Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – The Proper Preparation for Marriage
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AI: Transcript ©
For the married people, some of these things
may be slightly irrelevant
because you've already done it.
But, masha'Allah, the benefit is that if you
listen to these things, what I'm gonna say
insha'Allah, they will also benefit you after marriage
or inside a marriage.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala created Adam alaihis
salam in a
in a mold from clay, from soil.
And then he breathed this spirit.
Allah
could have created
Hawa, Eve,
alayhis salaam,
also in a similar way, from
the clay.
So he could have created 2 independent
individuals,
but instead of that,
he created her from a rib of Adam
alaihis salaam.
When Allah
created Adam alaihis salam, he was created as
an adult,
not as a child. He did not go
through the embryonic stages.
Slow slow, you know, bigger bigger, nothing like
this.
When Adum
became conscious,
he found Hawa
next to him,
and immediately felt an attraction and an inclination
towards her.
And that's why the Mufasilien say that had
she not been created from him,
this sort of natural attraction,
compassion, and love between spouses would not have
been present.
This is mentioned by some of the earliest
Mufasireen as well like Imam Tabari,
Ibn Kathir and others.
That is why there's great wisdom in the
way Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala created
the first man and the first woman.
That's why you know generally we say that
it was only Adam that's created without a
father or mother.
Baha'u'llah
also did not have a father or mother
as such. She was also created originally,
but from a part of Adam
That's the only difference.
That's why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in
the Quran,
created for you from yourselves,
your spouses.
And the whole purpose of this
from this tafsir, we can understand that the
reason it was created one from the other
is so you can gain sukun,
peace, tranquility,
contentment,
satisfaction.
That's the natural attraction.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala creates their love and
affection mercy
between the spouses.
That's how it's supposed to be.
And in it, indeed, are signs for people
who give
thought. This is in Surat Ar Rum verse
21, which is chapter 30 verse 21.
A man will hold on to his wife
because he should naturally love her.
As the mother of his children, he should
feel compassion for her
And that's
the purpose of creating one from the other.
They have very complementary roles.
Allah
says in this verse,
We place between them love and mercy.
Love we can understand, there's a natural love,
there should be at least. Hopefully there is
for everybody.
Right?
Or if you're not married, then hopefully, there
will be for you. What about Rahmah, the
mercy?
So just to give you a highlight understanding
of that, marriage is never supposed to get
old.
If you do it right and you deal
with it in the right way, it's supposed
to stay afresh.
That love and that
relationship needs to be refreshed
and it's supposed to bring on a
new sense of satisfaction.
Generally, with everything else, you have an iPad.
This is an iPad 3, which is very
very old.
Right? But it's still working,
But the new one, you'll want the new
one.
Now even if I have a new one,
which I have I've had a new one
for nearly a year, but I still use
this one.
I just haven't been able to transfer everything
over.
I was sitting once in Iqtaqaf, it was
Ramadan time, and there was an older scholar,
very righteous man, much older than me,
old enough to be my father or older.
So we were sitting and I was a
bit informal with him, we were sitting eating.
So he said to his son, who was
also present, he said to him, have you
called your mom today? Is she okay? Have
you found out how's your mom? So just
as a joke, I said to him,
at this age you're still worried about her?
Just as a joke, I said, you're still
worried about your wife at this age, you
know, you're supposed to be in a tikka,
you should be just focusing on
So
he he he struck me here. He said,
you know, when you're young, then it's more
about touch
and feeling.
When you get older, you may not even
touch one another, but the love and affection
and the Rahmah is amazing.
So that's how it's supposed to become. So
you mustn't think that just because somebody gets
old, that it's supposed to end
the relationship.
Marriage is amazing if you do it right.
Marriage is amazing if you do it right.
The only reason that a person doesn't get
satisfied with what their spouse provides
or has is because they're looking for haram.
Once you open the door for haram, then
the barakah, the blessing gets lifted.
So you don't get satisfaction anywhere.
That's why one of the most beautiful duas
for
avoiding haram, because it's difficult especially in the
hypersexualized
world we live in, where everything is in
your face, where it's very difficult to avoid.
Various options are presented to you.
So one of the duas that's really beneficial
in that regard is
Generally this dua is used for removal of
debt. If you got debt, they say read
this dua. But if you look at the
meaning, it's actually appropriate for this or anything
in which you are attracted by haram. You
have halal, but for some reason you're not
satisfied. You are looking for haram. Somebody has
a halal money, but he's always looking for
haram money because it's easier to come by.
How do you avoid that? It's so attractive.
And likewise,
if if you're working and there's people at
work which you're always comparing with your spouse,
right? And
elsewhere,
then if InshaAllah, if you read this door,
it means, O Allah,
suffice me. Make me happy and satisfied with
the Halal away from the Haram.
Because at the end of the day, for
human beings,
If you're satisfied with something, you wouldn't look
at something else.
It's when you get greedy
and when you are not satisfied with something,
then you look elsewhere.
Of course, the modern world
creates a product
and then it creates a demand for it.
We don't need a lot of the products.
I don't know if you guys have Black
Friday here. We don't need a lot of
the products.
But they create a product, which a few
people need, and then they advertise it in
a certain way that appeals to our nafs
so that we want it.
So even if you don't want it, we
wanna buy it. So then they line their
pockets with it.
So likewise, the cosmetics industry, the beauty industry
is a big thing.
Imagine if they can get older men to
start wear making,
wearing makeup, can you imagine how much they
will increase in their in in in in
the economy?
Because
if you say 40%, 50% of the population
is men, they don't really care about makeup
right now, hopefully not at least. Right?
They care about clothes and everything. But imagine
if you could just
get the men to start wearing makeup. Can
you imagine how much more they will sell?
It's just money
money.
And of course, there are already these so
called social media influencers,
males,
that actually look like women,
right, with makeup on, encouraging men to wear
makeup.
So this is the new world we're living
in, and that's why marriage becomes more challenging
in the new world.
Another thing,
if you look at if you just compare
the world from 50 years ago
to the world now, even in terms of
marriage,
it doesn't matter which country you're from,
the traditional role for women in a marriage
50 years ago, 40 years ago, maybe even
up to 30 years ago was clear.
You're gonna move into your husband's house, your
future husband's house.
You're going to do the cooking, cleaning, whatever,
unless you're from an elite where you're going
to have servants. Right? Otherwise,
you're going to mainly have children.
You're going to maybe help him if he
has a business or fields,
farming or whatever.
There was no other career choices.
You know, 50 years ago there weren't many
career choices, women were not going to university
as much as they are now,
especially in Muslim countries.
It was very clear, the women knew exactly
what role they were getting. There was only
one question they had to ask.
There were only 2 options. Are we going
to stay with the in laws or not?
That was the only question, because sometimes the
husband had another house, or he was going
to stay with the in laws, and he
was going to have to serve the in
laws. So you just had to make that
decision.
I don't think there was much other options
that you had to worry about.
So it's very clear, so many people got
married in those days
without speaking to one another.
The families would go and check,
for the man, the family, his his mother,
sisters, whatever, would go and check the girl.
