Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Ultimate Guide to Enhancing any Marriage
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There are some women who and men who
give a standing, running commentary
of their marriage.
Okay? Running commentary on their marriage every day
to their family,
their mom, and then she remote controls the
marriage.
Right? Do this, do that. Alright? Or to
their friends,
a group of friends on WhatsApp, giving a
hold, and they're giving their feedback, so this
woman can't think for herself. I've had that
case.
Right? We got enough soap operas out there.
We got Netflix. You don't need another one.
Brothers and sisters, I think out of everything
Mawna Asim said, I think probably the most
relevant
relevant things for, relevant points for today is
that
I decided to write a book a few
years ago on marriage,
this handbook of a healthy Muslim marriage,
because I,
by then, had been married for over 20
years,
and
I'd been dealing with people's
questions on marriage for about 20 years as
well, on and off.
And then increasing
increasingly so,
in the last few of those years. So
I felt that I was probably qualified to
write on it,
because, I mean, everybody writes books. Nowadays, you
can very easily write books.
So
I felt that it was a need to
write this book because there's just so many
questions, and you had to keep explaining the
same things over and over again. And there's
literally common mistakes that people make and common
issues that
there are across the board in many, many
cultures. Some are culture specific.
Right? However, there's others which are just universal
human failings in marriage and ignorance about certain
experiences. So I thought, let's put it down.
So now, alhamdulillah, people have found the book,
it seems, from, you know, how many we've
been able publish or had to publish until
now, they found it useful and beneficial.
So,
a lot of couples, they're actually reading through
the book, like, to the together, so they'll
read a small section and then discuss it.
Now some of the stuff that I'm gonna
discuss today is gonna be additional content, which
is not in the book. You can't, you
know, get everything because marriage is so vast.
It's so
specific. There's a lot of there's some things
that are universal across the board, right, that
would be beneficial for everybody, but then there's
a lot of unique situations.
So if somebody asks you, can you please
tell us how to improve your marriage? I
can give just like the question is so
general,
I can give general answers to that, but
it won't might not be for your particular
situation,
because,
to get your marriage right,
there's perspective in there as to what you
expect from the marriage,
what you should expect from marriage,
what marriage is supposed to be about, what
is not supposed to be about.
A lot of people think marriage is supposed
to
fulfill x, y, and z. Well, not necessarily.
That's not really what marriage is there for.
So your expectations have to be correct. And
based on your expectations
of what marriage should be for and what
it's actually for or not for, there's going
to be so many variants.
Right? Plus,
marriage has a huge cultural dimension to it.
Whether you like it or not, it's something
you cannot escape.
In fact, nobody can escape culture.
Even those who hate culture,
they just they've just basically picked another culture
or developed another culture. Culture is
essentially what you do and why you do
it, and your ingrained ideologies, and what they
make you think and do and so on.
That's essentially what culture is. No human can
be without a culture.
Right? So it's just about developing a good
culture, getting rid of bad aspects of culture,
and adopting
and celebrating the good aspects of our culture.
Remember that culture is going to be
the most powerful
usually, for the majority of people, culture is
the most powerful factor in your life.
Even if you consider yourselves to be not
cultural, all that means is I'm probably not
part of my father's culture or my mother's
culture. I've just developed another culture.
Right? You can never escape culture.
That's why what you can do, though, is
you can take the best of any culture
and modify your culture and free yourself
from debilitating aspects of your culture.
So that's a very, very important discussion, and
culture has a massive,
really, really, really big
influence on a marriage. You can't escape it.
Also, a lot of people think that marriage
is just between me and my spouse, and
that's a major fallacy.
Unless, of course, what you do is, you
get married, and then you just go off
somewhere, and live alone on an island, and
get to know one another, and that's all
you're worried about and there's nobody else there,
then I guess you have to worry about
the animals around you and the nature around
you, they become part of your family. Right?
There's always going to be some we live
in a quantum world, and there's no way
to escape that. I've seen cases
of a couple,
Gujarati and Bengali,
husband, Gujarati,
Bengali, outside of culture, they married, essentially, and
they literally made it a point to say,
we are acultural,
meaning
no culture. They both said that. They were
both probably known in their family to be
against culture as such or
thinking of, essentially, you can say, removing the
shackles of culture in their mind almost. Right?
So they decided to do that. But within
a few months into their marriage, they decided
they they discovered they started discovering you can't
escape this stuff.
And then they both had to fall for
the culture
because and then eventually, they got divorced because
it was on the wrong grounds that they
got married.
So celebrate the good aspects of your culture
and free yourself from the debilitating,
incapacitating
aspects of your culture.
So culture's part of it, and your family
is always going to be part of it.
Remember, when 2 people get married, the whole
family gets married. That's the idea, and socially,
that's the idea. In fact, many of the
marriages of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, were
much bigger than that. There were tribes coming
together.
Tribes
both in the Ottomans and in many cultures,
many many many civilizations in the world and
many people in the world, only now maybe
not in our individualistic,
postmodern society,
where it seems like it's okay just for
2 individuals, and let's ignore everybody else.
Even then, what you're ignoring is just maybe
your family, but you can't ignore people around
you at your work and other places.
However, marriage is a big idea. When people
got married into another tribe,
that means that these two tribes became allies.
That was a major in fact,
they would literally try to find somebody,
the leaders. The prophet marriages, some of them
were like that, to Juairiyah
That was to do with
a tribal she was the daughter of a
tribal leader,
Sophia
Bintu Hayyay
again, another case. She was from a Jewish
tribe.
So and that that's that's what they used
to do, to get married into another tribe,
and then we've got
marriage contacts now, we become like family.
So marriage is a big idea, and I
don't think people understand
the profundity of marriage.
It's one of the most important things, when
you bring more humans into this world through,
in the Islamic
understanding of it, in the human understanding of
it.
So, that has to be a very, very
powerful idea, a very deep idea, a very
important and significant idea.
It's not like I find somebody who I'm
attracted to, who I'm
really impressed by and maybe obsessed by and
fallen
emotionally attached to, and I can't get away,
and that's it. We're going to have this
romantic idea. Romance is just a perk on
the side.
But in terms of, really, what a marriage
is supposed to fulfill, there's a lot more
than the romance.
Romance, I think, is just the incentive
that Allah has put within us emotions,
and love,
and fulfillment
through marriage. You know, the sexual fulfillment that
you get, that's an incentive at the end
of the day,
to procreate,
right,
to to have children, to continue the human
progeny. That's what Allah wants in this world.
Right? That's why he created a world and
created human beings to procreate.
So that's one of the objectives of it.
And anybody who gets that wrong, they're just
not doing it right. So can you see
how many facets? It's a very, very multifaceted
institution marriage.
