Yeah, right. That's how
that's how that's how you do these things. So I just want to ask,
why. Because when when people are finding a partner, they always,
you know, place categories on, you know, the looks is most important,
or is it the dean? Can we just touch on this a little bit?
Because I think it's a very important I see you, you did touch
on it in the start? I've dealt with that quite a bit. So there's
a misunderstanding. Some people think, that just got there when
they read that hadith, which says that women are usually married
for, what is it? For their family lineage? For their wealth for
their looks? And for their Deen, make sure that you are successful
with the deen? Does that mean exclusion of the others? No, not
necessarily at all. If you get all four, you are very, very lucky.
Just make sure that you get the dean at least right. However, what
people have to do is that not focus on the others as exclusive
points that that's all they're looking for. Because at the end of
the day, a wife or a husband, for that matter, is not somebody
you're going to bring in into your front room, put on a pedestal, and
then just look at them all day. That's not what marriage is about
to feel like sometimes people are trying to just tick boxes. That's
exactly what it's terrible. But do you think that comes from lack of
experience, lack of experience, misunderstanding media, because
it's all about beauty, beauty, beauty, have a trophy wife or a
trophy husband. And the thing is that that's not the point of
marriage, your point of marriage is to live together, this
beautiful character must be there. Otherwise, your interaction is not
going to be there. And I mean, you're just you're not, but you're
not you're not marrying somebody to look at them. Yes, but they
should be good enough that they do they do attract you, because
there's a lot of false attraction outside. So you better have
somebody that is attractive to you. Yes, right. They don't have
to be the best in the world doesn't have to be a trophy
person, but they should be attracted to you. And that's very,
very important as well. And then of course, the MaHA. It's always a
big topic. Yes, you can you cover this in here, just give us a bit
of a glimpse, of course, without going into the level of there's a
lot of cultural issues to do with the dowry, right. And what we're
suggesting Alhamdulillah this has become a tradition in many
cultures is that they either go with faulty man or the allowance
Mar dowry, or now we're pushing actually, for the wives of the
Prophet Salas, Amar, which was much more frequent Fatima and got
married, once there was that one Maha there's a bit of different
opinion about that. But right now, the model, or the W of the
province also has waves 09 900 to 1000 pounds approximately, which
is not bad, right? Which is not bad. I mean, it's a decent amount
of pay. Some cultures have some really exorbitant I've actually
done with one culture was, I was told to come into the Nikka. And
there's literally negotiation that starts at a few starts at few
100,000. Right, and then you have to bring it down. It's just the
play. So they have to start at few 100,000, just to show a value.
Yeah. And then after that, they bring it down to a more reasonable
amount. And I said, Look, I don't have time to spend to do that with
you for the next two hours. I'm gonna just propose. So I gave them
a little pep talk. And I said, Look, I'm going to suggest faulty
modules Ma, right. And they thought for a while Alhamdulillah,
they managed to overcome their cultural pressures. And they said,
You know what, we're gonna go with that. And the groom, Saito relief.
So, you just need to make things easy, so that marriage becomes
easy. And this is the key thing. It's about that ease one for the
couple, but also for the family. That's an interesting point. When
my wife made this point to me, a few years after a marriage, he
said, all the circles and events that she attended, they placed a
lot of emphasis on the rights of the wife. And she said what they
kept telling me was, as someone who's looking to get out at the
time was that this isn't my responsibility that and she goes
like your parents are not my responsibility. But she was the
one thing they never taught me
was how to make your work with the universe. I know that that was so
profound because we did live in. I remember, in early days we lived
with our parents. And it was interesting that everything that
was being taught at certain time to all the systems, that was not
your responsibility, but then at the same time, bless her. She
herself saw that as 100.
Yeah, the example I normally give for that, and in this book,
there's actually no section on rights exclusively on rights,
right. The rights are all mentioned throughout, as in the
passing that this is the right, but it's not like I don't want you
to focus on rights because the focus on rights is the fourth the
integrals of prayer is literally standing up, reading a verse
saying Allahu Akbar reading of reading any verse, going into a
record reading nothing. Yes, going into two sujood and then doing
that for two records. And that's it. What kind of prayer is that?
Yeah, that's fulfilling the obligations and the rights. But
what about the word jibs? And the Sunnah, and and all that all the
rest of it? Is that Is that the kind of marriage you want? Where
you're just focusing on rights? No, it's about empathy. It's about
making your work with the other human being right to become this
complimentary couple, as a whole for your children, for your
project is for the future. Right? There's only a few rights to be
honest, those will be a dry marriage, if that's all you focus
on. That's why when anybody even asked that question, I say, Look,
brother, or sister, that is not what you want. I can give you the
rights in five minutes, no problem. But really, it's much
more than that. You need a lot of balls, in your mindset into this,
you have to hear exactly, yeah, it's not about just tick box. It's
about everything. And that's why I talk about a very important point
in there, which is you need to have a love bank balance. What is
the love bank burn? I like that it's an online account. Yes.
Right. And if you don't have one, you better get one. Lovely, right.