In some countries, they take him to the
Hammam,
they check him there.
Right? I'm not joking, I was told by
in some countries they come and take them
to the hamam.
And, one friend from Jordan, he's saying that
they used to go and, you know, feel
the
don't I don't I hope they don't do
this anymore, but they used to feel how
much meat on the on the on the
leg, and all these things like this. I
think it's some Yemenis, they were known to
take people for umrah.
Like, if you if you propose to his
daughter, he'll take you for umrah. You think
you're getting a free umrah. Right?
But then he's gonna find out how you
are because when you're traveling that's how you're
the real you comes out.
You know when you meet somebody for the
first time
or for a few times you can behave
in a particular way. Like right now I'm
behaving in front of you.
I have to act in a certain way.
Now if we relax and, you know, it's,
pers it gets personal,
then I will become more much more relaxed,
then the true me comes out.
I mean, I am making an effort that
the true me is the same outside and
inside.
Then you don't have to play 2 roles.
It just makes life easier.
Right?
So,
the world has changed hugely,
much more I mean, men are becoming more
educated, women are becoming more educated.
Men
have always wanted a certain career, career choices
are now huge.
Before, in a particular city or a village
in another country,
there would be just
few career choices.
But now, mashallah, there are so many career
choices you don't even know what to pick.
And the sisters also have career choices,
so now it's become more important that you
discuss
what you want. Okay, are you interested in
having children straight away
or do you want to have it after
10 years? Are you interested
in
traveling?
Are you going to continue working?
Etcetera etcetera.
Can you see how it becomes totally different?
Sometimes the first generation,
they're still operating in the earlier
style,
So they don't understand the new generation,
that why should you have
to
worry so much about this, they think. They
don't they don't realize that the world has
become so much more complicated.
Also another thing is that
this is still gonna take time, but before,
if you were in a village in Egypt,
in good old Saeed,
right, if that's where you're from. Right? Or
you're in a place in in Jordan, in
Azraq, or wherever, or in
Pakistan, in, you know, in
Sialkot or wherever you're from. Right? You know
what I'm saying? Or in India somewhere.
You're generally married
either within your family,
with your cousin or relative,
or within the village, or within the area,
or maybe within 2 or 3 villages. That's
it. You hardly went beyond that.
Right? It was the natural thing to do.
You want to stay close to your parents.
So, you know, people didn't give their daughters
to go because generally the daughters had to
move, right?
So that's the way it was.
Nowadays, alhamdulillah, we're sitting here in Malmo together
and we have I don't know how many
different ethnicities,
everybody with a different background,
right? Everybody
with different traits, different customs.
And so we all share the Swedish custom,
the Western custom, you can say.
Right?
IKEA meatballs, rye bread,
sandwiches. Yeah. Sandwiches, you don't I mean, there's
no concept of sandwiches in other countries, is
there? So we share in that, but we
also still have our hummus,
our ful,
biryani,
right? Matluba,
Mansaf.
You see what I'm saying? Right?
We still have that. Alhamdulillah.
That's fine.
Now one thing I have to I want
to clarify something very quickly. A lot of
people they come and they think they're doing
very good because they say I want to
do everything Islamically, I don't want culture to
do anything. I want culture to have no
part in my marriage.
Do you think that's a good idea?
Right? What they're misunderstanding
is that they think all culture is anti
Islam, but that's not true.
Culture is just a generic idea.
It's the way we do things.
Yes. Some parts of our culture is anti
Islamic,
but not everything.
For example, if you're from a culture where
they force you to marry,
who the parents want you to marry, your
cousin, sister or brother, whatever, then that's a
bad culture.
Especially if you don't like it, if you
force you. If it's with
mutual agreement, Alhamdulillah.
That's the way marriage has always been.
Except that
now, you pay for somebody to find you
a spouse.
Before there was an old auntie in the
community, she used to find a spouse for
you. Old uncle, old auntie, they just knew.
They had all the algorithms in them, and
they were like, yeah, I think this girl
is good for this. Hey, you know, I've
got somebody for you. He'll tell your dad,
tell your mom.
Nowadays,
we don't trust these people anymore, or
if something has gone wrong,
then we blame these people, so they've stopped
doing it.
Their industry is broken, so now you have
to pay for it on these matrimonial sites.
See they're doing the same thing,
but they're doing it through computer algorithms. You
put your personal profile in,
and they'll match you, and then you have
to do it, that way you have to
pay for it. Same thing, that's the way
humans work.
A lot of things,
culture
is
just imagine
that,
what is the sunnah method of spending Eid?
If we want to say no culture,
just we're going to talk about the sunnah
of spending Eid.
Okay. If it's Eid ul Fitr then eat
something sweet before you leave,
that's a sunnah. Wear new clothes or fresh
clothes,
preferably white, you go to the Musalla, you
read the Takbir on the way,
and you come back,
you make dua to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
for acceptance of your Ramadan, because Eid is
actually
a
it's the day when you get your reward
for the whole of Ramadan, and you come
home.
Is there anything else mentioned in the sunnah
about the day of Eid?
What else do you do on the day
of Eid?
So now if you're going to say that
the customs,
that your local customs, Egyptian customs, Moroccan customs,
whatever it is,
they have no place, and that's wrong.
If you do
certain other things on the day of Eid,
where you go and visit, you take it
as an opportunity to visit your relatives.
Alhamdulillah, that's not anti Islam.
That's not against Islam.
Just because the Prophet didn't do it, doesn't
mean you can't do it. But if we're
going to impose that you must do this
on Eid, you must make this certain dish
on Eid because you get a reward, and
the prophet didn't say so, then he gets
bitter. Do you see what I'm saying? That's
why custom is not a bad thing. As
long as the custom doesn't include anything which
is against Islam, against the sunnah.
That's the main thing that we have to
understand. Otherwise, human beings, that's who we are,
we are made from
custom. So not all custom is bad.
Now, another thing that I want to mention
is,
when we talk about preparing for marriage,
we can split this into 2 sections, into
2 stages.
First is as you're growing up, you know
that you have to get married, your parents
will tell you, your friends will tell you,
they'll even joke with you, or you're going
to get married to so and so, when
you're going to get married, and so on.
You know, they you get these jokes.
So what that does is that you generally
start feeling now,
tell me if I'm wrong because I can
only think for myself and for the people
I hear.
Generally, the first thing you start, everybody start
thinking is that, what's my ideal spouse?
You always start thinking about your ideal spouse
like this is the type of person I
want to marry.
She must look like this, he must look
like this. That's the way we think about
it. That's the first preparation for marriage. First
preparation for marriage is to start forming
the ideal,
the model in our mind of what we
want.
I guess that's what you do. Right?
Unless you're so busy with doing something else
and your parents parents say, hey man, you
you better get married. So what's marriage? I'll
show you here that you need to marry
this person. You know? Okay. Let me figure
out what marriage is. I mean, everybody knows
what marriage is, you know. So that's the
first thing. That's what you do. Once you
find somebody who seems to meet that criteria
or whatever the case is,
remember, focus on the preparation.
Now the second stage of preparation
is the marriage day.
