Bilal Dannoun – The keys to a successful Marriage
AI: Summary ©
The importance of marriage in Islam is emphasized, with success rates based on ready marriage and due diligence. The success rate is taught in the workplace and is taught through trust in relationships. People often overestimate their ability to trust others and become]].
AI: Summary ©
aim of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, may the peace of Allah be upon our final prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Welcome everyone to insha Allah is to be a wonderful dialogue with one of Sydney's one of Australia's one of Oceana's most prolific marriage counselors, the man himself. Chef, we lead the unknown, who doesn't need an introduction, however, he is going to receive when a child
has been allowed
Hamdulillah. Now we all know, Chef believes the unknown, and his specialty in marriage, and marriage counseling and whatnot. However, I want to zoom out to about 1520 years ago,
which shouldn't be that unknown started, like most students of knowledge, learning Arabic language, sitting at the feet of the Messiah,
becoming involved in the community. And this is something that every single one of us here can achieve and can do.
Well, he found
his specialty, he found an area where he could impact and he focused upon that area. Besides the hotel he gives, the lectures he gives the community engagement that he is involved in. Besides all of those areas. He has specialized and been specific and nurtured a trajectory in marriage counseling, saving countless Muslim marriages, both in Sydney, Australia, and abroad through online mediums.
The shirt has that much impact that doesn't have one or two or three WhatsApp groups will countries in Africa, but he has African WhatsApp groups just for each country to Vedic Allah. And this all happens while the will of Allah azza wa jal from
his office in Sydney Australia.
For for us to be in the presence of someone who is giving us his time, and an area that he has
so much experience in is a blessing for us for Inshallah, I'm hoping tonight to learn how I can strengthen my marriage. And I hope everyone here listening online, and in the crowd, both brothers and sisters, have the open hearts. If your wife forced you to come here, have the open hearts. If your husband forced you to come here, have the open hearts.
We all need those extra tips to reconnect with our spouses. Because at the end of the day, marriage in Islam is seen as a form of worship. And as we perfect that will do we perfect our solids, and we perfect our fasting. We perfect our pilgrimage and we we perfect those get. Likewise, we should perfect the way that we do with our spouses because at the end of the day, have the right intention. Your spouse may be your ticket to Jana. Chef, if you use that line, I wanted to say
hello chama Cha. So we'll start in sha Allah.
Now, the topic tonight is based around a successful marriage.
Now to ask you the question of the finding and successful marriage will be quite difficult in the time that we have. How would you approach this question? In our circumstance, so we live in Sydney, Australia, or the West in general, possibly both husband and wife are working. And it's quite difficult for us to give as much time to each other as we would like to.
So I believe that there'll be some aspects in a marriage or if some aspects in in the development of an individual in creating the person who can foster a successful marriage.
How would you approach this for our lovely audience? Zach Allahu Allah and hamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah,
which is our Kamala Hayden to our host Merkaz Imam Ahmed, and to our brother what was Samer for hosting me tonight in sha Allah, I'm looking forward to a very productive in sha Allah and informative session.
Before I answer that question,
brother Abu semer reminded me about a very important question that each and every one of us should always be asking. And that is the question, what is your project for the sake of Allah?
Has anyone ever thought about what their project is going to be? That is purely for the sake of Allah in terms of some goals, some outcome, something that you want to leave behind for the sake of Allah? And if you haven't thought about that question, it's not too late. You need to start asking that question to yourself. Whether it be that, you know, I know that one man for example,
he said to himself, my project for the sake of Allah is that by the time I die, I'm going to make sure that there are I'm going to contribute enough most Huff's enough core ends, as as old as I am, when I die for every day. That's one person, the other person, he said, I'm just going to invest in my wife, to be a remarkable wife so she can bring up remarkable children. So those remarkable children can also be the forefathers of my future generation who are going to be also ambassadors of Islam. Another person, they said, I'm going to build a masjid another one said, I'm going to have water wells all around the world. Whatever it is, it each and every one of us has skills, has
abilities has strengths, find out what your strength is, and
transform that strength into something that's going to be for the sake of Allah, it could be you're good with money and numbers. It could be that you're good with the youth. It could be a good at writing, whatever it is, tonight, do not leave without asking yourself that question. And insha Allah within the next 24 hours, make sure that you can ask answer that question is what is my project for the sake of Allah. And so one of my projects for the sake of Allah is to have healthy relationships is to ensure that I can contribute towards healthy relationships. Because what we've seen over time, is that a good marriage is going to keep you happier and healthier, full stop, that
the quality of your marriage and your relationships to a very large extent, will determine the quality of your life and your giving for the sake of Allah subhanahu wata Allah. You know, there's an Arab proverb that says it's better to have 1000 enemies 1000 enemies outside of your home, but don't have one enemy inside of your home. And Allah azza wa jal says, Will Allahu Allah, Allah, Allah come mean buut come second that Allah has made for your from your homes, a place of Sakina. Second is second coming from Sakina where you find
so ensure that the home is a place of tranquility. Now we go to the question that brother Ali Abu Salah has asked me is around the topic of having a successful marriage. Where does it begin, it begins before the marriage, it begins by you being the best version of yourself, by you, being remarkable in your Islam remarkable in being a provider if you're a male, being a provider, and happy ensured that you're ready to get married, and to be financially resourceful to be able to maintain a marriage. If you are a wife to be, then you need to be ready physically, mentally, to bring up children to look after your husband to look after your husband's home. So you need to be
ready and you need to do a lot of due diligence about what is it that is expected. Okay, leading into the marriage, what are my rights? What are my obligations? What are the needs of a man? What are the needs of a woman? What are the challenges that come with marriage? These are questions that we need to know and have answered before we even get married. So where does a successful marriage begin? It begins before the marriage in Malaysia. Some time ago, I remember reading a statistic. And that statistic said that
the divorce rates in Malaysia was very high. At one point it was in the high 30%. And then the government wanted to say, look, what is it that we can do to really bring down this alarming statistic rate? I mean, in the Western world, in general, over 50% of marriages end up in divorce.