And that should We should never deplete in that you should never
deplete constant amount of deposit in there is what really works. So
for example, not bank balances. I mean, people are gonna be
wondering, how can I? Yes, please. What I love bank balance is is
essentially anything over and above the norm, or every day, it's
expected that you do if I buy flowers for my wife, as long as
not unknown if I buy her the same flowers every Friday, she's gonna
get bored of him. Yes. Right. Because I'm just doing a ritual
now. Yeah, but if I buy new flowers, and she likes them every
week, that's adding to love bank balance, if I make her tea, and I
do, but if I make her tea, yeah, right. Or if I do something,
anything extra, that's gonna be a donation or a contribution to love
bank balance, which means tomorrow, if we have a little
tiff, a misunderstanding, she's going to think, no, but yesterday
that he can't hate me because shape on comes in whenever you
have little issue. shaytaan comes in and says, Oh, he must hate you,
or she must hate you or she's got this issue or that issue tries to
magnify if you have a love bank balance. Oh, she did this for me
yesterday. He did that for me yesterday and two days ago. He
can't really hate me. That really helps to balance it out. Yeah. Now
you can't do once a month, a big balance, and then forget it for
the rest. It's like saying that, you know, brushing my teeth every
morning is such a chore on Saturday or Sunday, let me do half
an hour
of brushing my teeth. So I don't have to do you that's actually
harmful. Right? That's true. So you need to do bit and you need to
do bits and bits every day frequently. That's what really
matters that will really employ really enhanced reminds me to use
this today use it because you know, I've added to my love bank
balance. I took the wife out for lunch. I was actually working from
home today. And I said to her come on. She was the let's call it from
Mashallah. It was just it was just a spur of the moment this true
spur of the moment. Yeah, contributions like the amazing.
And I think this reminds me of the honeymoon period, which you
mentioned in this book. We think that you know, once that's gone,
it's finished. Right? The way you put it there with the love bank
balance. I'm going to take it on board to Yes, I will. I will.
So how do we get a hold of the book? Sorry, I'm just we've gone
through this topic, that topic, that topic just for the viewers to
understand at home. It's very comprehensive, right? It can be
overwhelming, right. So when they purchase the book, which by the
way, where can they buy it from? Yeah, white thread press or any
good bookshop but white thread press.com? Online white thread
press.com? online, they can order it from there. And should they
read it in order? Because Okay, so it has a lot of information. If
you're married, then there's no point probably starting from the
beginning of how to find a partner, because you've already
done that. Yeah. That was the heartbeat that stuff you've
already
started reading from the rest? What a lot of this.
Didn't do that? Yeah, you don't want to do that. Just make it
work, because there's a lot to make it work afterwards. Cool.
Right, cool. So now what a lot of couples have done, the best way to
do it, if you're already married is to actually read it as a team.
So you literally read it together a bit by bit, and then you discuss
it. You discuss the points in the and I think that's what a lot of
people have done and that's the feedback. I've gotten that that's
been the best way for them to do it. Right where they've sat down
and they've done it together. The Final Chapter is a very important
one I actually end up with paradise. Now. Do you know that in
paradise, yes, Paradise is nothing without a spouse. You're not
Gonna be alone in paradise? Yes. Sorry to disappoint some people I
know we're stuck with the same person
I just I just thought
it'd be the most wonderful people that time right so make right when
people pass away they want they want to be reunited. Yeah. If
you're looking at if you look at all the descriptions of paradise
in the Quran, Hadith, they all speak about a spouse. Yes. As well
as you him as a lion here. Not that additional. Let's not get
into that. Right. We're talking about a worldly spouses will be
together you're not going to be with your father or your mother.
Yeah, otherwise we'd be one happy family that family salaam, right.
You're going to be with your spouse, yes, you will not one
another but you'd be with you to read. That's my wife. So that's
paradise. They're in shall that's the last I tried to end on a good
note. I have a very positive chef, just because it was absolutely
wonderful. And I'm sure our viewers will benefit immensely
from the book. I know I did. I know. I will go and remind my
wife, she is stuck with me for the rest of her life. And hopefully
inshallah inshallah agenda
will cover healthy Muslim marriage. That's the name of the
book, this is the key thing, the healthy Muslim. Thank you for
joining us. That was the healthy Muslim marriage. For everyone
watching at home, we're gonna go on to a short break. But do join
us when we are back in sha Allah. The point of a lecture is to
encourage people to act to get further an inspiration, and
encouragement, persuasion. The next step is to actually start
learning seriously, to read books to take on a subject of Islam and
to understand all the subjects of Islam at least at the basic level,
so that we can become more aware of what our deen wants from us.
And that's why we started Rayyan courses so that you can actually
take organize lectures on demand whenever you have free time,
especially for example, the Islamic essentials course that we
have on the Islamic essentials certificate, which you take 20
Short modules, and at the end of that inshallah you will have
gotten the basics of most of the most important topics in Islam and
you'll feel a lot more confident. You don't have to leave lectures
behind you can continue to live, you know, to listen to lectures,
but you need to have this more sustained study as well.
JazakAllah harem salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
The point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get
further an inspiration, and encouragement, persuasion, the
next step is to actually start learning seriously to read books
to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of
Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware
of what our Dean wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan
courses, so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand
whenever you have free time, especially for example, the
Islamic essentials course that we have on there, the Islamic
essentials certificate, which you take 20 Short modules, and at the
end of that inshallah you will have gotten the basics of most of
the most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more
confident. You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue
to live, you know, to listen to lectures, but you need to have
this more sustained study as well. JazakAllah here in Santa Monica,
I'm gonna have to lie over