When you don't understand that dynamic of it,
when you don't understand
that comprehensiveness
of this, and you reduce it down to
something silly or just something
simplistic
or just basically nafsi
nafs based egotistic
fulfillment,
then that that's that's when you start losing
out on this, and that's when you don't
get the full fulfillment of marriage. Somebody asked
me a question several months ago
that,
if you've been married for, you know, over
5 years, I think,
20 years or whatever it is, right, when
you get to about 20 years, does the
love increase? This guy had just married recently,
maybe 1 or 2 years, said, does the
love increase?
So that got me thinking that, does the
love increase?
I think if your love hasn't gotten to
a very firm place within 2 to 3
years, probably maximum,
then you're doing something definitely wrong.
Like, within about 2 to 3 years because
what happens in marriage, these are just general
thoughts, right, I'm starting off with to give
you guys some thinking,
to do on this, is that you get
married. Right? So, essentially, the dynamic here is
that
if that's, it's a similar it's a similar
idea, but just much more intimate, because it's
a 24 hour thing, similar to me picking
a business partner and doing business together.
Or if you want to go smaller than
that, on a shorter in a shorter duration,
if I decide to go with somebody on
a journey, a month's journey somewhere.
Right? So what's going to happen is that
we're going to have to get used to
one another.
I have to figure out what they like
and dislike. They're going to have to figure
my likes and dislikes.
What kind of food do we like to
eat? So the next time we choose a
place to go, then we both know that
this is our middle ground. We we both
will enjoy this, because one guy might not
like pasta or rice, and so on and
so on. Simple things.
So you get to know one another. Right?
You're learning to know one another in marriage,
so that you don't upset them, and they
don't upset you.
And you
accommodate for them, and they accommodate for you.
You can't know everything about a person until
you actually start living with them. So slowly
slowly, you start developing that understanding of each
other.
Think of it, right? That's that's what happens.
So you might even end up having certain
debates and arguments and conflicts. That happens in
the beginning. And if you're really serious, both
of you, right, both of the couples are
serious about making it work, they're gonna they're
gonna do sacrifices.
They're gonna invest time. They're gonna go, and
be compassionate
and contributing,
and they're going to try to make an
effort to please the other person and not
do something that bothers them. So if it's
a minor issue I can overlook, no problem.
I'd rather overlook that than to insist it's
my way. Now, once you've got narcissistic personalities,
in that, then it's just, if it's only
one narcissistic one and the other one's just
willing to bend over backwards, maybe it'll carry
on for for for a while and maybe
forever, but with some unpleasant,
feelings and maybe just with total,
people aren't gonna be happy.
Right? Neither side will be happy, but there's
ego on one side. Right? So it just
carries on, but it's not a very happy
marriage. So you both need to make that
sacrifice.
You can start off with 1 person who
does have ego problems and does have anger
issues, but if they're willing to make this
work, because they understand it, then they're willing
to curtail their anger. They'll actually learn within
their marriage. I know a number of people
have actually learned to control their anger through
marriage.
They've literally had to because they know that
there's too much at stake here.
Like, marriage is an amazing place to learn
a lot of akhlaq.
That's what you need for marriage is akhlaq.
Out of all of the deen y aspects,
aside from salat and all of that, which
connects you to Allah, the actual interaction is
all based on akhlaq and character.
So what happens is that
it's going to take a few months,
within a year, 2 years. Now, what happens
is that the world throws at us various
different aspects. So let's say me and my
wife get married, and in terms
of everyday,
normal everyday life, going work, coming back, shopping,
etcetera, we've overcome the hurdles of that. We've
overcome the conflicts in that regard. Like, we
might both go for shopping, and then I
might want to buy certain types of products.
She might want to buy another type of
product. I may be fine with
shop brands,
store brands. She's like, no. You have to
buy Heinz,
for example. Right? Or Kellogg's.
You can't buy store brand. You can't shop
at Aldi. We must shop
at Waitrose.
Right?
You understand? I can't buy George clothing.
It must be Debenhams is gone now next,
for example, or Harrods, if you really wanna
go up Selfridges or something. You understand? You
eventually if you both want to
get somewhere, you will both convince one another
and reach a middle ground.
That's really important. You reach a middle ground
by
listening to the other. If you don't listen
and it's my way for example, if my
wife comes from another village, another family, as
as she does,
they make Biryani for Indian Pakistanis. That's very
important, like, the main dish. Right?
They make it a different way. There's multiple
ways to make biryani. I mean, I've had
I remember last Ramadan in Australia,
in a very multicultural society, I was in
Atikaf. 7 days, we had 7 different biryani's,
literally.
Hyderabadi biryani, Bangalore biryani,
a Gujarati biryani
from different places.
It's there's there's a lot of biryani's. Right?
You can have. Now if I'm going to
insist that it must be like my mother's
biryani,
then I must realize that she did not
learn under my mother.
She's got a different style of biryani, and
I find, a lot of people, what they
do is that, didn't your mother teach you
anything?
That's what it gets down to.
You just don't realize there are various ways
of doing that. Have some patience. Now, I'm
only talking about husband and wife, I'm not
even talking about mother-in-law yet.
That adds a whole bigger dimension to it.
Right? So
you have to eventually, look, I appreciate that,
Biryani, but could you also learn my mother's
style, because I really enjoy that?
Now, the wife has to be, obviously, accommodating
for that. The mother-in-law needs to play ball
and teach them that as well.
Then she can make 2 types of biryani.
Now if the wife's gonna be stubborn, no.
This is my way of biryani. I don't
care about the other side of biryani. You're
gonna have a frog. That's just an example.
Clothing,
having children or not, how to bring them
up, what kind of clothing
each of the individuals are gonna wear. I've
had cases where
the the wife's,
you know, even, you know, an iqabi, but
she likes to dress in what the husband
reckons is not very good clothing.
So there's that tussle. There's there's good multiple.
There's just multiple things you have to overcome
within 1 or 2 years. But if you've
never traveled together, for example, in 2 years,
and then the 3rd year you start traveling,
that's gonna add a whole new dimension to
it. I know couples who've
just about divorced during Hajj,
because, you know, Hajj is already a stressful
situation.
So I would definitely not say don't go
on a honeymoon honeymoon for Hajj,
Like, really, because Hajj is already difficult, especially
if you've not done it a few times
before. It's very difficult, and then shaitan is
really there to mess everybody up. So there's
been people who've divorced in hajj,
because it's just very stressful.
Right? And then to learn about one another,
you know, what time we're gonna go to
the tawaf, and what time we're gonna do
this, where we're gonna eat, what time you're
gonna go some other time, I wanna wake
up at this time to go. What are
these other but I say within 2 to
3 years,
you get to know one another and you
figure out that's only if you wanna invest
in one another and if you wanna make
this work. Because you have to give sacrifice.
You can't have it your way. Otherwise, that's
gonna be a miserable marriage. And if you're
the one who's right all the time, then
you're gonna be celebrating alone all the time.
