Asif Hirani – How To Maintain A Healthy Marriage
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AI: Transcript ©
Before we can start today's khutba, please make
a special dua for our brothers and sisters
in Gaza, in West
Bank, and in entire Umma, including the brothers
and sisters in North America. Wherever they're struggling,
may Allah give them,
victory. May Allah give them peace and tranquility,
and may Allah establish justice.
The topic which was given to me by
Sheikh Salah was actually,
how to have impactful marriage,
from the guidance from the prophet Muhammad because
he wanted to keep focused on prophet Muhammad
because of the upcoming seerah conference.
I have to just share a few hadith,
and try to make it relevant to all
of us. But before I can start, I'm
not giving you numbers because I don't know
how much time I will going to have.
So depending on the time, whether 3, 4,
5, 6, I'm going to share those hadith
InshaAllah.
But before I can start,
I have seen a general mistake from myself,
from all of us. When we are approaching
any topic,
it's extremely important for us to contextualize
the topic,
before we can even start the topic. What
it means, like, for example, those of you
who are from India or Bangladesh or Pakistan,
I'm pretty sure if you have heard the
there,
your scholars have told you this, that make
sure you don't mix Hindu culture with Islam
because the dominant other culture in that region
is Hindu culture, and Muslims were living in
that culture for a long time. And there's
a lot of syncretism.
Syncretism is a term where you mix other
cultures
and you think it's a part of your
faith. This is called syncretism.
But it actually also applies to us here
when we, Muslims, we are living in the
West. And, obviously, West is known for culture
cultural imperialism,
and we are sitting in one of the
hubs of that. So it's extremely important for
us to have the same mindset
that whatever is the god drill given by
us from the Quran and so now we
should try to take it organically.
And whatever is coming from the cultural value,
which conflict,
not goes in line, goes in line.
But if it conflicts, we need to say
that this is not part of Quran and
Sunnah. So that's something which you have to
do here also. Otherwise, wherever you are living,
the wider dominant culture have a impact or
have a potential to impact your understanding of
the divine message. So with this, Insha Allah,
I would like to start. The reason why
I actually started with this is because we
are living in a modern western culture, and
one of the problems which we as a
Muslim can have
one of the good thing about this culture
is financially we are doing amazing. Means I
have I I took my sabbatical. I visited
4 Muslim majority countries in the summer,
Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi, Malaysia,
and I actually figured out that American Muslim
community
is so fortunate in terms of finances.
We are financially very healthy, and may Allah
make us more healthy.
The downside of it there are pros and
cons. The downside is that the wider culture
can impact us quickly because we are living
in a minority, especially in America as compared
to Europe.
One of the things which can and which
is happening is that
the wider mainstream modern western culture doesn't give
value to God.
It's a very ungodly,
modern, liberal culture.
Once you leave the mosque,
no one values god here.
Our politics for last few 100 years is
extremely secular, hence violent.
Our economics
is extremely secular.
We have many resources,
but the greed also increased, and that's why
people are dying out of hunger. According WHO,
almost 9,000,000 people died out of hunger 2
years back.
That's so many resources. Because not only resources
increase, but once you remove the God from
economics, what else will increase? Greed.
And guess what?
Your family life is also uprooted.
Because once you remove God's name, once you
remove divine guidance
from the institution of family, what do you
think? You will run the family institution with
technology and AI? No.
Technology wise, you will rise, but morality wise,
you will be bankrupt, and that's what happening
in the wider community. Just go and check,
not during the Khutba. Go and check CDC
reports. Go and check Google fatherhood.org.
You will see disastrous statistics.
Almost 45 to 55%
of the kids in America,
How many? 45 to 55 percent of the
kids in America are born without marriage.
18,000,000
kids are fatherless.
This is from fatherhood.org
in America.
The idea is when you remove God
from the institution of family, when you remove
divine guidance from the social institution, fabric of
social institution,
don't you think you will see the punishment
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala?