All of your efforts,
majority of the focus, the effort is on
the marriage day,
or the days,
however many.
Like, what am I going to wear?
Right?
What am I going to what are we
going to feed?
Who is going to be the guests?
We have to call such and such a
person, if we call that person, then we
must call this person as well, right? And
the cuisine,
the food,
the venue,
this all becomes preparation.
Can anybody see what's missing so far? Initially,
we're thinking of the ideal of the person
we want to marry,
then we're focused on the one day, and
that one day is so important for people.
And I know it's important, but not the
way people make it, to be honest.
Right? It is important,
but
they make it so important that some people
even end up doing haram on that day.
They say, let them do it man, this
is my only day.
They say, it's the wedding day, this is
the day.
I know it's the day, but it's not
the day where you do haram, this is
the day where you should be closer to
Allah, because everything that you do depends on
how much Barakah Allah is gonna put into
this.
But have you noticed what's missing in here?
What do you think is missing in all
of this? Your spouse.
Your spouse. We've been talking about a spouse
already.
What about yourself?
Have you noticed hardly anybody's thinking about themselves?
Only somebody just finally mentioned it. What about
yourself?
We play no part it looks like. Everything
has to be the spouse
and then the day.
What about us? Are we ready to get
married?
Are we preparing ourselves for marriage?
SubhanAllah, this is the first time I've asked
people about this. And I've been thinking about
this for a while, but this is the
first time I've asked and nobody even mentioned
it until I had to push it. This
is sad.
If you want him or her to be
mister and missus right, then you better be
the other right.
So
this is the real preparation for marriage,
is that am I ready for marriage, for
the challenges of marriage? Marriage is challenging.
I don't think there's any marriage that is
just
no problem at all,
like at all.
Yes,
there are lots of marriages where they don't
have too many problems and they know how
to deal with the problems.
But to say there's a marriage with no
problems at all,
then tell me, do you know any marriage
with no you've never had a problem or
you know somebody who's never not even a
minor problem?
Anybody?
Because you're gonna be above a prophet,
if that is the case. The prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
had issues with his wife sometimes.
I mean, he had 9 of them.
And he was the best to his wife.
He said, I'm the only the best the
best of you is the best in character,
and I'm the best to my wife. He
had 9 when he passed away.
But he did get upset,
and there was one occasion where he just
went away from all of them and he
stayed in the loft for nearly 29,
30 days for a whole month,
to such a degree that one of his
father in laws, Umar and if you want
you can use this term, the husband
the father of his one of his wives
Hafsa radiAllahu anha.
He became
worried that has he divorced his wife? Has
the prophet divorced Hafsa
and others?
You see what I'm saying?
One day the prophet
went to meet,
to look for Ali
So he went to his house, it's his
daughter's house because Ali
is married to Fatima,
the daughter of the prophet
Fatima says,
Oh, we had a bit of a problem.
He's
sleeping in the masjid.
We had a bit of an issue, he's
in the masjid.
Nowadays people have issues, they go to the
bar, they go where do they go?
They go to weird places, they want to
calm down, they want
an outlet, they want to release.
He went to the masjid, so the prophet
went to the masjid and there is
lying on the floor,
sleeping,
and he's got some of the you know
because they had no carpets in those days,
some of the
mud, or
the sand or whatever, and it stuck to
him. So he made up a good name
for him, he says,
It's an Arabic idiom to say father of
whatever, like you know to show a relationship,
just just humor.
He's like why did you do this to
my daughter-in-law? Why did my daughter, why did
you make her upset? He didn't say anything,
he was just very fondly,
affectionately,
He said,
everybody has problems.
A lot of people think I'm not going
to have problems.
This is the ideal. So then when you
actually have a problem, you don't expect it.
So you don't know how to react.
Let me tell you right now, and again
this is beneficial to those who are already
married,
because they can always make changes
and understand where the problem is, and to
those who are not yet married.
If you have an anger problem,
where you're constantly getting angry, you know, because
when it comes to anger, there are several
different types of people.
Right?
You may be able to relate to this,
but in Arabic, they have 4
categories.
Means
quickly,
sorry
very fast to become and means very slow.
So there's some people who get angry very
fast but they calm down very fast,
right? So they quickly get angry, you can
see red in the face and suddenly they're
smiling, right?
There's some people who
get angry
very seldomly, like hardly ever. It takes a
lot to get them angry, but when they
get angry
they stay angry for a very long time.
Now I want you to think about this,
think who you are, what's your personality,
and tell me which one do you think
is the best and which is the worst.
Then you have another one
who
gets angry very quickly
and calms down very late.
Gets angry very quickly and takes a long
time to calm down.
And the 4th one is,
the one who gets
angry
very
seldomly, hardly ever,
and when they get angry as well, they
calm down very fast.
Which is the best of these qualities?
Which is the best category? The last one.
Right? Which is the worst?
The third one.
The third one is gets angry always
very fast and takes a long time to
calm down. That guy's always gonna be angry.
He's probably gonna have lines on the forehead.
Now look,
just by this little exercise, if we can
tell who we are,
If you're a person with your friends, with
your brothers and sisters, with your parents,
you get angry all the time very quickly.
Right? And
you're just always angry.
You need to get anger management classes.
No. This is not a joke. This is
serious. Like, you know, otherwise you're gonna mess
your marriage up.
Right? The people around you, like your family,
they're forced to live with you.
Allah puts you together, so they're gonna have
sabr with you,
right? Maybe your friends as well, but you
can't
jeopardize a marriage to do that, and it's
not a good idea.
So anger problems is a big issue, and
you can get help.
And number 2, you're very sensitive.
You just get irritated, and you get emotion,
and you start crying over small things.
Smallest thing goes wrong, you start getting upset.
I mean it's related anger, emotion, it's related,
but you're too sensitive.
You have to remember this is the world,
the world things happen
against the way we are, we're not in
paradise, it's only in paradise where
it's whatever
you want.
Here it's not like that unfortunately.
So if you get sensitive quickly we need
to learn to deal with sensitivity.
Allah creates us all in different ways
and then we're supposed to moderate our so
for example,
if I am
more
stingy than my brother, by nature,
My brother
is more
generous than I am by nature. There's nothing
wrong with that. This is my nature.
But if I act on the stinginess,
then that becomes wrong.
Do you see what I'm saying? If you're
very generous by nature, alhamdulillah,
but if you act on your generosity in
a way that people take advantage of you
and then you spend in haram as well,
then that's hamam.
So every one of us is created in
different ways.
Even 2 brothers, 2 sisters, you'll see they're
different.
So for example if I'm,
if somebody is
stingy
and they receive gifts from their neighbors but
they never give.
On Eid day people come and
give their children gifts, they don't give, they
say this is a bidda yakhi,
This is their excuse, but they take.
You eat together in a restaurant,
and when it comes time to pay the
bill, you go to wash your hands.
Can you see this is socially considered to
be miserly?
So we all are created with different temperaments.
Some of us are very soft, we let
people walk over us. Some of us are
very hard,
that we just don't bend at all. We're
not flexible.
If you're a if you're a person who
wants it your way all the time,
because you have an ego,
and you've managed to conquer everything around you.