Right? You will celebrate, but you'll celebrate alone,
and then people are going to be miserable
all around you. That's a really big issue.
So selfishness does not work.
So that's why going back to the original
question, within 3 years, I think you'll figure
it all out. And if within 3 to
5 years you still haven't, and there's just
still surprises, and you just can't,
come to terms on certain things, then that's
very, very problematic.
You need then, you need outside
counseling. You need outside intervention. And if you
don't get that, then
you probably, after 20 years, will probably have
a divorce.
Because in the last several months
to a year now, I've dealt with about
4 cases, or 5,
which are 20 to 25 year old marriages
with
over teenage children, young, young adult children, and
now they're finally gonna divorce.
Why? Because
it's literally just been going down for a
long time, but they don't want to do
anything about it,
and a lot of them are waiting for
miracles
to sort it out. They're not willing to
take a stand and actually do something. They
literally just think it's gonna become when they
call, and they literally leave you no option,
so you then ask them that, what what
do you expect me to say that's gonna
change your marriage?
Like, literally. Because when you tell them, do
this, oh, no, that can't happen. What about
this? No, that can't happen. I said, what
what do you expect me to say to
you?
If you don't take the bitter pill, then
that's why that's why
my experience from all of this is get
help sooner than later.
Right? Get help sooner than later. So
if you if you have made if you
are willing to make the investment and be
flexible
and become a unit that complement one another
and take the strengths of both individuals
and,
deal with our own weaknesses, because every single
human being is created with a package of
weaknesses
and a package of strengths,
like a selection.
I'll talk about this in a bit more
detail,
in the next section, but keep that in
mind. Everybody.
There's nobody who's perfect except Allah's messengers, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, and
Allah.
Everybody else has issues.
Yes. If you're experienced,
you're
a you're a professional in something, you probably
will be right most of the time.
Right? Like, if I'm experienced in jujitsu,
I'm probably gonna be right about jujitsu most
of the time, but still not a 100%
of the time.
Anything.
You know, you're you you are an expert
in something. Yes. You could be most of
the time,
overwhelming majority of the time, but never all
the time.
And you'd be surprised that sometimes somebody else
will come up with an idea that you
never thought about.
Okay? So, when you keep that in mind,
so after
after that 5 3 to 5 year adjustment
period,
then it should be relatively
easy sailing.
Okay?
There'll still be ups and downs, but, you
know, you know one another, and you know
where to negotiate, where to push, and where
to take a step back.
So then, what happens is, I think, the
love the question was, does love become
increased? I don't think so. I think that
increases that increase of love is within the
1st few years. After that, I think it
just becomes more refined.
The love becomes more refined,
because then you start appreciating one another.
You start appreciating one another, and you already
know how to overlook the weaknesses.
Remember, there's always going to be weaknesses. You
can have never have someone who's perfect, because
neither are you perfect,
because no human can be perfect.
You know, I think that's probably one of
the biggest,
lessons, is that if we can realize that
we're not perfect, and we're not going to
get anybody who's perfect,
then I think that's the biggest lesson you
can have. Just like in life, if we
can learn that you can never have a
perfect life or change your definition of a
perfect life,
that there will be calamities,
problems, and hiccups in life, which are part
and parcel of this world, not in paradise.
Right? Paradise is just full air fear. Hellfire
is just full problems. This world has both.
And when you learn learn the nature of
this world, then then it gets easier. So
I think, I think
what happens with love is it gets more
refined.
It gets more
sophisticated.
That's really what happens when you start appreciating
one another. You'll get married, and you had
certain like, if you're a perfectionist, so you've
got a criteria. So you get married with
somebody, hoping that they're gonna meet that criteria,
and very soon you're gonna realize
that
some things
well, you better realize that in some things,
they're probably never gonna
be up to your standard in some things.
In other things, they could be. You can
definitely teach one another.
You can definitely enhance one another,
but there'll be some things that they will
never,
never be able to accomplish.
That's just a weakness.
Right? And not everything can be sorted out.
You just have to live with that.
And coupled with the dua of the Quran,
Allah has a dua Our Lord grant us
from our spouses.
So husband can read it
for wife or wives, wife can read it
for husband,
and that
means
children and progeny,
that Allah just thinks big. Right? So it's
progeny until the day of judgment.
I want those from there who are the
gladness of the joy of my eyes.
And make me the imam of the muttaqeen.
So everybody is an imam in their family.
The husband, the wife, they're imams of their
families at the end of day, because they've
got a role to play. Right? So he's
saying, make me an imam for the muttaqeen,
which basically is saying, make the people under
me or in my charge rather,
righteous and make me their imam.
So it's a beautiful dua. The ulema say
that this is such a wonderful dua, right?
A magical dua. They literally some have said
that it will
what Allah will do when you do this
dua is that the things that bother you
about your
spouse, he'll either get eliminate those things so
that those faults will be eliminated if they're
eliminatable within the
the the knowledge of Allah, or they will
become insignificant in your sight.
Have you noticed that before where something bothers
you first, but eventually, you overcome the bother
of it? It's still a problem, but it
doesn't bother you anymore.
So you have to think on all of
these levels to get this right
because it's a very, very important aspect. And,
can you've probably already noticed that
the marriages that you might have seen which
are bit on the rocks are probably because
of some of these issues.
These are this is basically the
the crux of the matter, the whole journey
of it.
Right? Of course, there's detail in every aspect
of this. So,
it gets more sophisticated.
It better get more sophisticated.
We learn about one another. We learn everything
about one another.
And
different personalities
just take
less time to learn about one another.
Some people may be very extroverted, some people
are very introverted.
So all of that just adds to the
mix
of that challenge, but you must be open
minded,
flexible, and wanting, and and selflessness is very,
very important, otherwise, it doesn't work.
So what I'm going to discuss
is,
the the next part the the next part
that I'm gonna discuss
is essentially something that is beneficial at any
level of marriage.
It's beneficial for those who are not yet
married,
beneficial for those who are just married, and
it's inshallah, it's also beneficial for those who
are veterans in marriage.
Any veterans in marriage here?
A
veteran is probably
somebody who's probably over 20 20 years of
marriage,
and they're gonna get their children married very
soon. Yeah?
So at least 1 veteran in marriage. Yeah.
No. I've had, I mean,
I think,
I got married at the age of 22.
I was supposed to get married at 25.
I got married at the age of 22,
and I think I've never looked back. I
I wish I'd done it at 20.
Right? You know, I think it really, really
provides
an amazing amount of sukoon, and that's what
it's supposed to do. If you do it
right, that's what it gives you. So I
wish I'd done it before.
Right? I mean, in in terms of how
good it's been, how good it can be.
So
what I'm gonna speak about now is preparation
for marriage. How is that relevant to those
who are already married?