Right. So Subhanallah what they did is they introduced mandatory pre marriage counseling that you
that you cannot get married without having done some certificate of pre marriage counseling to prove that you're ready to get married. And when they did that, the statistics came down. 10 years later, that statistic went down to a little bit under 10%. And that's significant. What was the difference? The difference was three letters in Arabic. I can learn me
LM and we are the we are the owner of a crop, we are the the OMA that needs to be very intelligent in every area of our lives. And most importantly, when it comes to marriage and how to navigate a healthy marriage, the scholars of fic have actually dedicated a chapter to marriage bourbon Nikka. Write the chapter pertaining to marriage and everything to do with marriage, to show us the importance of marriage, and how we can have a ripple effect on every other area of your life. You know, in my setting day to day with many individuals, we see how an unhealthy marriage is going to have devastating effects, and how it impacts the physical health and the mental Health and the
resilience to feel better. It impacts how much money you going to make, you know, I had a brother recently, he's got a toxic, he's in a toxic marriage. And he has to now move out of the home whilst he's trying to mend his marriage and spend some $750 on rental because, you know, extra from the other rental home, because it's just too toxic and too dangerous at home. So it's an impact how much money you're going to make. You're not You're you're not the best version of yourself, you Annie in your marriage, how could you be the best version of yourself outside of your home? So to answer the question of where does the success begin, it begins before we even do the NECA insha Allah.
So just bouncing off that in regards to
the aspects in Malaysian, what avenues Do you believe we have? I think you have a on demand course, that's been pre recorded, it's professional, could you touch base on why you implemented that shift and how many lives you believe it's transformed thus far.
From the Malaysia model, and other models, we see that there is a need for those who are about to get married to learn and to unlearn and to relearn, because unfortunately, unfortunately, many of us have learned how to navigate a marriage from parents who they themselves were in toxic marriages, or we've learned to from Hollywood or Bollywood. And you know, we've learned to from maybe Yanni, some other cousins, uncles marriage or what have you. So we need to be going to the right resources. And so when I saw the Malaysian model now, I did some studies around the statistics, I saw that the the the the success rate of those who did a marriage or pre Marriage Course, was 85% more success than
those who didn't do the a marriage course. So hamdulillah by the by the will of Allah, I crafted a marriage course that combines between the Islamic elements and modern day research into relationships and the contributors to a happy and a thriving relationship. Now, even when I say modern day research, even in the modern day research, it's a lot of it if not all of is based upon the Quran and the Sunnah teachings, but where they have beautifully what they have beautifully done is being able to present it or dissect it in a way that's Jani, relatable to a lot of people. And so Subhanallah many, many years ago, when I started sitting with couples and listening to their
problems, I realized that it was beyond just saying to the couple, you know, you need to fear Allah or you need to have a subber or you need to have my word or you need to have Rama or Aretha loca where Munna Allah and he said that men are the maintainers of the wife, or if a wife prays five prayers, and she finds her month a month of Ramadan and maintains a chastity, chastity and is obedient towards her husband, it will be enter, we said to her enter Jannah through whichever of the gates you wish to enter through, and we can go on and it just, it wasn't really resonating. So then I had to start picking up books and looking at what's Why am I not really connecting? What am I not?
What am I not doing that I need to be doing to ensure that the message is clear. And so this is when I remember I picked up one of my first my first ever books from a non Islamic perspective. And that book was men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. And interestingly, this book, it's about gender differences. And we'll learn
I learned so much in what Allah says in the Quran, where lay said that Kuru can unfair, that the male is not like the female, Allah said it in a few words. But many of us don't know how to do justice to this particular verse from the Quran. But now when I looked at, then I went back and looked at that book, and I looked at many other Jonnie Subhanallah, literature, we started to blend it all together. And over the last 20 odd years of me being in the space of marriage, and counseling and divorces, I decided to really think about what's going on on the grounds. So in Hamdulillah, Allah blessed me to produce a very comprehensive online marriage course, you can listen to it in the
in the comfort of your own home, there's basically lots and lots of tips and strategies on how to navigate America, you can even gift it to your children who are getting married. So we just really, I just thought this is going to be my project. This is the project that I want to leave behind to ensure that, you know, children can grow up with in healthy family units with you know, Hamdulillah, very decent, very respectable, you know, parents in sha Allah. So that's a little bit about the marriage course, you can visit the website, Muslim marriage courses.com, in sha, Allah Huhtala. To check it out. For more information, just take a look at a show just human. You mentioned a very
important point that, that healthy families, and we'll skip right to the concept of intergenerational trauma. Now, you mentioned that many of us have grown up in toxic households or may have been exposed to trauma throughout our childhood. And this without a doubt will affect our personal relationships afterwards, and our own marriages afterwards. Now, navigating that space requires a lot of patience, knowing that that space requires a lot of acknowledgment and self awareness.