We Muslims,
when we get married to each other, we
take the name of Allah to make the
men and women halal for each other. That's
the beauty of Islam, to bring Allah back
into your marriage. With this introduction,
keep this in mind that we have to
bring back Allah in our marriage. We have
to bring back Allah in our parenting. We
have to bring back Allah in every institution
because the wider society have reduced the role
in the ungodly society. So we have to
actually have a reverse equation to save our
family institutions.
With this,
let's go 1 by 1. How many, I
think, 3 to 4 hadith we can discuss.
Before we can start, I will just tell
you the authentic hadith from prophet Muhammad,
and I know that
this can easily happen. Whenever any speaker is
speaking about family issues, it's easy for you
all
to idolize the speaker. Man, he must be
a good husband. She must be a good
wife. He must be a good son. She
must be a good daughter. Don't do this.
Sometimes the speaker have more problems than the
listener.
I am serious. Sometimes speakers have more problem
than listeners. You have been ditched multiple times.
If you have to take
anyone as an ideal, take
Because he's been watched by Allah corrected by
Allah
And we cannot expect about him that he
will preach something and practice something.
About him, Aisha, wife, beloved wife of Aisha.
What did he say? When Sahaba asked, what
do you think about the character of Rasulullah
Salaam?
Aisha said
Quran.
I want you to play pay close attention.
Quran means he was a walk in Quran.
Pay close attention. Husband's here. If your wife
is being asked by other sisters, how is
the character of your husband? Our wives will
never say this, my husband is a walking
Quran.
Usually, she will have so much complaints. And
sisters, same thing vice versa vice versa.
This shows the character of Rasulullah salallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
that he was as clean as private and
public. That's why take from Rasulullah salallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
Okay.
Point number 1.
This hadith, if you have to give any
title, give the title husband and wife should
bring back Allah in their marriage, and they
try to do things together
from an Allah centric way. This is the
title. Now the hadith says in Abu Dawood.
Very interesting hadith.
May Allah have mercy on that husband.
Who wakes up at night
and he prays the Hajjut.
And then he wakes his wife up to
pray tahajjud. For
and if his wife denies, maybe she's feeling
sleepy, drowsy,
then what he does? She takes the water
and sprinkle over her face.
What the hadith says, may Allah have a
special mercy on this husband
who prays
the Hajj that in the middle of the
night wakes up and then he wakes his
wife up. If his wife denies then, he
takes the
water, sprinkle over her face, and the hadith
continues.
May Allah have mercy on that wife who
wakes in the middle of the night.
And then she pray and then she wakes
her husband up. And if the husband denies,
then she sprinkles water over his face.
How beautiful the relationship.
But I have noticed this hadith
especially after I started valuing this hadith especially
after
I became imam and resident scholar in American
Muslim community. That's for last 13 years.
One thing we are learning about this,
either you can have a line in your
marriage or your own ego in your marriage.
What happened, husbands and wife, those who are
listening, if you wake your wife or husband
up
at 3:30
by sprinkling water over his or her face.
What will going to happen?
How dare you? Mind your own business. It's
my body, my choice, and all those arguments
are going to come. Okay. Wait a minute,
Habibi.
Is he waking up or is she waking
up for the personal selfish needs? No. They
are waking up for
Allah.
In this hadith in this hadith,
the guidelines are clear.
If you are waking each other up, if
you are reminding each other for Allah,
then make him or her little uncomfortable
so that eventually they will go closer to
Allah.
This is the first lesson we are learning.
If this is the hadith for the Tahajjud
prayer,
then you have to remind your spouse for
even the obligatory things. This is extremely important.
Obviously, you don't lose wisdom. You are not
dealing with the Sahaba.
Sometimes people have different
phases in their life, so you'd have to
use wisdom. But this hadith tells me that
I have to have a Allah centric relationship.
One of the other thing I'm learning from
this hadith that Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
said, it's not enough for you to pray
tahajjud alone as a wife or as a
husband.
If you want a special mercy of Allah,
then both of you need to grow spiritually
together because we have seen so many times.
The husband will become practicing after 5 years
of marriage or the wife will become practicing
after 5 years of marriage and the other
person won't.