Because if you have if you did not
prepare in what I'm saying, it's probably causing
you problems.
So that's why while I call it preparation
of marriage, you can take it as enhancement
of your marriage. So there are some things
you can correct afterwards.
Right? It's not like once, I remember, I
was trying to buy a car, and there
were 2 Honda Accords, this was in America.
One of them had AC, the other one
didn't, but that was a better deal.
So I was like, can I buy both
and you can take the AC out of
here and put it in there? I said,
no. No. You don't do that kind of
stuff.
So you can't retrofit
those kind it's not worth it. That's just
too much of an effort. But what we're
speaking about here is that all of these
things I speak about can be sorted out.
Right? I'm not talking about somebody's color. Right?
That might be difficult to correct. Right?
Or somebody's height.
You understand? That's not what we're speaking about
here. We're speaking about things that can be
corrected,
that can be changed, that can be enhanced,
and that can get worse. So,
firstly,
let us look at what preparation means for
a lot of people. What does preparation for
marriage mean? So let's start
off. The first time you start speaking about
marriage, right, is when you are about 16,
17 years old,
18, or 19,
and one auntie of yours
will broach the subject and say, yeah, we
need to get you married.
We need to start looking for something.
And then you feel very validated. Yeah, man.
This auntie really gets it. Right? There's something
you might have thought about, and somebody has
discovered that for you, so you get a
bit excited. Butterflies in the stomach. Right? Anybody
remember that? That first encounter, first discussion of
marriage, anybody remember it?
No? You do? Right? Yes?
The rest of you, nobody's done that to
you or
it didn't happen? You just went into it?
Okay.
Anyway, then, what happens is that when you
do find somebody to get married. Right? So
let's say you've discovered somebody, you've identified somebody,
and you've agreed to get married to them.
So then there's all of these crazy rituals
and everything about when we have to make
sure everybody from other countries can get here,
and they just unduly delay, and you are
like, just let me get married. Right? I
don't really care for anybody else.
But some people make it very, very difficult.
Let's just say that you're gonna get married
in 2 months or 5 months,
then you start preparation.
Preparation means now every weekend becomes
shopping week.
That's why they say that the best marriages
are those are gonna be in 3 weeks.
You only have to do 3 weeks of
shopping. You get it all done. Otherwise, every
week it's a headache and a hassle. Right?
Then
you have to worry about who you're gonna
invite.
You have to worry about venue. This is
all preparation. Venue, who you're going to invite,
what the cuisine or the food is going
to be, who's going to cater. All of
that stuff is,
all of that is what you have to
worry about. What you're gonna wear on those
few days.
Right?
A dress for
the the wedding day
and sometimes for the 5 days prior.
Right? And then the next day, the Woleema
day. Then maybe you have to worry about
a honeymoon.
The guy will probably have to worry about
where he's gonna stay. So the room or
an apartment or a house or whatever to
sort that out.
K? Clothing,
all of that is what you worry about.
How much of this, except obviously,
the house where you're gonna stay, how much
of this is gonna help you afterwards?
Not much of it. When the real you
know, when the romantic period is over, when
you come back down from the clouds,
okay,
when the real,
when when the real interaction begins in just
normal everyday work,
right, when you start living together,
where you can't go out as much as
you used to before, you can't, spend the
same time doing what you used to do,
and now it's about a new investment,
Who's prepared for that?
Hardly anybody prepares for that. They prepare the
room. They might prepare clothing,
right, and things like that, but they don't
prepare the actual
most important ingredients for this, which is the
behavioral aspect.
This is when that starts.
Nobody prepares for this.
Right? Nobody prepares for this. They just think
it's just gonna happen.
And a lot of the time, it it
doesn't just happen because we have issues within
ourselves
that are really going to cause issues, and
those who are married know know what we're
speaking about, possibly.
So what do we need to then prepare?
How do we prepare? This is the most
and I have not covered this in my
book.
Right? I've not covered what I'm gonna say
now in my book. This is all new
content.
So what I did was before,
when I prepared the book
and before I published,
before I sent it to the printers, I
sent it to about 20 different people to
read beforehand and critique for me. Majority of
them were women.
And the reason for that, I wanted it
to be relevant for women as well as
men. I've never been a woman
and
never will be a woman.
Inshallah.
Right? Men don't always understand women. You have
to recognize that, and women don't understand men
all the time. But I want it relevant.
So majority I sent majority of those 20
people or so were women. There were some
alimas, and there were some other regular people
and some other professionals.
And I took their feedback
and I incorporated their feedback.
And alhamdulillah, people have found that useful. There's
one person I get back. This was a
guy who said, you've not spoken about
premarital counseling.
I mean, we're struggling with in marital counseling.
There's just not enough counselors. And this guy
was talking about premarital counseling. What does that
mean? Okay.
And that's very, very important. So what I
am
while I've mentioned it in there briefly,
what I'm gonna say now is basically not
in the book, is how do you premaritally
counsel someone or yourself actually? You can actually
do this yourself.
You start off with yourself.
So I must now think
that what is it about me
that is going to encroach on a marriage,
that's gonna cause some issue in marriage?
Because it usually causes issues with my friends,
with my brothers and sisters, or in group
settings.
What are the challenges I face? Now going
back to the point I made earlier
is
that
every human being
is born with a set of weaknesses
which are challenging.
They get angry quickly,
they're stingy,
They
are overly emotional,
right, and and so on.
And they also come with a set of
qualities,
advantages.
The successful human being in anything are those
who discover their
qualities
and discover their weaknesses and do something about
them and harness their qualities to get something
out of this world. So you look at
successful people,
right, who are doing decently, that's what they've
done. And the losers are the ones who
have not figured this out.
Right? That's a simple thing. This is what
I tell children now. Right? This this this
will help you for tarbiyat of children. Every
one of your child will have a set
of qualities
and a set of weaknesses.
We have to even twins,
one will be laid back and one will
be go get it. 1 will be angrier
than the other. 1 will be greedier than
the other. Right? 1 will be smarter than
the other.
All of these have pros and cons,
and we have to discover that within ourself
as well. So I need to figure out
now what what is it gonna that's gonna
cause an issue possibly?
So, can you guys think of things that
are factors in marriage that cause issues in
terms of behavior and personality?
Some factors. Then we'll discuss those, because we
need to self diagnose. So I'll I'll open
it up to you guys. What do you
think? Give me a few ideas.
Stubbornness is definitely an issue. Okay. That's one.
What else? I think power. Stinginess is definitely
an issue. Power struggles.
Power struggles. So that usually comes from arrogance
and stubbornness.
Right? That's really what it comes down to.
It creates a power struggle.
Right? What else? Financial
Financial incapacity,
you could say, or in in in incompetence
or something like that. Yeah. Definitely, finance is
a big one. Empathy. Sorry? Empathy.
Empathy and compassion, definitely.