In your, in your experiences. Is that usually the problem of marriage? Or is it the individual has previous baggage that they are trying to overcome? And they force it into their marriage? So for example, if you were to look from the lens of the Sharia,
now,
many young brothers, unfortunately, they weaponize a hadith and aIot against their wives.
And vice versa. And the issue here isn't a Quran and Sunnah issue. The issue here is a personal problem of control and power. What advice would you give because at the start of a marriage in the first year, that's where everyone's testing each other. She's testing him, he's testing her. They're trying to mold each other and get used to each other. After the honeymoon, the roses over the flowers are over.
Everything colors, that's it, it's now real me real you. And this is where these perceptions and his baggage starts to play. And I mentioned this specifically because sorry, brothers on the left microphones this way, I'm not giving you my back, my apologies. But the control and power element here were in a time where there is so much we'll say incorrect understanding of masculinity, and incorrect understanding of femininity.
Were both trying to tag each other to their understandings. And the Quran and Sunnah has been lost in between this, between their personal understanding of power and control, and how the Hadith and aids fall into place. How can we as a community address this problem? And as individuals acknowledge and address this problem?
That's a loaded question. Yes, I was going to say it's a loaded question, we're going to unpack it. Inshallah, in bite sizes, we're going to go right back, you use the word baggage. And every single person is going to bring baggage into their marriage. We've all got baggage of some sort. But if you know anything about baggage, right, there's going to be checking baggage and this carry on baggage. Which baggage do we want to bring into the marriage that's going to be allowed allowed to carry on or the check in?
Carry on because the check in baggage what weighs? weighs almost 30 kilos, right? It weighs a lot, right, depending on which airline Of course. So yes, you don't want to be bringing in all of this baggage. Okay? It's okay. I've got some baggage. We all do. We've all got some insecurities. We've got some fears, we've got some weaknesses. And Allah subhanaw taala created us differently and hamdulillah no problems there. But if you have, if you have check in baggage, my advice to you is go and get that checked out. Go and get that screened. All right, get you know, make sure that you do the work and one of the most profound
And Yanni Subhanallah quotes that I absolutely love. And I repeated a lot because I really fell in love with it. It made so much sense when I was counseling, so many people and I couldn't quite connect once upon a time and really understand what's going on is around the area of trauma. And specifically, this quote says, If you don't heal, what hurts you, you will bleed all over those who never cut you.
Right. So that means many people are coming in with these open wounds, and they bleeding all over their spouse, they're bleeding over their children, they're bleeding over their family, or because they've never done the work. So the first advice with this regards, if you are traumatized, if you have separation anxiety issues, if you have trust issues, trust issues, okay?
If you have fears of any sort, my advice to you is go and speak to someone about it. And preferably, it might not be one person, by the way, it might be that you go to the chef to get an Islamic perspective. And then you go to a Muslim welfare worker or psychologist, right, who feeds Allah who has an understanding of Islam, but also has an understanding of some of the strategies that you can implement to ensure that you become a better version of yourself.
I cannot stress this enough. I cannot stress this enough. Right. And I have so many examples. I don't know if we should give an example or not.
So anyway, so sometimes, you know, what's interesting about trauma is that you could have been traumatized. And you don't even know that you got traumatized or you got traumatized at such a young age,
that you were too young to even remember it, but you carried it with you for the rest of your life. Okay. And you may not even recall anything about it. Right? So I remember I had a sister in my office, and she just had a lot of trust issues when it came to her husband. Lots of trust issues. And I just couldn't work out how has he cheated on? You know, they've been married in more recent times? They
where's this behavior coming from? Why do you have to, you know, bombard him with messages every day? And, you know, bomb his phone with calls and what have you, and what's going on here? So the next question, when I start to see that there's a behavior, that doesn't sound right. I quickly ask about the upbringing. I asked about the parents. Tell me about your parents. Tell me about your parents marriage. Right. And then when we started talking, what we discovered was that I asked your mom and dad, your parents are in good relationships, because yeah. And then just somewhere in the conversation, we learned that her dad is married to two wives.
And then upon hearing that, we know, for the most part, that when it comes to settling into this type of an environment, there's usually a lot of clash, that young children probably witness their parents going through or their mum going through, but they didn't. And then And then things settled. So she thinks her mum and dad and my stepmom, they all get along well, but she can't probably remember what happened with her seeing her mom cry and things like that. And when you start to unpack it, you see that there are even insecurities that you yourself cannot even recollect. So, in sha Allah hooter, Allah, if you need help, get the help that you need. Now, if it's too late, and
you got married, and then you discovered that your partner has insecurities, has trust issues, has separation, anxiety issues, whatever issues that they have, then you become the support person. You do it for the sake of Allah, you don't weaponize it and say, I'm your husband, you have to listen to me and obey me. And I'm telling you not to, you know, bombard me with phone calls and things like that. That's not going to be that's not going to make your relationship strong.
So again, you need to work with outside resources outside individuals that will help insha Allah navigate the marriage. Now, give me another bit in that question that we have to address. So
masculinity or before that
to the actual masculinity femininity, all right.