You've conquered your family,
you've conquered your friends because they're all submissive
to you now. And Now you're going to
get married, and the person you get married
to is not willing to be conquered because
they also want to be egotistic.
Can you imagine the fireworks which you're going
to have?
Do you see what I'm saying?
We have to start realizing our problems. Now
again, this is beneficial,
not just for people who are thinking about
getting married, but also people who are married
because this is probably what's causing the issues.
Imagine 2 really egotistic,
narcissistic people that come together,
they're not going to be able to stay
unless one calms down for the sake of
the marriage.
So this is what you call pre
preparing yourself for marriage.
If you men, if you want missus right
then you have to become mister right.
And likewise sisters if you want mister right
you need to become mrs right. Then inshallah
then you get that barakah as well.
So
you know, when you are married already,
then what happens is that you run into
trouble, so then people look for counselors.
Now unfortunately, we don't have too many counselors,
good Muslim counselors, who understand
our culture, who understand our religious requirements and
everything. Right?
Sometimes people are struggling with things and they
go to just the general counsel and they
tell them, yes, you must indulge.
If that makes you happy, yes, you must
flirt. If
it makes you happy, you must have an
affair.
We don't have too many counselors.
But there is this concept of premarital counseling.
Now when we don't even have sufficient postmarital
counselors,
bringing up the topic of pre marital counseling
is difficult.
But this is individually if you feel that
you have a certain
tendency, a certain characteristic,
a certain problem,
certain weakness.
I'm not mentioning all the problems, I'm just
mentioning a few. There could be so many
weaknesses, weaknesses, so many problems.
Right?
You may just be spendthrift. You may just
like to spend everything,
or you may be stingy.
Right? And a husband being stingy is a
problem.
When
one of the sahabiyaat,
the female
companions came to the prophet with 3 proposals.
The prophet diagnosed each one and said, him,
he doesn't take a stick off his shoulder.
Another
one he's got no money.
So then he suggested one of them to
him.
So if you're stingy then what are you
going to do in marriage? Are you going
to have the problems in money in your
marriage?
Many marriages have, suffer because of this.
The husband gives me like this small amount
of money and I have to give him
itemized bill at the end of each month.
Now of course sometimes that becomes necessary if,
the spouse is spending too much and not
responding responsibly.
So you have to think of everything that's
going to affect the marriage,
and you have to see if you can
balance yourself and moderate yourself out.
Are we I mean, if anybody's got issues
in their marriage, can you see how these
things are so relevant?
Now moving on to
what you should be looking for.
So in that regard, I just want to
mention a few things. The prophet
said,
A woman is married for
one of 4 reasons, generally. There could be
many more reasons, but generally, big reasons are
4.
Number 1, for her wealth.
Man, she comes from a wealthy family.
That's good. It makes less burden on me.
I'll get good gifts.
She'll come with a lot of money, it'll
help, right?
Number 2,
family lineage,
genetics.
Today we could include genetics in that.
She She's from that family, she's going to
go, I've got a girl from that family.
It's a big thing, you know, not in
the west anymore,
because the whole family structures and tribal mentality
is all gone.
But in a lot of countries, like if
you get yourself married to a certain tribe,
it's like, wow, how did you do that?
They don't give their girls to anybody. Right?
Because in many communities, they're very protective over
their girls. They let the boys bring anybody
in. But in terms of where their girls
go, that's a matter of honor.
And and in a certain case, that's completely
valid. It's not a problem.
That's where you get the kuf in Islam,
compatibility.
It generally is about
is the woman where she's going is to
protect her.
Because if she's going to land up in
a lesser type of family,
and she's,
not in a position to call the shots,
to make the decisions,
she's going to suffer. She's going to be
demoralized.
That's why for a man it's okay, he
can get married to anybody, but because generally
in Islam, the man is supposedly the responsible
one in the house, so
he's responsible for her decisions.
But the woman,
the parents and the community have to make
sure that she gets married into a decent
place where she'll be comfortable.
So not somebody of a lower category.
So that's number 2. Number 3, for her
beauty.
Right? For her beauty. Now beauty, we'll look
into that later as to what exactly beauty
means.
It could mean different things for different people,
but there's a standard understanding of beauty. And
number 4, for had deen.
We also have to understand what deen means
as well.
So that's the prophet he's talking to men,
because the men were in front of him,
so he said he made an observation. He
says when men get married, they generally marry
for four reasons, like this is what the
4 main points they look at.
So how does this hadith relate to women?
What should they look for?
The hadith doesn't say that women should look
for nothing, she should just get married anyway.
No. The reason the prophet said this to
men is because he was addressing the men.
But if this is relevant for the women,
then they should look for the same thing.
I mean for women they look at these
things as well. What family,
the looks, handsomeness,
the wealth,
and the deen. They must look for the
same thing. But both men and women will
also have other things.
This is not constrained to these four points,
as the hadith mentions.
It's many things that you can look at,
whatever is important for you. But the main
thing is this,
I want to explain each one of these
points because that's very important.
If you look at these four points,
let's start with
the money.
Who thinks that this hadith is saying you
must ignore the 3, and you must just
focus on the Deen?
Who's had an understanding
like that?
Anybody? Well hopefully not.
Many of the Muhadideen who have commented on
this have made it very clear, that the
Prophet is not saying you must ignore the
other 3,
and you must just focus on the Deen.
No. What he's saying is which
means that make sure you win that one
at least.
If you have all the others, Alhamdulillah, even
better.
There's a virtue in all of these things.
So for example, when it comes to
wealth,
there's nothing wrong with marrying
a religious person, a righteous person who comes
to do some wealth. Alhamdulillah.
It makes life easy for you. Your children
will inherit from
that side of the family as well. There's
nothing wrong with that.
But if you're doing it primarily because of
the money,
then you're in trouble because they could have
financial crisis tomorrow, and you'd be in big
trouble.
Because the reason you built this structure
of marriage was for money and that's gone.
For money and that's gone. That's why it
cannot be the main reason. But it can
be a reason and there's nothing wrong with
it, there's positives of it.
But you have to remember, it also comes
with some negatives.
People who have a lot of money, they're
going to have a lot of sensitivities
according to the
money. Money doesn't come easy, it brings a
certain fitna with it as well a lot
of the time.
See what I'm saying?
For example, if you get a spouse from
a very very very very wealthy family,
You better be able
to then shop in those kind of places
as well.
Right? If your normal shopping is from,
I don't know. I haven't been around Sweden
too much, so I can't say. Oh, h
and m. Yes. If you generally shop from
h and m, and from Aldi,
and from Lidl, which are really good places
actually. Nothing wrong with them.
You have Aldi and Lidl? I got Aldi.
You got Aldi. Right? Okay. Alhamdulillah.
If
you generally shop from them, but you're bringing
a spouse that comes from,
they would never go into those shops. They
shop from,
I'm stuck here. Right?
Hugo Boss.
Well, yeah, that's
you know?
You go boss, Louis Vuitton, you know,
Giorgio Armani, you know, then you're in trouble.
But you see you see what I'm saying?