So,
these are some of the issues.
So we have to think. So let's take
one. Let's start off with anger.
How do you know you've got an anger
problem?
Right. How do you know you've got an
anger problem? Very simple. Compare yourselves to you
if you've got brothers and sisters. Compare yourselves
to them. Are you the one that flies
off the handle sooner than others?
I think I did compared to at least
2 of my brothers. I think I'm I
had a bigger anger problem.
Compare yourself to your friends. Who's the one
that kinda gets riled up quickly?
Whether rightfully or or otherwise, especially, you know,
because because we love ourselves, so we're gonna
justify a lot and be defensive. But still,
you have to think about this. If you've
got an anger problem, what helped me a
lot
is,
the readings
like Ghazali,
Rahimahullah,
you know, the readings of our masha'id that
speak about these things. A
number of others Hakimulumba
and a lot of readings like that the
verses of the Quran about
those who control their anger, the hadiths about
it. Abu Zar radiAllahu anhu once he's got
a little dispute with somebody and they're out
in the fields
which has got a lot of, puddles on
the ground. And during his argument,
during his little heated discussion, he sits down.
So the person is wondering, they carry on
the discussion, then he lies down. He said,
what are you doing? He said, well, prophet
told me to do this.
Because usually, the studies have shown that you're
less confrontational when you're sitting than when you're
standing, and you're least confrontational when you're lying
down.
So that's why they say, just a side
point, if you ever wanna critique someone,
you wanna tell somebody something wrong than done
and try to sort them out, Don't grab
them outside the Masjid and say, brother, I
need to talk to you and then take
them to the side and stand up and
because then that's very confrontational.
What you do is sit them down.
And if you really
can, lie them down
in a nice, you know, a nice setup,
give them some, some nice
snacks to eat, and then start. That's what
shrinks do. That's what psychologists do. Right? They
make you comfortable first because you're less confrontational,
you're more accommodating,
more agreeable,
and and and so on. Right? So
a lot of these things help. Now if
somebody's got severe problem, they can take an
anger management course. There's lots of help on
online, lots of help, and you just search
it. You'll find written pieces, you'll find videos,
lots of and that you can find proper
courses. You don't have to tell anybody about
this. You're doing it for yourself. So if
you're not married yet and you wanna you
wanna sort this out, or you are married
and you know this is having an issue,
own up to it. Go and take us.
Don't even tell your spouse. Just go and
sort yourself out
and Insha'Allah
Insha'Allah that will enhance you owe this to
not just yourself but your future generations
because the way you're gonna do things right
now is gonna impact your children and your
grandchildren and everything else.
Everything matters here.
Everything matters here. The way you do things,
it's like where you hit the golf ball.
In a football, it's not that much of
a I mean, it does make a big
difference as well, but in a golf ball,
it makes a bigger difference. That's how we
have to think. A little millimeter
and it's many meters off track. You owe
it to yourself, take a course
and sort yourself out
and ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for assistance.
Ask Allah for assistance.
If your spouse
has the ability to just naturally be a
therapist,
then you'll help yourself as long as you're
willing as well.
But if they're stubborn then then no. You're
not always gonna get a therapist of a
spouse who are who is a therapist without
realizing it. They just got the knack
to calm situations down. Ask Allah for such
a spouse
because they're very helpful spouses.
Be one like that for your spouse.
Right?
That's number 1. Let's take another example.
Another example we'll take is
emotion.
Okay. How many of you consider that they
have an anger problem?
Okay. We've got about 4 guys here, 5
guys here.
Only 1, 2,
3. Okay. 4.
Yeah. It's good to recognize this. I mean,
it's we're not looking at anybody else here.
That, yeah, I know somebody like that. You
might do. It's really about ourselves. Let's take
another example.
And another aspect, another big behavioral aspect is
emotion,
sensitivity.
So at small things, you start crying,
and you go off, and you stop talking.
These are all extra sensitivity. Small, small things
bother you. Very insecure.
Right?
And you just don't have that kind of
confidence or whatever. What do you do with
that then? You get help.
It's not gonna sort itself out just like
that. You need to recognize it's a problem
and then get some help. There's, again, a
lot of help with this.
So for example,
there's a guy there's a there's a woman
I know who got married
to somebody who
who has 2 sisters and a brother in
the house that are both disabled. They're physically
challenged. But she was still willing to marry
into it, knowing that she's gonna have to
serve that family, and she's fine. She's very
selfless.
And she's got a mother-in-law, but no father-in-law.
They got married, and then the mother-in-law has
this emotion problem.
So
they're the 2 kind of, sane women in
the house.
The others have mentally challenged. So
whenever something little
misunderstanding or whatever, she stops talking to her
daughter-in-law for
2 days.
How can you live like that?
Right? How can you live like that? Is
that how you deal with it, just stop
talking to people? That's lazy.
That's very lazy. Once my kid came home,
he was about,
I don't know, 6 or 7 at that
time, or 8.
And just in conversation, he says that, oh,
I'm not talking to my friend. Like, I
stopped talking to him.
I overheard that conversation.
I said, hold on. Where did you learn
to stop talking to someone?
You don't you just don't do that. You
learn that from people.
That's how others do it, so you think,
oh, I'm gonna do it. I'm just like,
I'm not gonna talk to you anymore.
Where did you learn that from? None of
us in the family do this.
You know, nobody in my family does this.
Me and my brothers, we will have an
argument. No problem. But we don't stop talking.
We just deal with it. We just say
what we need to and it's done.
Right?
So that's how he told me, you can't
do that, you need to deal with it.
I said, you need to make du'a for
this guy, because this is a guy that
you're going to be with, you know, in
your classmate for the next 2, 3 years
until you finish that school.
And you're gonna constantly have to deal with
this. We have to teach our children to
manage these kind of emotions. Usually, people grow
up if they've not been taught how to
manage emotions,
because emotions can be managed.
So he said, yeah, you don't ever stop
talking. Yeah. There are valid reasons to stop
talking. If they're a big fitna, then you
want to avoid them. But otherwise, no. Just
have a discussion,
clarify, get it done.
But what happens if you're just so teary
and you just get emotion?
Well, let's put it this way. You're wasting
your tears. You're you're crying for free.
There's people who on the 27th night can't
cry. They try their best to cry to
Allah, they can't. And there you are, just
pouring it all out for free. Like, what's
the point of that?
Right? So what should you do? So I
can I mean, there's lots of help online?
Let me let me give you 2 suggestions
that because this was a big issue. So
I did consult, and one of the best
one of the best solutions I got for
this,
2 things. Number 1,
get into
the habit of reading the Quran
with meaning.
So invest in a translation
and start reading. Whenever you feel let down,
emotional,
sensitive,
pick up the Quran,
start reading, and you will find multiple things
to cry about.