Okay, so in a day and age where we have, you know, words like toxic masculinity, or we have the feminist movement or we have misogyny, right, all of these terms now that are very prevalent, you know, thanks to certain influences, and certain
ideologies and big G's and what have you.
Okay, so, what is the Muslim stance, the Muslim stances, we already have our, our role model, and that is our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, we already have the Quran, we already have the Sunnah that dictate to us in no uncertain terms, how I should be as a male and how I should be as a husband, How shall I should be as a female and how I should be as a wife. So as a husband, you need to be you need to understand that you are going to be the Imam of your home. You are the Imam. Even
if
you know even if we had like a chef come to your home, right? Even if a chef comes to your home, you have more right to leave that chef in your home than that chef has right. Okay, so So you are the Imam of your home. That's one thing you have to remember that you are the one that needs to ensure as a male, that your family members go to gender you have that responsibility. And Allah says so when the Quran two and Fusa comb, were Alikum now run Waku to her nurse who will Hijra protect yourself and your and your family, your wife, and your family members from a fire whose fuel is people and rocks. So you have a duty to be the Imam you have a duty to be the financial provider,
none of these 5050 I'm going to work and you're going to work that's not from Islam.
Islam says you are the husband and you need to be the provider for your for your household. Allah says where Allah will lose the law who is Kahuna work, he swore to Hoonah Bill ma roof, that you as a father, you have the duty to provide for your wife and for the the offspring in what is the MA roof what is the known and the customs. You as a man if you want to look attractive, in front of your wife, you need to play the role of a leader not a dictator. You lead you don't dictate. Do you know why the feminist movement came about? Because men stopped being men,
when men stop being men who's going to be the man.
So we need to be men in sha Allah Who to Allah, and ensure that we are playing our roles, not as dictators not weaponizing, Yanni as the as our brother Abu Simon said the Hadith and but but as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Rifkin Bilka were here. Go easy on the fragile vessels. Be easy, be gentle, and there be your sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said, Makana reef Kofi che Eliza Anna woman who's shy in Illa. Shana, whenever you apply gentleness, anything, it beautifies it when you remove the gentleness, it disgraces it, be gentle, be firm, be a man be courageous be just be just as a man. This is what it means in Islam to be a man Wallahi when you go back, and you study
the Sierra and I recommend the parents to have books in their homes that are biographies about real men, like Abu Bakr and Omar and oath man and Khalid Abdul Walid. This is what we need to be implementing and bringing back to when it comes to masculinity. When it comes down to femininity and being a feminine, right, it means you have a loving nature.
It means that you are agreeable, you're not a doormat, but to a large extent you are agreeable.
You see, you see, it's about polarity. It's about men being men and women being women and part of being a woman is being agreeable to, to a certain extent, not being a pushover. And part of being a man is actually being somewhat disagreeable.
That's part of being a man. Right? And
That's why we would recommend reading the books about the biographies going back to being a female, and Nabil sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
He said, A dunya Matera hieromartyr I don't want to say that this world is a place of joy. And one of the greatest joys that you can enjoy in this life after marriage is a is for there to be a righteous wife, a righteous wife. So if when you're choosing a wife, then make sure that she has piety and that she's righteous, that is beauty.
And of course, you know, there'll be much more to all of this and we go in detail in the course but like we said, we're just going to inshallah scratch the surface, and start just getting us thinking in sha Allah hooter, Allah, about how what we need to do to to be the best version of ourselves, as husbands, as wives in sha Allah hooter, Allah, and shall shall, now being a mixed girl, today, both brothers and sisters, will start from those who are looking for marriage from an earlier age, and how to
attempt to seek marriage, as you said earlier, that a successful marriage starts prior to the marriage. Now, in a society like today, where our youth are being exposed much earlier on, to sexualization, in general, where they're being exposed much earlier on, should they be married from the age of 1617 1819? Or should they first experience life? Should they mature first? Should they be someone who, for example, the father or the mother figure, who tells them Okay, now you're ready to get married? What do you believe, is the benchmark here because in the Sharia, it's usually up to the custom. But the custom today, people get married of 35. And it's a non negotiable at the moment
amongst the youth where the quicker they can get married, the easier it is in their eyes, but they have misunderstood the above the responsibilities that marriage comes with. So how do you think or what can we use to benchmark someone to say, yes, Waleed, you're ready to get married? Yes, Abubaker, you're ready to get married? Hello. Are you ready?
So there's two parts to this question is we need to address how do you know when you're actually ready, and also what are the avenues? You know, to finding the right spouse?
Well, that's one avenue Don't limit your options. Definitely.
I guess it's going to differ from I think, you know, from household to household, when it comes to the readiness. What we do know is a Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, Yeah, mashallah Shabaab. When he was addressing this, this, this, he sort of addresses that question, whereby he's saying, Yeah, mashallah Shabaab Oh, useful ones. And in Islam, you're pretty much a youth from the age of 15 to 33, some set to 40. Right. So the the youth are the ones who are being addressed to get married minister, PA, whoever has the ability. Minister, PA, mean, come Alba, whoever from amongst you has the ability to get married, that him get married. Now, the question is, what is ability?