If you're gonna get if
you're gonna bring an elephant in the house,
you're gonna have to feed it.
You have to bring that much food.
This is not to say anybody's like an
elephant. It's just to say that if you
want a pet as an elephant, you have
to have the means to prove it.
Right?
You get a big engine car,
you're going to have to put that much
gas in it,
then you can't be stingy like a small
Nissan Micra, you know? So,
you get according to your status.
You have to keep all of these things
in mind, so that's wealth. Then you go
into family lineage. Now and you look at
family lineage, the reason you get a certain
family, if it's just to show off that,
oh, that's a very important family. If I'm
connected, then I can show off.
That's silly. That's wrong. But if there's a
a good family
that has good akhlaq,
good character, they've got generosity in them,
right? What's wrong with that? Don't you want
good genes for your children?
You see the benefit of that?
Good genes for your children.
Hasab, akhlaq,
the character.
You know, mashallah, this was a family of
ulama, this well that would be for deen
anyway, that would go under that category. But
these were a really decent family.
When I became imam in a certain place,
one of the local islanders, he he brought
me, he says, look, let me tell you
The makeup of this community is these main
families.
This family, masha'Allah,
you know, they're very respectful, decent people. This
family, you know,
they're the major players.
You have to know this.
So you have to know the kind of
family you're gonna get into. If you, any
one of you think that I'm just marrying
that one person,
that man or that girl,
and I don't care about the rest of
their family, you're mistaken.
That's not the way life works.
Remember marriage is hardly ever between 2 individuals.
Unless you're going to get married and you're
going
to basically take,
go with your spouse and live in the
middle of nowhere.
You'll still have other people to deal with
them.
Generally when you get married,
it's with another family.
And Alhamdulillah, you need that. Especially after you
get children, you need the support.
So you know this idea, just this romantic
idea about me and my wife, me and
my husband, but nobody else,
It's silly.
Believe me, in laws are very, very, very
helpful.
What about if you want a romantic weekend
after you have 3 children?
Where are you going to put your children?
If you've got in laws that are nice,
your your own parents, the in law, Alhamdulillah,
you can use that. I'm giving you ideas.
Right? Book, you know, 2 days. Have a
have a honeymoon. Why should honeymoon be only
after you get married?
You do that once in a year, do
that twice a year, alhamdulillah, but you need
extended family to help you.
It's only family that's gonna
be encouraged to do that, and and the
children will feel comfortable there as well. That's
why family this is Allah, this is the
way He's made it for us. You can't
divorce from family.
So, get that out of your mind.
Now you can understand why the dilemma where
your family doesn't want you to marry somebody,
and you want to marry somebody. If you
start thinking it like this, you'll you'll become
more open minded about the way you think
of these things.
The other thing I want to just,
just slip in here about culture, going back
to the culture issue.
A lot of people think, okay we as
Muslims then we should just marry anybody else
as long as they got the deen,
And culture should play no part in
it. While that's true to a certain degree
that you should not discriminate
according to culture,
but there are actually benefits of marrying within
your own culture.
Maybe nobody will tell you it this way,
but there are benefits.
There are pros and cons of everything. It
just depends on why and how you're doing
this. The benefits of marrying in your own
culture
is that number 1,
you will you won't have too many new
things to adjust to.
They're your culture,
right? So the food is going to be
similar,
the cooking style, the living style, the language.
Because remember many of us are still like
2nd generation,
3rd generation, we still have other languages, it's
not just one language.
So maybe somebody in your family still doesn't
speak Swedish
or English or whatever.
How are they going to communicate if you're
on different languages?
What is your child going to learn?
So when you have the same
culture there's a lot of benefits in that,
but not to the detriment. It should not
be done just that it must be culture
not outside it for no reason. But there
are benefits to it.
So don't think that oh,
there's one person who says I don't want
to get married in my culture, I don't
want to get married to any existing Muslims,
I want to get married to a convert.
I said why? Because they don't come with
any baggage.
Now we must,
don't get me wrong in here, we must
embrace
our convert brothers and sisters, and make them
feel part of us. But I'm just this
ideology.
Basically this person is tired of his Egyptian
culture, or Pakistani culture, or Indian, or whatever
culture it was.
So he thinks that I don't want any
baggage.
So if I get married to somebody from
a totally alien culture,
then there won't be any baggage. I told
him everybody comes with baggage, it's just a
different baggage.
So even converts well, a convert is gonna
be another,
you know, is going to be either from
Hinduism,
from Christianity,
from Judaism,
from atheism, or whatever. They're going to come
with a baggage.
Everybody comes with baggage, just human beings for
you.
Right?
So to say that, oh, this you're just
talking about you don't want this baggage, you
want a different baggage.
I mean, why don't you deal with the
baggage you know, than to deal with, you
know, a baggage you do not know. Do
you see what I'm saying? So we're not
saying don't marry outside of your tradition. No.
Alhamdulillah, if it works, Alhamdulillah, that's good. And
you know what,
I'm talking in a context specific way. Because
right now, in this city,
if we look around here, right, you've got
Pakistanis,
right,
you've got
Egyptians,
you've got Turks, you've got Kurds, you've got
Syrians,
you've got Moroccans.
Right? Balkans,
let's take the whole of the Balkans then.
Right? I was going to say Bosnians and
Albanians, but if you want the whole of
the Balkans together you see what I'm saying?
Now
we still have our own little different traditions,
don't we? Even though we're you're all here,
but give it 2, 3 generations,
another 100 years,
and you'll see that there'll be less issues.
It's just a time factor and anybody who
calls like, oh we must break down these
ethnicities
and cultures and barriers and all that. You're
asking for too much, it's not going to
happen
right now.
There's just too many players,
but give it a 100 years.
If you look, I don't know about Sweden,
but if you look in England, there are
people there that are originally
Anglo Saxon,
Scottish,
and various different things. But now they all
seem the same, if they live in England,
they all seem the same, even if they're
originally from Ireland.
There'll still be a few idiosyncrasies
there, but otherwise much of the food, everything
is the same. You just have to give
it time, be a realist.
So there you go, that's
a bit about
choosing.
So let us then go into the beauty.
Now beauty
do you think beauty is as important as
family and
wealth, or do you think it's lesser, or
do you think it's similar
As a consideration,
both from men and women. What do you
think? Especially in today's age.
I can't if you think it's more hamdullilah,
and if you think it's less, that's fine.
It's personal.
It's not a problem. There's no there's no
one answer to this. You have to remember,
this is very personal.
One person in my class,
20 something years ago,
only 2 people were married in the class.
In the final year, graduation year, only 2
people were married, they were slightly older. The
others were not married, so they dread the
hadith,
that
make sure you're champion with the person of
you know, with the one who has the
deen.
Right? So he kept saying, you know, I
don't care what she looks like, I don't
care what family she's from, I'm just gonna
get married to a a religious person.
So one of the students who was married,
he once took him aside and he said
to him, you know, you keep saying that,
you better be careful.
He said, nowadays, you see, if there was
50 years ago maybe, but nowadays,
the industry,
it's all about looking beautiful, looking attractive. Rather
than beautiful, looking attractive.