So pour your pour your release your emotions
there, and they'll be much more valuable than
doing it for free
where nobody helps you. No way. You don't
get anything.
That's one thing. Now you can't always open
up a Quran stuck crying, can you? What
you do then instead is you raise your
hands to Allah and cry out to him.
So don't waste your tears.
The tear that is in front of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is much more useful, much
more beneficial.
So is there any emotional people that, like,
find crying very easily and stop talking,
like crying easily? Anybody?
So nobody.
Usually, it's in women. More in women. So,
yeah, there's more there. But, yeah, try this.
Believe me, it's very, very helpful, and you'll
just develop a relationship with Allah, and he'll
give you.
So don't waste remember, that's that's a weakness,
but it could be a strength.
That's the amazing thing that Allah has given
you. Right? It's a weakness,
but it can
be adopted
and modified as a strength. Just channel it
in the right direction.
Okay. So you understand now that's otherwise, you're
gonna mess your marriage up.
You're gonna mess your relationships up. You probably
already are doing that.
Now you'll be that stronger, confident person, insha
Allah. Because you're not going to cry in
front of anyone, you're going to cry only
to Allah, and you're going to strengthen yourself.
Okay. Number 3.
Let's take stinginess. Somebody mentioned stinginess. Let's take
that. Now that's a big issue
because that nobody enjoys stingy people, do they?
Now in here, it's worse in a man
than in a woman,
in a husband wife relationship because a man
has to spend.
Right? If you've got a stingy wife, that's
actually very good in some cases.
Right? Because they'll really protect, you know, because
the guys I hear complain, my wife just
spends too much. There's one guy there's one
woman who came, and she said that my
husband asked for an itemized
bill or itemized report of where, where she
spent the money.
Alright?
Now what do I say about that? Good
or bad? Well, it just depends. If some,
because there are some people who have a
spending problem.
Right? So, obviously, they need to be reined
in by the wife or the husband, whichever
side it is.
And if you don't have that issue,
we can discuss
the exact shari'a guidance and advice on how
that all works,
but that's an issue.
Now if the husband is spinji, though, that's
going to mess up a marriage.
Right? That's going to be worse because he's
the one who has to spend. So now
look at this,
a bit of fiqh here, right, a bit
of jurisprudence here, is that your children,
if they've got their own money,
they're 35 or 6 years old, they got
their own money, from Eid money or for
gifts or inheritance or whatever, then do you
know that you actually can use their money
for their
expenses? So you could literally if they're using
a room in the house, which they will
be, you can actually charge them a rent
from that. I don't suggest you do, but,
technically,
you know, if you're struggling,
so you would be valid to it. You
don't have to spend if they have their
own money for the food, for their clothing,
for whatever else, you can actually take from
their money to spend on them.
That's completely fine. Yeah. Where they don't have
money or their money is has a shortfall,
you're obliged, the man. The the the father
is obliged to spend on them, right, and
earn for that.
On the other hand, like, you know, a
lot of people ask this question about child
benefits.
Can I not spend it's actually the government
gives it to you as the parent, usually
to the wife, to spend for the family,
usually? So it's actually not the children's,
but you get it by virtue of having
children.
So it's not obliged, and usually we spend
enough on the children to justify that anyway.
So it's not like, oh, that's that's I
can't touch that money. It's actually for you.
We've got a whole fatwa written on our
fatwa center about the reality of
child benefit and where you can spend it
and so on and the nature of it.
However,
what's really interesting in our sharia is that
even if your wife is a millionaire,
the husband is still responsible to pay for
her food, clothing, and and lodging.
Even if she's a millionaire,
literally,
the husband's required
according to their,
family standards.
Right? What that basically means is that if
you've got a wife that, that
that usually shops at
Next,
then you can't force her to shop at
George, Asda,
or Primark.
Nothing wrong with those places, but they might
find that that's so it, there's difference of
opinion here, but I think what they eventually
say is that it's based on husband and
wife
standard.
If she's,
usually their family shops from Primark, then cool.
Right? Unless you're like thrift store.
Right?
Or whatever. But you understand where you're going.
Now, if you get somebody whose family shops
at always designer, Selfridges, Saks Fifth Avenue,
Harrods, then if you're gonna bring an elephant
as a pet, then you have to feed
them that much.
Right? You understand? I mean, if you have
a pet, then or you have a big
guzzler of a car, then that's how much
your insurance is gonna cost and that's how
much I'm not making any other equations. I'm
just saying that,
you know, if you're gonna get a really
heavy car, then you're gonna have to put
that much pain. You can't complain about petrol
afterwards, can you?
Right? After you get a 7 series and
you're complaining about petrol, go and get a
3 series then.
You know what I'm saying? So
that's basically the way the fiqh works. It's
based on culture. Can you see where the
culture comes into it? It's based on the
culture of the husband and wife. That's why
they especially say for wives, for the women,
don't ever get married to somebody substandard to
you because that's gonna be tough. For the
man, it's okay for him to be, you
know, getting somebody on a higher level because
he's usually the responsible person in the house.
But for a wife, that's very tough, psychologically
in every way. Unless she's willing to do
it, then it's fine. She's willing to come
down to that level.
So now, basically, what I'm saying is that,
yes, if she wants luxury items beyond their
level, you know, she wants luxury items, well,
yes, she can spend her own money on
that. Right? But otherwise, it's the husband's response.
Now, if he's stingy, there's going to be
a problem. So I got a call once.
His wife is complaining that the husband is
very, very stingy.
Okay. So, usually, when they say that, you
ask for examples because you want to get
down to the bottom. Like, what exactly do
you mean by stingy?
So we've got old furniture in the house.
There's a cupboard that the door
is just about.
Now, what I did was, it's just about
surviving. And I said, but why doesn't he
go any one? He says, well, we don't
really it works.
Right? So I said, let me talk to
the husband. So I talked to the husband,
and he goes, look, it works. Like, it's
okay, you know, and I don't want to
waste money, I don't want to do israf.
Now, until I don't see it, I can't
really give a judgment, but based on what
they're saying, it did sound a bit stingy
there. Right? There was another issue. She had
gotten into the whole health thing,
healthy foods. So she wanted organic milk.
That's not going to happen, is it? Right?
So,
now I took the husband to a side
on the phone, and I said, look.
You know, your marriage is gonna mess up
like this. It's a big issue for your
wife. We need to give something here. Right?
We need to sort something out here. Maybe
not everything, but we need to start somewhere.
So I said, okay. Let's
how much does organic milk cost compared to
normal milk? Right? So does anybody know what's
the difference between a 4 pint of organic
to a 4 pint normal?
It's not double. I don't think it's doubled.
At one time, it was about 50p or
something. Now it might be, much more, but
I think it was 50, 60p. Does anybody
know? Anybody into it? Yeah. How much? May
is that is that from Waitrose
in Nasdaq? The last time I checked, I
think it was 60p because we bought organic
milk for a few times. Anyway, okay, 1.50.