Ability means that you have the maturity, you have responsibility, you have the financial capability, if you're a male, if you're a female, are you going to be able to maintain a home? Are you going to be able to Yanni? Do you have the mannerisms? Do you have the know how and how to respect your husband and how to be? So yes, I guess you need to answer that question. If you want to delay it a little bit, and you feel that you're safe from the Phaeton that's at university or at college or in your workplace.
If you if you want to continue to pursue some sort of, I don't know studies and you think that marriage is going to inhibit that, not that I believe that it will no, not that I believe and if anything, I would recommend if you have the financial capacity, and you have the Yani, the qualities and the skills to be a husband or to be a wife. Even if your study you're studying then I recommend to actually get married whilst you are study. Sure, three degrees while married three degrees of whilst you are married after marriage, after marriage. I remember in my early years of marriage, nothing no focus upon Allah. Allah marry, you will focus because before you will focus on where you
are focus.
All right, nothing. There's nothing wrong with them. Okay, and you need to manage that. That's why the prophets I send them is
Addressing the youth, because he knows the youth have a lot of energy, right, they have a lot of energy, and they're getting into that hormonal, you know, stage of their life, which is, which is fine. It's part of growth, right. So I think this is something that it's going to differ from, from a person to another person. If you know you can fulfill your duties and the roles and you've done the work of from any trauma that you've had in your life, then do your Istikhara prayer, do your istikhara you know, seek the counsel of those who are experienced and that can give you that Naziha even if though you may not have parents who are the sharpest, you know, pencils or tools in the box,
right? There are a lot of avenues in sha Allah Who Tyler but I would highly recommend getting married, even whilst you are studying in sha Allah Who to Isla and some and and some might I even ask, you know, but I don't have that much money saved up, I'm not earning that much income. You know, ALLAH SubhanA wa Taala will help you if you can, if you can afford a rental, if you can afford to put some food and drink on the table. I highly recommend that you get married as soon as possible, especially in the sexualized age of Phaeton have lots of fitna, lots of corruption, lots of mixed messages that's going on, do yourself in your favor, so you don't fall into the Haram as
for the avenues. As for the avenues that's becoming very challenging as well, because we're not very social, we're not a we're not a little village that we all know each other anymore. We're a global village, and we just a lot of us are just online, and we're not even interacting with each other. So. So one of the things that you want to do is you want to be active with Islamic organizations like this one, you want to be active, and show your face around And subhanAllah you know, you volunteer, you, you be a part of it. mshs you in word of mouth, you inform your parents, you inform your cousins, you inform your friends, do not limit your options, because it's very challenging in
this day and age to find the right spouse in sha Allah, huzzah, Isla,
just like a local chef. Now, let's fast forward, they've gotten married the urine,
and then conflicts that arise. And then the parents start to get involved.
What do you recommend? The steps that should be taken when these conflicts arise, arise? Because they do. And when conflicts arise between the spouses, it's a natural occurrence. Even I shouldn't happen for them to use their parents or their brother or their sister as a sounding board, where they dump all of their problems of their marriage onto these people.
What do you advise, prior to this happening, what should the steps be for those individuals, the couple to try and navigate these conflicts without any foreign interference? And then when that foreign interference comes in? How should that be navigated? Because at the moment, we have where there are many adults, although there are many children and adult bodies, unfortunately, for we bring up this topic, specifically in the wording of children, adult bodies, specifically for us to come to acknowledge that if we're not in control of our emotions, and we use everyone else as a sounding board, we're destined to fail in our marriage, we're destined to fail, because we're
destroying our spells to every person around us. So that we can be heard, and so that l Finis can be affirmed for what do you recommend the steps could be prior to this conflict blowing out of proportion? Because that's where the testing time is? I'm sure if you look at those statistics of divorce around the world, are they usually 10 years into the marriage? Why are they in the preliminary ages in the first year to three years? Very, very valid question to sokola. Hayden, the first two years of the marriage are the most challenging. That's where you need to really hang in there the first two years.
And I even heard scholars talking about a year and a half to two years. And if you can make it past a year and a half.
If you make it make it past a year and a half to two years than the humbler, you've now entered into the more safe waters. Okay, that's the first thing. Secondly, you need to prioritize learning about emotional intelligence. You really need to learn how to be an emotionally intelligent human being not only for your marriage, but even for your career, and even for dealing with people in general. One of the best things you can do for yourselves, if you haven't already done so is to understand how to deal with human beings and how to manage your anger.
and conflict management resolution, very, very important that the one of the top three reasons for divorce is the lack of anger management or what we have what we call it the lack of emotional intelligence. There is an hamdulillah books written that can help with this. There's a book
by
a called with the heart in mind.
Smith is the author, Muslim River. With the heart in mind he talks about emotional intelligence from the life of the prophet Salla mckaela mckaela Hamad Smith, Kala fig with the heart in mind that's a good book to read another book good good book to read my shout Allahu to Allah is correcting people's mistakes Sheikh Mohammed bin Saleh al Majid, he wrote a book how the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam corrected people's mistakes, right? So here we learn how to manage our anger. Because Subhanallah it's when the anger is out of control, that you find yourselves going in Subhanallah some deep waters, he's getting sha Allah. And that tip is get curious. Before furious,
get curious before furious. Remember that it takes training though, yeah, texturing attention, because straightaway through and why it's furious. There's actually a psychology behind this. And the psychology is the the psychology is that we have a right side of the brain. And the right side, left side of the brain, the right side of the brain is emotional is the emotional part, right. And the left side is the rational now as soon as something triggers you, okay, it's the emotional side of the brain that kicks in. And when that kicks in, okay, the sends a message for adrenaline to be pumped through your blood. And the research suggests that it takes 90 seconds for that adrenaline to
leave your blood, and then the rational side of the brain kicks in. And now I understand why when I was young, many of my teachers said to me, count to 100. That's close to 90 seconds. Right? So you need to really master conflict management resolution, and being an emotionally intelligent human being. That's yeah, that's the first advice. Secondly, when you do have a marital problem, okay?