People use various different amounts of money and
makeup and clothing and everything else to look
attractive. Right? You're living in a very artificial
world today.
So everybody's done up outside, it's a big
fitna.
If you don't get somebody who pleases you,
remember this, who pleases you,
When you come home,
then shaitan is going to take
advantage of this situation.
So make sure that you do get married
to somebody that pleases you.
Now remember beauty for most people is in
what they see. There's one person who had
a wife who his friends all considered very
ugly.
His friends did.
So they were very informal, they used to
joke with him, and what do you see
in her? Just to mess him around.
So then this is what he would say,
let me give you my eyes and then
you look at her, then you'll see.
You see what I'm saying? If you're satisfied,
Alhamdulillah,
then everybody's satisfied, everybody should be satisfied.
You must be satisfied.
Now there is a definition for beauty, and
the the experts on beauty do say that
beauty is is is not just subjective, it's
not just beauty is an eye to the
beholder. There are some things which everybody would
consider beautiful because beauty
can anybody define beauty? What is beauty?
Give me a definition. Do Swiss do not
Swiss, do sweets have a benefit
definition for beauty?
Because people know that people never think about
this. I get it from a friend of
mine who's an expert on love, and he's
figured all of these things out, so I
get it from him.
Beauty
is
symmetry,
balance,
moderation.
Most people would agree on that.
You may have a skewed idea of beauty,
and for you that's beauty, but everyone's like,
that's horrific.
Right? Because there's no symmetry there between that's
what's beautiful, because I've got a skewed idea.
So in some sense, it could be subjective,
but there are certain things which are overall
considered beautiful.
You're standard because of the moderation
and the symmetry that they use in there.
So what I don't want is I don't
want women to feel because of this beauty
idea,
because the competition,
the craze for teenagers and
older,
you know, growing older women,
is that I'm not beautiful enough.
This is what the culture teaches you that
I'm not beautiful enough. How does it teach
you that?
The way it teaches you, first it tells
you that beauty is your attractiveness is the
most important part of you.
Especially for girls, more than boys, the message
that you're getting from social media is that
you better be attractive, you better be attractive,
otherwise you're going to lose everything.
But then there's also another message that's subliminally
provided
is that you will never be beautiful enough.
So one is you must be beautiful or
attractive,
but you're never going to be beautiful enough
or attractive enough. How did you get that
message?
They the way to get a message is,
you know, the role models that they put
up on advertisements
and everything.
They generally get the most attractive
looking people.
They do them up in the most attractive
way.
That's another layer.
It's already exceptional beauty,
already exceptionally
good looking.
Then they put
makeup and dress.
Then on top of that, after they've taken
the pictures and videos, they airbrush it to
make it even look even better.
So are you looking at reality or are
you looking at
something made up?
So
that is who these young girls are growing
up to look like that's how I need
to be, but that blemishless,
no
fault, no small blemish, it's impossible.
So a lot of women are suffering.
I'm not beautiful enough. I'm not beautiful enough.
What that does to your self esteem
is it destroys your self esteem.
Even though you are decent.
So celebrate your own beauty instead of comparing
yourself to others.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will provide.
Right? So don't let any woman feel like
that and become then depressed. And likewise any
guy shouldn't feel like that either.
So that's wealth, that's beauty. There is a
benefit in marrying somebody you're attracted to,
no doubt about that. Then your then Shaitan
can't, you know, hopefully, you know, it'll be
less of a fitna.
If you can come home to your spouse
and say like, I've seen a lot today,
there's people who are probably more attractive than
you but you know what, you satisfy me.
That's barakah.
That you can only have if Allah wants
you to have it. Because day by day
anything fresh that you see is gonna look
better.
That's how new products, they just change the
style, make it look more sleeker, and it
looks better, but does the same thing as
you've got.
So the prophet is telling you to focus
on the purpose.
Allah will give you satisfaction, and that's what
you call barakah. That's why one of the
you know when you get married, what is
the dua that you give to the person
who just got married? The sunnah dua.
Twice Baraka is used.
May Allah bless you, may Allah shower His
blessings upon you, and may Allah unite you
together in goodness. In a marriage, you need
Baraka.
Otherwise there's 2 individuals who are coming together,
you don't know what they're gonna do, what
they're not gonna do, what's gonna happen, what's
not gonna happen, is it gonna work, is
it not going to If there's barakah in
there, mashallah, even if you seem to be
like,
they say chalk and cheese or
blue and green or whatever, alhamdulillah will work.
You need barakah, that's the secret ingredient to
put it together.
So InshaAllah,
in the next session, we will discuss the
marriage ceremony, the marriage transaction,
and other things like that. But I will
stop right now to give some time for
questions. Insha'Allah.
It can be. So I guess it, when
you talk about irritation, that spans 2 things.
It spans sensitivity
and anger.
So you're sensitive, so you get irritated.
And actually some perfectionists
get irritated very quickly.
I can completely relate to that.
Now initially,
if you get angry because of that and
you start
criticizing
and correcting it or get violent about it,
that's the problem.
I don't think there's anything wrong with noticing
flaws
and wanting to be perfect,
and the perfection, there's nothing wrong with that.
But it's just you have to also realize
that everybody can't be like you.
So I think those are probably the limits.
Those are what will,
what we have to learn that we have
to manage
our irritability.
Right? We have to manage our sensitivity.
Because if they are born with that or
that's how we are, hamdu rillah. But it's
just there's a lot of people who used
to get angry very quickly over their
irritation over certain things, but now they get
less irritated.
And that's what you have to ask Allah
for, and you have to use certain methods,
to try to, cure cure that issue of
that. It doesn't mean that you have to
just stop looking at you have to become
less of a perfectionist.
But it shouldn't be the negative aspect of
perfectionism.
So you know the kafah,
I don't I mean, kafah means compatibility,
and scholars have written in the books of
firk, etcetera,
that if a woman gets married outside of
her kafaa,
right,
I mean, I don't want to get this
to be too technical, but for the Shafis,
they are not even allowed to marry
without the
guardian's permission anyway,
if they've not been married before.
With the Hanafis a woman can technically marry,
right, but the condition they give is that
if she marries out of her compatibility,
parents have the right to go, father has
the right to go to the judge and
have it annulled.
Right? Another view says that the marriage is
not even valid. I follow the view it
is valid, but the parents have a right
to go. Now what is this kafar? I
explained earlier kafar,
it's compatibility
so that the woman does not end up
in a disadvantageous
position.
Essentially that's it, because in a marriage hierarchy
in Islam,
husband is responsible.
So there are certain things that he
gets to decide, because ultimately
responsibility lies with him. It doesn't mean he
is a dictator or something, it's not supposed
to mean that, right? So
in that sense,
the woman better be in a position
that is suitable for her, and according to
what she's used to and what she's comfortable
with.
What are those things though? So in different
books of fick, they'll give you,
dean
and wealth and
etcetera, etcetera.
Those things are social.
Those things are social ideas of the time
and the customs of the time.
So
now, some of those things may not apply
to us in the west because we live
in a different bit of culture.
So what we're trying to do,
we did this last year with our students
in
the Ifta
class, is to actually try to decide how
would you think about compatibility in the modern
world in the west.