Maybe it's gone up.
So I made a calculation with him. I
said, look. This is how much I I
said, how much milk do you need in
a month in a week? So he said,
this much. So I made a calculation. I
said, it's probably gonna be
at that time, it was about 60, £70
extra
a year. I said, you're gonna mess your
marriage up for 60, £70?
A lot of the time, we we have
to give I might not be I might
not believe in organic milk.
Alright?
But
sometimes you just have to let the other
if it's not gonna have a major impact
in your life, people need to be happy.
So stinginess never works.
Stinginess means that, for example, let's just say
everybody gives your children edi.
Do you know what edi is?
Right? Everybody knows edi is eat gifts. Right?
So they're giving your children eat gifts, and
you're like, brother, this is bida,
so you don't give anybody else, but you're
fine to take it, because there's no sunnah
of that. So your brother, this is bitterahya
ahi.
Right? I'm not going to give anybody Eid
gifts. That's stinginess. There's a fundraiser going on,
and everybody's crying and, you know, weeping about
what's going on in, you know, wherever it
is in the world, and they're paying, you
know, £500, £1,000,
and more than that, and you're worried about
£50.
That's stinginess.
Stinginess in the sharia. You see, again, you
might naturally be stingy.
That's not a problem. That's the weakness. That's
a behavioral trait that Allah has created you
with. You're not punished for that. You're not
blameworthy for that, but you are blameworthy if
you don't take care of it. You allow
it to overcome you in a place where
you're supposed to not be. So where is
it wajib to spend and can't be stingy?
Where is it farat?
Zakat.
If you don't pay your zakat because your
Maizen stops you from doing that, you are
sinful big time. That's when you will be
sinful for that trait.
Or sadaqah,
that you'd be blameworthy
or wear social obligation.
So for example, you go with your friends
to eat,
and when it comes time, when everybody's finished,
and it comes time to pay the bill,
the bill is coming, you go to wash
your hands.
Some people, they go to wash their hands.
Some people go to the cashier to try
and pay in advance of everybody else.
Just figure yourself out.
It's gonna cause problems. It's probably already causing
problems.
So sort it out. How do you sort
out?
Trust in Allah.
Trust in Allah. And when you start spending,
you realize that you actually don't lose.
You do you you actually get much more
out of it, and you actually don't lose.
When you spend, you're not gonna think back
and say, oh, I spent that money. I
don't have that. Allah replaces.
And what you you know the amazing thing
is that if you spend on your family,
within reason, it's a sadaqa.
Can you can you believe that? If I
give money to Umma Welfare Trust for Palestine
or wherever,
and I spend on my family for their
needs and their comfort to a certain degree,
I get reward because this is a sadaqa.
You get rewarded for spending on your family
as a man or as a woman if
you if you wanna if you've got the
money and you wanna spend on there. Right?
You know, when it comes to Ashura,
it's like we have competition in the house
now. The children are grown, and, like, everybody
wants to because, you know, you get barakah
for the whole year if you spend extensively
on your family. So there I am trying
to bring stuff, and my wife's trying to
get stuff, and my son and daughter are
trying to give stuff.
That's the real time for EDs, really, I
think. Right? And Ashura.
So, yeah, get rid of your stinginess problem.
Do you know that there was
a Sahabiya? She is the sister of Hinda,
Hind, the Abu Sufyan's wife, and
she was proposed
by
Zubayr ibn Nawam
by Ali radiallahu an,
and by another
really prominent Sahabi, she rejected all of them.
One of them was Amirul Momina. Her name
was Aliyu Umar radiAllahu an. Right? My assumption
is that her sister went through a stingy
husband.
Right? Hind, because Abu Sufyan was very stingy,
apparently, and the prophet actually gave her permission
to take,
whatever was needed.
It's a fatwa. The prophet gave her that
you can actually take from your husband
without him knowing to spend on your needs.
Now I'm not giving you that as a
fatwa here because
you might misuse it, but, yeah, if you
do have the issue, consult a scholar and
then maybe you can do the same thing.
But I think she learned from that, so
she refused all of them. Not that they
were stingy, but Talha was called Al Fayyad.
That was his name,
and his title,
very, very generous.
Right? Now don't don't not get married until
you find a very, very generous guy because,
you know, you you you have to balance
everything out. So You understand where we're going
with this. Right? Sort out the issues before
it comes. Okay. A few more, and then
we'll break for prayer,
while we're on this topic. Another one is,
if you're really into your friends or you're
really into your families,
then you get married,
you're gonna struggle,
because you're gonna have to give up some
of this. You can't be out every day
while your wife is there. In some cases,
I've seen the guys out with his mates,
right,
because that's what they used to do.
And she's there waiting with the food because
she doesn't want to eat without him. They're
waiting 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock,
11, 12, and then she falls asleep with
Charlie.
Right? That's completely wrong. You can't do that
anyway. You're going to have to invest in
this. You can't say, no, I'm not going
to change my life. Well, that's you better
change your life.
Once this move once it gets going, 1,
2, 3 years,
then, you know, you kind of understand each
other, you're confident with one another, you have
security with another. You you can do other
things. It doesn't mean that and wives and
husbands should not be so possessive of one
another that they don't allow the other to
do. It's not you do have to have
other things in your life.
Likewise, the problem we have with a lot
of women is that, especially if their parents
are very close,
they like to spend too much time at
their parents' house. This is your new house,
and you have to realize that. I just
got a call 2 days ago.
Literally and this guy, the husband is a
bit over the top. He only allows her
to go twice,
right, a week.
Right? And I don't know the background, so
there could be reasons. Sometimes you learn bad
things from your parents' house because there's some
something going on. There could be multiple reasons.
But I did tell her that I think
your husband's overdoing it, but at the end
of the day, you got he he he's
willing to divorce her if she doesn't listen.
So he's saying that he's saying that on
the Wednesday, she can go on Saturday when
he's at work, and then on the
Wednesday, she can go from the morning,
but she has to be back for when
he comes back for lunch to serve him
lunch.
And she's having a problem with that. I
said, well,
that's quite a few hours in the morning,
given your situation. I'm not talking to your
husband, I'm talking to you. Given your situation,
that seems fine. Just come back. He said,
No, but he wants it his way, and
all of that. It's more of an issue
of, like, why is he trying to control
me? Okay? So I said, look, then,
just, make a stand. No, he'll divorce me.
So I said, what do I do now?
I can only speak to you. Make dua
and try to use soft power to make
him secure enough that eventually he'll let you
go. So I said, but isn't that enough
hours? He goes, no, but they wake up
at 11 o'clock.
My family member, they woke up at 11
o'clock.
I said, okay. You know, there's not much
I can do about that. But
people get into these kind of situations,
and, culturally speaking, some people really have a
problem with this.