Or what you need to discuss with your spouse, at the time of marriage or before marriage, or when you've realized that you guys are having episodes of marriage? Is that discussing rules? The rules around how me and you are going to fight in the future without fighting? How are we going to fight? What are the rules? What's the timeout? So it needs to feel there needs to be safety because one of the future, no fighting over text messages, has to be phased 100%. Because they can't be interpreted to know that's another tip. Okay, you get a lot of tips. When you start reading these books and reading from the experts, you start getting a lot of beautiful advice regarding how to manage
fighting. So that's a rule we don't we don't fight over texts. Okay. Another rule is if I feel emotionally flooded, then I could tell you, I'm emotionally fatigued. I can't have this conversation right now. And we've both agreed and shook hands that we will not have a conversation when one of us says, I'm emotionally flooded. I don't want to say anything to hurt you. Okay, because what erodes emotional connection in the relationship which has a connection to physical connection, and intimacy is disrespect. When there's disrespect, subhanAllah or there is a lack of mental safety and mental safety is you don't feel safe that your spouse, husband or wife is going to be verbally abusive, to
the extent that it just harms you. Right? Or physically abusive unit in marriage, you need to be emotionally safe. So there needs to be loyalty and trust needs to be mental safety, no, no abuse, from the spouse, physical safety, you know, domestic violence and that so there needs to be safety. Yeah. And you need to feel that safety in order to have that intimate, emotional, intimate connection with each other. So you need to learn all of that insha Allah Who to Allah, you need to have rules around anger management now. Do not take your problems to your parents. Just like you don't go to your hub you don't if you have a skin problem, if you have you know you have
a certain problem, you don't go to your parents, you know, if you have a skin rash, or if you have a mechanical problem, you go to the expert, you go to people who do this day in day out that can help you, your parents may give you the wrong advice. And I'll tell you something from experience. Most of the time, when it goes to the parents, you lose control.
And later on, takes control, the parents take control, and then there's the guilt tripping. And then there is the emotional blackmail. And then there is the threats. And you're caught up in the midst in the midst of his Wallah, you may forgive and forget, but they never will. And they never will always remember and even on top of that, brother, Ally, they will come in and they will destroy your marriage. Because now it's like, it gets personal. It's like, No, how dare you and, and it gets really, really nasty. You know. So, if you want if you're having problems with your spouse, take it to somebody who's an expert, take it to somebody who understands you can help you. Okay, so you
know, that's something that you need to start to be intentional about and to agree with your partner on and have that handshake that, hey, if we have problems, we're not going to go to the parents, we're going to seek seek a third party, impartial, somebody who's going to be impartial, and someone who's going to be just, that's very, very important. Justice is what we want. And if you're a parent, and your children or your child comes to you, I want to remind you that Allah instructs you and commands you to be just to your child and to your son in law or daughter in law, who know aware Amina Bill Christie shahada, Allah, Allah, Allah and fusi come I will very tiny, you need to be just
whether it's against yourself or it's against the parents. Okay, so do not go to the parents, it gets very, very problematic. Have we answered that question as immortal lecture? That's wonderful. I'm going to move on to the questions that have been asked Yes. Bismillah Bismillah. I believe this may be from a system. How do you know someone's true intentions before marriage? What if it is just a disguise for other intentions? There's a number of things to two main areas here. Two main areas if you want to know somebody's intentions, number one, you need to ask all the right questions. You need to have you do your due diligence. That's number one that's called and part of that due
diligence is what's known as istikhara. You need to be able to ask people about this person, you need to find people to ask about this person, right? That's part of the st shorter and the due diligence phase, right.
And asking them questions and, and visiting when you visit their home or their family, you look at how that individual interacts with their family members. And you just watch them you try and see how they're talking to their mom, how they're talking to their dad to the sibling, okay, be very observant. Number two is the harder that you make the celestial istikhara to make the DUA and ask Allah to show you any red flags. And after that, you put your trust in Allah, you've done your due diligence, you've done your SD harder. You've asked all the right questions in sha Allah, I'm happy to share with you if you go to my site, I have 250 premarital questions. So you can grill each other
in sha Allah 150 250 questions you don't have to ask all of them. You can handpick which questions that you want in sha Allah insha Allah Allah very fixtures I think also a point there is a do we really truly know someone's intentions? Alana someone's intentions were judged by the apparent actions and after following through of the Issara and the istikhara, then it is left up to Allah azza wa jal, you've done your best.
If you are still suspicious, possibly you need to work on yourself in regards to that insecurity as well as vertical effect. Can you give us some tips to have a happy husband and wife relationship when you have children? Who are the first why you having children?
It's one of the main mocassin of the of the of the marriages that have children in sha Allah. However, one tip what the first tip I can share with you is when you have children, prioritize your spouse and not the children.