Because in the east it's still a bit
homogeneous in that sense, it's changed a bit,
but in the west when you've got so
many different
ethnicities come together and so on standards.
So that's a bit like, okay, who would
you consider to be of a lower category?
What kind of job would you consider that?
Would that would bring so called shame to
the family? And I'm not talking to a
family who is
overly sensitive, but at any decent amount of
time, like, why did you do that for?
You're
not going to be happy. We're still trying
to figure that out in terms of the
West. We've come up with obviously a few
ideas.
But a lot of that is based on
context because what how you're gonna feel. Is
it gonna be considered a defect for you?
Is she gonna be happy or not? She
She may think she's being happy but eventually
in 2 years she's not gonna be happy
when she really like you know because initially
you've got that excitement and so on, Once
the excitement dies, then eventually it just becomes
normal. The dopamine is gone.
Do do do you know why people end
up marrying sometimes in where it's not really
healthy for them to marry?
So recently I was in Finland and there
was a massive marriage conference,
and they had a
psycho, a psych,
psychotherapist or,
a counselor.
And it was really nice, because I'd always
thought about this, but I was never able
to put it in words. He says that
what happens is that, you know, as a
man or a woman, you've got your hormones,
right, and you're looking for something, it's natural
within human you know, especially teenagers and so
on, that once the hormones start coming with
children, you know, they don't know about sexuality
and so on. But once you understand sexuality,
then, you know, you want a part of
it because it's human beings.
So,
when you see somebody
that seems to fulfill that idea for you,
you get a dopamine rush.
Right? That's the chemical dopamine. It's an instant
like, if I've got 10 jobs to do,
and I finish one off. You know that
feeling like oh, alhamdulillah, one is done. You
know that alhamdulillah
feeling, That's what you call a dopamine rush.
But it's instant, it goes, you need another
one. Right? I need to do the next
thing, because that's not going to stay, right?
You're not going to feel satisfied about that
for 10 days, are you? Right? You need
another dopamine rush.
So what happens is you get emotionally attracted
to somebody,
but you haven't explored everything. You know, from
the discussion we've had in the session, you've
seen how comprehensive that thought process should be
and how many things you should really think
about. We don't. We just think, oh, on
the face of it this person is perfect
because they're giving me that dopamine. Every time
I meet them secretly on the phone, whatever,
at school, university, work, I'm getting that dopamine
rush.
But you're not thinking whether you're gonna get
that same satisfaction afterwards in the real aspects
of life.
If there's somebody that is really beautiful and
you admire the way they look, is, when
you get married, is that all is that
what marriage is about? You're gonna sit and
put them as a trophy and just keep
looking at them all day?
Is that what the purpose of marriage is?
Right? Do you see what I'm saying? So
that cannot be a factor, because that's not
what you're marrying for. If somebody dresses in
a particular way,
marriage is a lot more than that. So
a lot of people get married emotionally attached
and then
once it all
a week or two weeks that romantic period
goes,
you're no longer getting dopamine because there's no
more substance there.
Do you see what I'm saying? There's nothing
more to satisfy you.
That initial dopamine, that risk you were taking,
all that is all gone.
So no longer are you getting the chemical
reactions, so you start feeling upset.
And now you get Cortisol instead,
which is the bad hormone.
Cortisol is when you're in a place that
you don't like.
Right?
What you want is you want to find
somebody that can provide you the love hormone.
What is that called? Oxytocin.
Oxytocin. You have a lot of oxytocin.
Right? And that is when you do it
thoroughly and there's baroque, then you get a
lot of oxytocin. That's what you need. You
don't need cortisol. And you just don't wanna
go just on dopamine either. Right?
The best remedy for anger.
Several remedies.
Stage 2 or You wanna you wanna stop
it from getting to stage 2 or 3
all the time. Okay. Right? Because if you're
constantly jumping from state 0 to 3, that's
a bad thing. So you wanna get slowly,
slowly.
Have we got to talk on anger?
I think we've got to talk on anger.
Now anger, the way I'm
is number 1,
first sit down and think what gets you
angry.
What are the few things that gets you
angry?
You won't be able to identify everything because
it's the first time you're looking at it,
you won't know.
So then
you keep a note
for the next month or 2
because you'll mention a few things. Okay. I
get angry when the food is not ready,
or I get angry when somebody comes late,
I get angry for no reason,
you know, you will come out. Then
you keep adding to that from when you
do get angry, you always think back, why
am I getting angry? Number, and that's the
first way to do it. Number 2,
you ask your close friends and family, look
I want to be honest with you. I
want you to be honest with me. I
won't get angry on you, but can you
tell me when I get angry?
Do you see what I'm saying?
You tell me when I get angry.
Now if they are scared of your anger,
they're not going to tell you, but hopefully
you can convince them that I'm not going
to get angry, so please let me know.
Number 2. Number 3, make it a lot
of dua to Allah, and what the prophet
said
is that when you're standing up and you
get angry then you sit down,
or you lie down. The benefit in there
is that, you know when you're standing up
and you get angry, you are more confrontational.
When you are standing up, you feel more
powerful.
So you you can do more.
When you sit down, you're getting closer to
the earth,
which is right,
and you're calmer, otherwise lie down. Now who's
going to remember to do that though?
Unless you train yourself, you're not going to
remember to do that, you're going to think,
oh I should have sat down, it's too
late now, You know? So what I'm saying
is,
if you can figure out what gets you
angry,
second thing is who get is there particular
people that get you angry? Every time I
go to see my uncle,
my brother,
my mother, my father, somebody.
So when you are going to see them,
because you can't avoid those people can you,
you
prepare yourself. I'm not gonna get angry at
you, I'm not gonna get angry at you.
I don't care what they say.
I generally say something I'm not gonna say
anything back.
You have to preempt,
you you understand preemption?
Like you prepare beforehand
that I'm not going to let their silliness
make me silly and foolish as well.
And then there's a dua that helps a
lot.
You can read it with me
Nifaq, hypocrisy.
And bad character, because
overindulgence
of anger,
letting go of your anger,
is akhlaq problem.
Right? So you ask Allah for control
and you start a regimen of dhikr.
Because the more you'll do la ilaha illallah
and salawat under the Prophet
that would bring more jamal
and softness in
you, inshallah.
So that's 4 things I think I mentioned
or 5 things.
Allah make it easy because lots of marriages
break because of anger.
Lots of marriages break because of anger.
The brother is asking that
where he comes from, Afghanistan,
90% of marriages are arranged,
and only 10% are
what he calls love marriages.
So which one is more Islamic?
Because the observation he has is that most
love marriages, out of the 10%,
they end up ending in divorce, and majority
of the arranged marriages, if not all of
them, they survive.
So
I think it's neither definitely love marriages are
out of question in Islam, unless you just
the only time a love marriage would be
allowed again, it depends on what you mean
by love marriage. If it means that, oh,
I must fall in love with somebody then
marry them,
then that's haram obviously.