And now they will have a spiritual or
religious incompatibility.
Now they will have fights. So wants
both of you to grow together.
This is beautiful hadith. The practical manifestation of
this. Okay. Today is Friday. Habibi. Let's recite
Surah Kahf together. This is the manifestation of
this hadith. Today is Monday. Let's fast together.
When you are sitting in a gathering, you
know, in a family gathering, one of the
things about family gatherings that you will backbite
a lot.
You will gossip a lot. You will tarnish
the reputation of other family relatives.
So ask your spouse to help you, to
stop you. Spiritually helping each other, all can
be practical manifestation of this
if your relationship is built on Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. But if it's not built on
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, then you know what
will happen?
Then your ego will come, and once ego
will come, things will do out of proportion.
Bring back Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in your
marriage. You know,
one of the scholars of Nukayim says,
when we love others,
we love them for the sake of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. Have you ever heard this?
I love you for the sake of Allah.
In your irk book of Allah. Why fillah?
Why for the sake of Allah? My primary
love is for Allah. I love my father.
I love my mother. I love my spouse.
I love my husband. I love my wife.
I love my kids. I love all of
you, but for the sake of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You know what does
it mean? What impact it have? First of
all, psychologically,
it reminds
me Allah is the most important. Primary love
is for Allah. All other love are beneath
the love of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. It means if I'm loving my spouse
for the sake of Allah and God forbid
if my spouse
turns out rebellious,
But if you are loving her or him
for Allah,
it will be easy for you to control
on yourself
because you have Allah
with you. But if you are loving your
spouse for the sake of who they are
and there is no Allah in the picture,
then it would be really difficult for you
to control
if anything will happen.
That's why Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allah centric
love, bring Allah in your marriage. It's extremely,
extremely important in the marriage. And also, from
the
practical life, If you wake up early in
the morning
and if husband and wife are loving each
other for the sake of Allah Subhanahu wa
ta'ala, let's say if husband start screaming on
these small small issues, if wife start yelling
on small small issues, if you are loving
your spouse for the sake of Allah
you know what's going to happen?
You will think that it's the first test
of Allah
in the morning.
It's the first test of Allah through my
spouse,
and I will be patient.
But if you remove Allah
and if you put your ego in the
middle and if your spouse is screaming at
you, then you know what will going to
happen in the morning?
Everything will blow out of proportion.
Bring back Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in your
marriage. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give us
all the 2nd hadith to balance this.
I told you for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
husband and wife have to wake each other
out other up, right, for the Hajjut. Now
just to balance this hadith. This hadith is
mentioned in Sahih Muslim.
After spring,
he went to one of his wife's house,
and
he was hungry, so he asked,
do you have anything for breakfast?
What Aisha said?
Aisha
said, blah, we don't have anything.
And this just, basically a point of realization,
he is real king.
He said, okay.
If you don't have anything, then I will
fast the entire day.
He didn't say, Aisha, you didn't cook anything.
You didn't made anything. You could have asked
the neighbor. You didn't arrange any food. I'm
the prophet of Allah. You should have done
something. No. You don't have anything? Okay.
I want to tell you one thing, brothers
and sisters. When it's for Allah, you are
sprinkling water over your spouse's.
When it's for your own
hunger,
you are saying, in me is an assume.
Okay?
No matter. I'll fast.
Okay. Next day, Hadith continues. Next day,
fasted.
He assumed
that still we might not get anything. After
he went to Aisha.
But just to check, he said, Aisha,
do you have anything today? Even though he
was fasting. And Aisha said, actually, yes. We
have today something.
You know what she said what Rasulullah responded?
He says,
If that's the case, I will break my
fast because I was fasting also.
Allahu Akbar.
This tells us by David, this tells us
two way traffic.
Aisha did not say, I told you we
don't have any food. You didn't provide any
grocery. That's your responsibility.
Didn't Rasoolullah says, you didn't have anything. You
didn't cook anything for me.
They respected each other. Most of our fights
happened because of the materialistic reasons.