Prioritize your spouse, not the children, the priority is always the spouse, you're going to organically look after your children for God's sake. You're going to organically do that. And what happens in one in the research by the Gottman Institute
was was they found that that that after a child came into a relationship
if there wasn't a plan, if there wasn't a plan on how to be after having a child, right and
How you going to be with each other and stay connected and have your date nights and have your quality time together and you know time together, if you never had a plan, and you have a child, this, the quality of your marriage is reduced, somewhere in the vicinity of about 35%. It decreases the quality of your marriage decreases.
Right? Because you were both, it was a dyad what they call a dyad relationship, which just the two of you. Now an intruder comes in. It's a triad. Now there's the three of you, baby number one, the husband becomes baby number two.
Right? And then he doesn't like that. She doesn't she neglects me. She doesn't give me any time she neglects herself, and so on and so forth. And then the other opposite, he doesn't appreciate me, it doesn't it becomes reciprocal. So you need to be intentional about quality time to always be intentional about it, acknowledging it. And like Yeah, speaking about the connection there. Let's accept that there's been a loss of connection, how can we reignite that absolutely physical, the emotion, some children will lay some children. I remember one of my children, when I had one of my own children that were very, very demanding. And I actually watched, looked at my wife and I go, Oh,
my God, she's, she's really suffering here. Right. And she's really, really finding it very challenging. So we had to have a meeting, we came to the drawing table said, Hey, what's wrong? I've noticed that, you know, a lot of things are giving in, you know, how can I help? And so we started talking about who can extra pair of hands to help us how we would do things differently. Subhanallah, you need to regroup, I want you to remember that, as a husband and wife, I want you to work together in the same way that doubles work in a tennis match. Have you seen how doubles work in a tennis match? Right? They just they lessen the burden, they make it they're communicating, they're
working together, they you know, they're just always in contact with each other, right? And they're ensuring that they're keeping that bull right, going to where it needs to go. And that's where you need to work together as a team, with your with your spouse, and chill. A little bit a fixture? Another question?
How can one recognize their behavior isn't appropriate with their spouse? A relationship that lacks trust, slash has baggage will be difficult, or those relationships will be difficult for the person to then establish communication. So how can one recognize their behavior? isn't appropriate of this false?
So they're acknowledging that there is a their behavior is wrong? Is that what you're interpreting? They recognize that their behavior is inappropriate? Well, if if your spouse is telling you that your behavior is inappropriate, then maybe you need to get that checked out. Right? That behavior needs to be checked out, maybe you have a personality disorder. Okay. And that you need to Jani that it's been brought to your attention, if you don't believe your spouse said, Let's go to let's go to a professional and let's see what they have to say about my behaviors or your behaviors. Right, let them judge, you know, what that behavior is and what strategies and tools you will need to overcome
that behavior. Does that is that what the question is asking? I believe that comes with the questions I am that as well is
in a relationship where a lot of the attitude is deflect and not accept, or deflect and not acknowledge? How can you try and establish His OB communication with that person? Now, I think it's geared towards
firstly, is it your responsibility to change how someone is? And secondly, if they're not accepting what would the next steps be in regards to this marriage because everyone gets into marriage, hoping for a long term marriage, not a five minute short term marriage. And that's another tip, by the way, in regards to dealing with conflict is that both spouses or both husband and wife agree that when I come to manage the conflict or to resolve the conflict, that my headspace is this is a long term marriage. It's not who wins the argument. This is a very good point, brother ally, because there was a study that I came across and it studied 700 couples, and these couples were over 65 years old.
Right? And they were over 65 years old. And they were in a marriage
at least 30 years. And they wanted to know what is the what are the secrets to to navigating a healthy marriage. And one of the key messages that stood out was being able to sit down and have an honest and calm calm communication or conversation around the issue without shouting and screaming and being disrespectful or being dismissive.
If that they said was a very key component to a healthy marriage, right. So therefore, communication, when it comes to communication, you have to be you need to really some of us are not very good at communicating, and therefore the message is distorted. And if you go back now to the Quran, and you go back
to the story of, of Musa alayhis salam, he said rubbish roughly Saturday, we are certainly Emery Emery. Wow, look at that, and mainly sunny yufka, who Kahu Kohli, he said, Oh, Allah released the Yanni the knot in my tongue, so my speech can be understood. And Allah says I lemma hold by n. So Allah taught us the N, one of the things that you need to remember is you need to have good communication, to an extent where the message is understood without any distortion, or not misunderstood and hence, when brother Ali said early, he said, he said that don't communicate through text messages. Because there's no body language, there's no context and a lot of things that
are not being said, or can be misinterpreted. Right? So yes, prioritize communication, prioritize having a no offense session with your spouse, there will be problems. Put your ego to the side.
If you really, really want to be in a healthy marriage, you've got to be prepared to put your ego to put your pride to the side because believe me, that kicks in straightaway shape on wants you to be mystical. Right, put that to the side, be ready to compromise, ready to compromise, be ready to say I'm sorry.