But there are cases where
you may have a cousin or somebody that
Allah just puts love in your heart for
them. You do nothing haram,
you know, you do nothing haram. Sometimes Allah
just creates a love for somebody in your
heart,
but I wouldn't call that a love marriage
in the so called sense of it, in
the social sense of it.
And then after that you do everything right,
and nothing haram, no wrong statements or anything,
and then you get married. Is everything okay,
Agit? Yes. Okay.
So then you get married.
That's not a problem, is it?
Love marriage is when you date.
That's a problem.
Now arranged marriages,
maybe the reason why nobody gets divorced is
because it's the culture that nobody is allowed
to get divorced.
Right? So you have to be careful that
just because nobody gets divorced, it doesn't mean
they're all happy.
We could explore the idea that
in such cultures to actually remain married like
that, and not get so divorced and everything,
is that better than for women to get
divorced and then not be able to get
married again,
and suffer in other
ways. You have to remember there's many many
women in our communities in the west who
are divorced and
are wrecked, basically.
Because the society,
our community, doesn't like divorced women. They don't
give them another chance and they blame them
generally,
which is bad.
And if you look at a statistic, maybe
there's just less men, so they're gonna look
for unmarried women,
Especially if you've got children,
especially if they're divorcing of children.
So to be honest,
we have to really think about that, and
like what's the best way out of that,
and suggest certain things. There's even some taboo
subjects in there that you're gonna have to
broach to be able to sort it out.
Because in the time of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, I don't think there were many
divorced women at all.
You got divorced, you got picked up.
Right? You got divorced, there would be a
proposal outside.
Right? SubhanAllah.
To such a degree that Allah
in the Quran had to prohibit proposing while
you're in your idat.
You know when you get divorced and you
have to wait for 3
menstrual periods as idat, the waiting period.
Allah says in the Quran that you're not
allowed to propose at a time. Now if
nobody was proposing, why would he have to
say that?
He says you can give an indication, like,
okay, after you finish it, then talk to
me.
Or let me know, or something like that,
like indicate. You're not allowed to give a
proposal.
So there are
numerous
considerations about that, so I can't say if
any of those are good or bad.
But an arranged marriage,
as long as it's proper arranged, I don't
mean arranged in the sense that you're forced.
As soon as you got forced in a
marriage then you're creating a recipe for disaster,
generally speaking.
But an arranged marriage at all is nothing
wrong with arranged marriages. Like a proper,
genuine, arranged marriage is a good thing.
It's helpful. And to be honest I think
most people would be happy if somebody can
suggest a good person for them. Why would
you not? It's just our
attitude has become, like one person who says
that his daughter always does everything against what
they want.
He tells her if if the mom says
you should buy this red dress, she wants
to buy the blue one.
Right? There is just no trust on the
parents for whatever reason, maybe they made some
mistakes, or maybe they didn't handle it well,
whatever. So finally he figured out the way
to get her to do the right things,
is to suggest the opposite.
Suggest the opposite isn't I want to be
against my parents if she does this one.
Those are weird cases, those are strange exceptional
cases, You see what I'm saying?
So,
I would, as a conclusion, I would say
arrangement is good, people are using us at
websites now to arrange marriages for them,
Again, it depends on what you mean by
arranged.
And, I was not in an arranged marriage,
I found my spouse.
But I knew that my spouse, my parents
would be happy with them.
So I arranged my marriage with their happiness
and there's nothing wrong with that.
Do you see what I'm saying?
It's when
you want to just do something different. Your
parents have some right as well, you know,
they want somebody homogeneous.
They don't wanna have to learn in their
old age something new.
So that's why they want you to marry
someone like them and that's the best marriages
if you can get everybody happy.
Not to say it's haram if you did
otherwise in in some cases, but it's just
ideal. The ideal is that everybody's happy.
That's a good question.
Is there can you is there such a
thing as marrying too early?
Right?
As I said, there are many factors that
you need to look at.
In a default state, normal state, in the
hand of mother,
marriage is a sunnah.
In a default state,
anytime.
Once you're able to marry,
you have the money, whatever, then it's sunnah
to be married. So you'll be rewarded for
marriage.
Shafi' is looking at it differently. They say
it's just mubah, it's permissible.
Better to do Ibadah.
But to be honest, in the world today,
I don't see many people who will give
up marriage just for Ibadah.
They'll probably give up marriage for career, whatever.
Right? Probably not for Ibadah.
The Hanafi mother, for me, just sounds
more accomplished because the Prophetess of Assaf were
married and so on. So anyway, sunnah.
That's what the books say.
When you have desperation,
too much desire, you can't control it,
then it becomes warajib in that case to
marry. Obligatory basically.
So if you're at that stage already, because
there are people who have just been sexualised,
Do you want them just to be doing
zinnah?
Do you see what I'm saying? So now
let's just say your 12 year old kid
came to you, I mean it's illegal man,
what are you going to do with that
situation?
Do you see the difficulty in that question?
Because it's illegal anyway
to to to be married in a country
like this, officially married.
So let's just say somebody's
17, 18 years old, they're still finishing off
university, they don't have the money to go
and
get an apartment or whatever, but you parents
should be waking up to this fact.
Some parents, they're from
another place
where it was more chaste.
Right? It was more pure.
Maybe
they didn't cover properly in those days, they
were not so religious,
but when it came to relationships they were
very particular.
Strange, right? It was the culture that you
did not mess around.
But SubhanAllah, in swede and in the UK,
if you can
avoid zinai, you should thank Allah.
It's so easy.
And parents should understand that fact,
so they should make it facilitated.
So either
help the kid to
control himself
or herself
by holistic methods,
the foods they eat
has a big has a big impact on
this. You know when you're talking about organic
somebody? Right? Not just organic, but just generally
red meats and a lot of other stuff.
Why do you have so much passion?
It's a lot of other stuff. And in
my book, I actually explain
how to deal with excessive desire, * and
all that kind of stuff. There are certain
things. Not staying in bed too long, especially
in the morning and night time. Not reading
in bed. All of these factors, they, because
it's an environment that's created.
But if somebody knows that their their son
is going to commit zina or their daughter
is going to commit zina, and they're old
enough to get married, then they should help
them get married.
I know ideally you would like it that
they got work first, and they did this
first, and they did first, but there's zinna
going on here. So you can't always have
it your way. So you have to pray
to Allah, and you have to make the
right decision based on the circumstance.
My friend's daughter got married the other day.
I was there. I said, why are you
sending her to this other city 4 hours
away?
I'm never gonna do that with my daughter.
He said, Sheikh, don't say that. He said,
we never thought we would be sending her
somewhere else.
But sometimes circumstances just are like that, like
what do you do? You're gonna keep her
at home, and let her get older and
let the chances diminish? Or you're gonna get
let her get married to a suitable person
that comes along?
Just in another city, maybe another tribe, another
caste, or whatever. See what I'm saying?
One is an ideal thing, but we can't
deal with ideals all the time because life
brings up
abnormalities.
So hopefully that provides some understanding of that.
And if you're always looking at ideals, you're
going to get in trouble.
The world is not an ideal place, that's
Jannah, inshallah.
So do the best in your situation, and
if you're doubtful then consult an Adam, a
scholar.