Most of the fight. The petty issues usually
come in the marriages. When it comes to
Allah,
they're sprinkling water over the face of each
other. When it comes to personal hunger,
food,
they would say no worries.
What if you don't have food? We have
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, I will fast.
The problem is we are living in a
materialistic
society. We love each other only for materialistic
gains also by the way.
I'm not saying don't love each other for
apparent beauty,
but our love should be spiritual also.
1 of these scholar visited America
in 1977,
Sheikh Abdul Hasan Ali Naddawi,
and this is the first and last time
he visited. He visited Harvard, Princeton, different universities.
In one of the universities, someone asked him,
Sheikh, how did you like
the American civilization and humans in America? You
know what he said? He says,
He says, I saw everything,
technology,
gadgets, whatever was available in 77
except human being, And they said, what does
it mean? In a very respectful way, Sheikh
was also,
is a scholar of philosophy. What does it
mean? So Sheikh said,
we in Islam consider insan, human being, as
someone who have a physical body along with
soul.
After industrial revolution,
I have seen in the west, you guys
have start treating human being as just physical
body as machines. From morning till evening, from
morning till evening, they are running. They are
running behind finances. There's no spiritual nourishment.
So I don't see real human being. I
see only machines here.
Such a beautiful way to convey the message.
We love each other also sometime from materialistic
perspective. Bring back Allah
in your marriage, and you will see the
fruits of it coming out of your marriage
inshallah. 3rd hadith.
All the different incidents I'm telling just connect
it to one theme. Bring back Allah into
your marriage and see how all these advices
are connected, the rasulullah.
Even though it will look different hadith, but
apparently,
Rasulullah sasalam is giving one message, tying your
marriage back to Allah which
is extremely important for Muslims in the west.
3rd, because
western
Muslim
community is being impacted a lot from self
centric and egocentric
issues. If you go to psychologists that you
are struggling from arrogance, if they are not
Sharia compliant
psych psychotherapist,
they were going to say it's self care.
It's self confidence.
No arrogance is haram, Habibi.
You need to actually become humble. You need
to learn humility.
So we have to bring back Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala in our discourse.
3rd hadith,
again in Bukhary, and see how beautiful
how beautifully Rasulullah is explaining this
He says,
He said whatever
a Muslim man or a Muslim woman will
spend in the way of Allah, Allah will
compensate, reward them. SubhanAllah. And then he added
Even
if a husband
takes the bite of the food, morsel of
the food, and from his hand he puts
in the wife's mouth, he will get reward
for that also.
Ask yourself why Rasoolullah salaam is explaining in
such an explicit way. He could have said,
treat your wife, treat your husband in a
kind way, Allah will reward you. Why you
have to give these example?
The answer is, he's teaching us something, to
express love for each other. But did you
see something brothers and sisters here?
Even such a loving moment that husband and
wife are sharing the meal and they are
taking the morse of the food and giving
to the each other, rasulullah connected this to
Allah
that Allah will reward you for this gesture.
Don't do it for yourself. Don't do it
for your spouse. Do it for Allah
Did you see that?
This is what I'm talking about in this
entire khutba. Bring back Allah
in your marriage. We, as Muslims, we don't
reduce
Allah
in the Masjid.
That's a de facto Christianization
of Islam. No. We believe Allah
and his teachings will be practiced when I
will leave the Masjid also, when I'll go
to work, when I'll go to family. And
this is extremely important point. I ask Allah
to give us all wisdom.
Just last hadith I want to share.
Whenever husband and wife are going anywhere,
one of the things that said
that they also need to make sure that
they are spending time together. They are going
in the family invitation in the lunch and
dinner, traveling together.
This is something which we learned from.
There are few hadith, but I'll just mention
one. Again, of Sahih Muslim.
The narrator is,
and so very beautiful incident for for for
all of you to remember and apply this.
He says,
He says, one of the neighbors of
was Farsi, was Persian,
and he made soup soup for Rasulullah SAWS.