There's a belief in some cultures that if
we brought the girl over,
it's they look at it as a
insult that they keep going back to their
homes. It's like, we don't provide you enough
here.
Right? In fact, some are so extreme about
this. If the wife brings from her parents'
house food, these the the this family will
not eat it. They see it as lower
than this. It's a very bad, debilitating culture.
Right? Should be very casual about these things.
But there are some women who, and men,
who give a standing, running commentary
of their marriage.
Okay? Running commentary on their marriage every day
to their family,
their mom, and then she remote controls the
marriage.
Right? Do this, do that. Alright? Or to
their friends,
a group of friends on WhatsApp, giving a
hold, and they're giving their feedback, so this
woman can't think for herself. I've had that
case.
We've got enough soap operas out there. We've
got Netflix. You don't need another one.
Right? There's a case where a woman
did that.
She was always consulting her mother, and one
day, her mother said, you know what? From
now on, I don't want you to tell
me anything. I want you to deal with
it. So she felt very, very bad.
But then after that, the relationship actually improved.
And then when she had a discussion with
her mother, her mother told her why. She
said, look, your husband is yours. You know
him better than I do. My experience is
with my husband. He's a different personality.
So I can only give you certain advice.
Your mom doesn't have all that advice. In
fact, sometimes your mom will have bad advice,
like, let me tell you that, and they're
very biased.
That doesn't mean you completely avoid your your
mom, you do really need to realize if
your mother is biased or not. There's a
woman who's 40 years old. She's finally come
out of a marriage that she's never been
happy with, but with 3 children.
And she was actually doing okay, because she
then started an Alima course and had something
going, had the deen. There's a lot of
others who are depressed and totally messed up,
and some have left their faith because of
this. So she got married, blackmailed into a
marriage.
Some cultures are worse than others in this
regard. You know, to a cousin or whatever.
Blackmailed because her father was going through some
heart problems. She didn't want to marry this
guy. They said, your father's going to, you
know, if you get sick, it's going to
be all on you. She got married, and
she just couldn't get along with this guy
because he was a bit of a loser.
Alright? And then she went to her mom,
how long have children?
As though that's going to help. She had
one child
and then still no problem. Have more children.
He saw himself. That is I've seen in
marriages, that is not a solution. It is
in a few cases where having children bring
them, they anchor,
they get responsible, but not in the majority
of marriages. Not necessarily.
It's not a solution all the time. Okay?
So,
alhamdulillah, she finally got out of it, and
now she's happier.
She, she's much happier. So
keep that in mind. There's multiple other things
like that. There's multiple other things like that.
You're gonna have to invest in this new
marriage. You can't do everything that you used
to do before.
Right? You need to invest in this, and
then after that, figure out the adjustments. There
are some spouses that are too possessive.
And it leads to paranoia,
It leads them to start checking their husband's
phones,
and emails,
and check on them, and you're just kidding
yourself.
Right? You're mining for misery, essentially. You're mining
for misery. That's what you're doing. And it's
a it's a circle, that they get into,
and they can't get out of it. Get
help if you're in that situation because it's
not healthy for you, right, whether he's doing
something or not. Husbands obviously should not flirt
around and do thing and bring that paranoia
or keep telling, I'm going to get married
again.
Right? They shouldn't do this unless they're really
serious and they know what they're talking about.
Okay? So,
these are a number of these things. Then
there's a lot of other things. I mean,
the wife's in bed, the husband's on a
laptop in another room, right, seeing stuff that
he shouldn't be seeing. There's lots of stuff
like that. Addictions are gonna be a problem.
Football is gonna be a problem.
Like the guy is just into his football
too much. He has to go and play,
or he has to come and watch football
every night for this many hours or play
games for that matter. You know, it could
be, oh, it's the wife on her WhatsApp.
You know, I've had a complaint of a
really dignified individual in our community, that his
wife's always on WhatsApp even when she's cooking.
Right? And I'm thinking, in subhanAllah, the prophet,
the wife used to come and complain to
the prophet about their husbands praying all night
and not coming to bed because of that.
Right? I said, how it's changed now.
Right? How things have changed now. And this
could be either way. It doesn't have to
be, though. This is just the example I'm
mentioning
to you. There's lots of distractions now. That's
why you have to balance everything. You have
to balance you have to balance everything.
So this is the way to prepare yourself
for marriage.
Can you see the preparation? This is what's
gonna matter.
This is when,
what's really going to matter. That's why when
you look for a spouse, look for a
package of qualities that are relevant to marriage.
Don't get married because she's beautiful
or he's wealthy,
because that's not all what marriage is about.
Marriage is not just about beauty.
Yes, that would be wonderful to have beauty.
I'm not saying discount it, but that's not
the only reason. So you don't get married
to somebody so beautiful, masha'Allah, that you're going
to bring them into your front room, and
you're going to have a special place for
them, a stage, and you're going to watch
them all day because that's what marriage is
about.
Is that what marriage is about? You don't
buy a car just because it's got the
size of an engine, but the seats are
not very good. The experience is not very
good. It's not very reliable. What's the point
of that? If you're going to buy anything
or you're going to get anything, you need
to have a package of qualities.
You need a package of qualities.
So what are the qualities relevant to marriage?
Look for those. Not just one. Oh, she
dresses well.
So what? That's not the only thing in
marriage. That's a one aspect. She cooks amazing.
Look at those Instagram videos she's got.
Look at that baking stuff. Wow, man. I
wanna get married to her. Is that what
you're gonna do all lie all your life?
Is that what marriage is about, just eat
cakes?
Right? He's flashing his cars, or he's flashing
his Rolexes,
or whatever. Is that what you're getting married
into? What about behavior?
What about kindness? What about the way we're
gonna live together? Can you see? Don't be
reductionist and just look for one quality. It's
what a lot of people do. They look
for one quality, they get besotted with this
quality, and then that's
it.
No. This is just one quality.
It's just one quality.
Right? Look for multiple qualities that are relevant
to what you're trying. This this works everywhere,
whether in a partnership or anything.
Don't just fall for one point,
because everything is made up of multiple qualities.
So let us stop here. Any questions on
this, we'll take after salat, insha'Allah.
And, I'm just giving you a way to
think. There's a lot more things than that,
but these were some of the big issues,
right, that are gonna impact your marriage or
are impacting your marriage. Sort them out.
Right? Get some help, and Allah help us
to sort ourselves out and improve our marriages.
The point of a lecture
is to encourage people to act, to get
further,
and 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 their 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 organized lectures,
on demand whenever you have free time. Especially
for example, the Islamic essentials,
course that we have on there. The Islamic
essential certificate, which
you take 20 short modules.
And at the end of that Insha'Allah, you
will
have gotten the 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 leave, you know, to listen to
lectures. But you need to have this more
sustained study as well.