Okay, that's very, very important. Insha Allah Who to either, so just a few things, or it's on the sunny the marriages and transactional, she does this for me. So I'll do that for her. He does that for me. So I'll do this for words, the purely transactional thing, so if someone slips up with their rights, the other person then starts to slip up as well. So it's understanding that when someone does do that, maybe there's an there's there's an exterior issue going on, where it's time for you to step up and support for it's not a transactional basis here where if I do this out, if she does, I'll do this, if he does, I'll do this for it's understanding that as well, for a healthy
relationship. It's knowing each other's circumstances. Like for example, when the husband gets a new job and whatnot, it's working, he's working late nights, he's not purposely or intentionally trying to stay away from you. It's just part of this moment in his life. Likewise, when a wife is pregnant, and some of those rights aren't being fulfilled, as previous so the pregnancy, it's not intentional here. When we view it as intentional as I need this and not I'm not receiving this, it's a transaction or issue here. It's a major process, right? Because when you don't receive the studies have shown, if if you're expecting something and you don't receive it, that lowers the baseline of
your dopamine levels, you know, you feel good hormone, right? Dopamine is decreased when you expect something and you don't get it. So hence, here's a little tip for a successful marriage. And that is that you do small gestures or acts of kindness to your spouse, without them asking for it. You know what that does to them, it increases their dopamine levels. That's what you want. You want to do that in sha Allah for your spouse, they're going to feel good, they're going to feel now emotionally connected to you and hit hence organically. The physical connection is going to happen the vertical if anyone is lucky me listens, brothers here, there's lucky me one on one every Friday off the
German.
A little bit of check. Last question before I shut my apologies for everyone who has sent in questions we haven't been able to get to them. Possibly we can have them address my brother Mohammed Rima, when he takes on the floor after Ramadan?
What are some tips to bring the husband or wife closer to Allah? Especially if one is a bit more religious than the other?
What are some tips in trying to influence your husband or wife to try and get closer to Allah? Well, I'm seeing it as a percentage by say, the husband's here, and the wife's here. And vice versa. It's so important for a husband and wife to grow together in the den because if they don't what we've seen, it can cause resentment. And cause me just feeling especially. Yeah, it's so important to maybe what you can do is gentle reminders. Be an indirect, maybe sometimes direct, I guess it's hikma. It's wisdom and wisdom is saying what's right at the right time at the right moment in the right tone, right. So nobody likes to be pushed when you push yourself
boughs, into becoming religious. What we've seen is they become rebellious, not religious, right. So you want to as, as we said in the Hadith, McKenna riff Kofi che, whenever there's a rift, this gentleness is going to beautify the situation. If you if you put pressure, you're going to disgrace the situation, lead by example and show your spouse indirectly or directly how happy you are, how content you are, let them get jealous. From your happiness that's coming from your spirituality that's coming from your deen. That's coming from your taqwa and from your prayers and your DUA and how that says, making you feel energized. So I think, you know, it's our action that we're through
your actions that were through your action, we we forget that Dawa is also to Muslims, not to non Muslims only specifically.
Also to those that are absolutely, it's one of the best things we can do. Our beloved stairs and our brother Muhammad Remo, well, my good longtime friend, hope you're not going to mention any experiences we had together during Umbra brother Muhammad.
That's good. Brother hammer dream has come in hamdulillah with a very beautiful point.
As long as they're doing their fault, at the end of the day they doing the what they're being commanded to do so to if they if they don't want to do more, don't turn them off the front, then turn them after. And if that is the minimum of jhana as mentioned in the Hadith or the process, then what is there more? Isn't that the Hadith? The Prophet SAW Selim that men that came up to him What did he say? He asked him in regards to his obligatory actions, if also do Only this and nothing more. He said, You're to be any paraphrase that this person is from Jana,
for if she is doing a photo ad, or he is doing the photo ID
and you're pushing for more if you don't get response, or if you aren't, or if your influence isn't being
taken on board, then move on with life apps, you should be happy with what they are doing. And with this point, can I just conclude my last tip in sha Allah Allah because I know we have to go into a share my last tip for a successful marriage. And this is the most important tip of all the tips that you will ever come across written in any book. Any book about marriage? Any, any any literature? If there had to be one tip, it's gonna be one thing. Does anyone know what it is?
Hold on. Yes.
What is it? Patience. That's that's very important. Yes.
Respect is very important. Not the one I'm looking for over there.
Your wife is always right. No.
Keep silent.
Hola. Hola. Como esta? Utterback.
Ownership. Okay, these are beautiful. Yes. Forgiveness.
Okay, let me ask you a question. Who controls the heart of your spouse towards you?
Allah Subhana Allah to Allah. You know where we're getting with this right? Taqwa of Allah. The most important ingredient is taqwa. Once you have Taqwa ALLAH, ALLAH SubhanA wa Taala is going to provide for you a way out of the most difficult of situations with your spouse. Allah says in the Quran in the Levina M and while I'm you know sila Hardy sagia, Allah whom Rama know with
those who believe and they do righteous deeds or ramen, the most merciful, will instill would affection in the hearts of people towards that person. Subhan Allah, Allah is can Allah is controlling that Allah is controlling everything. Do you know my first question in my counseling sessions after a name, and we before we get right into the story is told me about your relationship with Allah. Because that speaks volumes about your relationship with each other. That's not to say that religious people don't have marital problems.
But in most cases, those who are truly practicing with sincerity, Allah will provide a way out for them to navigate their problems and their issues. And they will always turn back to the Quran and the Sunnah to find the solution.
And that I leave you with wala hooter, Allah Allah masala coffee