Then Fasan Ali
he made soup for Rasulullah
SAWS in his house, and he was a
neighbor, and he invited Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Salam.
Rasulullah, I made soup for you. Please come.
You know what Rasulullah said?
He said,
Is Aisha also invited
or is me only?
That neighbor said,
Only you are invited
because it's he did not get it that
Rasulullah is asking me to bring my family.
Then Rasulullah
says,
Then he said, I'm not coming.
He says, I'm not coming.
The next day, he made soup again, and
he invited
again.
And then
same thing.
Is Aisha also invited? He said, no. Said,
I am not coming. 3rd day he got
it. He made soup and he intended to
invite both, Rasulullah
and Aisha.
So he said, Rasulullah, come 3rd day. He
says,
is my wife invited?
Yes. This time, you and your wife both
are invited. And then, Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Salam along with Aisha, they went
to the his house and they actually had
soup.
What are we learning from this, my brothers
and sisters?
We are learning
the value of spending time together,
the value of giving value to your spouse.
You know, one of the, scholars,
Imam,
when he wrote the commentary of this hadith,
he mentioned
that imagine Rasulullah disliked
attending
a
lunch or dinner or a special meal without
her.
This should teach us a lot. And this
goes both the ways, by the way. After
marriage, if sisters are having their own party,
brothers having their own party, sometime it's
break time, so it's necessary. But if it
becomes a habit all the time, then that's
problematic. After the marriage, you are called
means other half.
So you need to include each other. This
is a right of companionship,
which even basically told tells us the emphasized
manners of gathering.
I will just, conclude this
that these are the teachings, and there are
many, many, many teachings you can
read the books of and any book you're
going to
read, and you're going to see all these.
But the bottom line is if we have
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in our life, if
we are wearing Allah centric lens
in looking at our relationship, our relationship will
have a right priority.
But if you don't have Allah
in your life,
So one of the ways
of coming back or becoming a good family
member is actually becoming a good servant of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
How can you be a good loyal
spouse if you are not loyal to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala?
Bring back Allah
in your life and that will going to
impact your marriage, your relationship with others, and
may Allah give us the ability to do
this inshallah.
And also, just the final reminder,
when we are talking about
bringing Allah
in our
marriage.
Some of you, may Allah protect all of
our marriages, Amin, but some of you might
be going through divorce.
This is a sad reality. It happened between
the Sahaba.
Divorce doesn't make you a bad person in
and of itself.
It's the way you react and you behave
during the divorce and after divorce, we're going
to decide whether you're a good person or
bad person.
So maybe you're going through a tough divorce.
May Allah help you on that.
But even Quran tells us the etiquettes of
doing it, to bring Allah
while you are getting divorce.
Allah
revealed an entire Surah,
chapter of divorce. Allah didn't give Surah.
In that small surah of 2 pages, Allah
mentioned 5 times to be conscious of Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala actually said this.
God conscious. Bring Allah back. Bring Allah back.
Bring Allah back. Bring Allah back. So whether
you're making a relationship
or leaving the relationship, it's extremely important to
have Allah
because our Muslim community
we know how to start relationship in a
decent way,
but we do not know how to end
relationship or dissolve relationship in a decent way.
Even the practicing Muslim brothers and sisters, the
kind of accusations which they will put on
each other,
you will say, where is Allah
throughout the marriage, there was a love, but
then you're getting divorced. There is no Allah
So Allah will leave with you inshallah if
you are patient through the process when you're
going through divorce and Allah
give you the ability to control your emotions.
Just one announcement before we can end, inshallah.
That announcement is that,
next week, inshallah, the entire week, this masjid,
ICF,
is conducting a conference. You must have seen
the flyer.
Many, many different speakers are coming. So I
would really request you all to come and
take benefit from this
conference and learn about Rasoolullah SAWSALAM because in
order to develop the love of Rasoolullah SAWSALAM,
you have to know he who he is.
So it's very important for us to come
with the family inshallah.
And if I'm not mistaken, there will be
registration outside inshallah. So please register yourself and
your family inshallah.
Please make dua for the entire