Fatima Barkatulla – IslamiQA on Islam Channel #05
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of avoiding relationships and avoiding extreme behavior when cutting off a relationship. They stress the need for women to confirm their desire and avoid giving up on love. The speakers also emphasize the importance of avoiding divorce and not giving up on love, and stress the need for individuals to have a close bond with their partners and avoid giving out personal information. They stress the importance of avoiding publicizing problems and not confronting them.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah Dear brothers and sisters Assalamu alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. And welcome to this session of Islamic QCA. I'm your host Fatima barkatullah. And on the screen, you will be able to see a telephone number, and also a whatsapp number through which you can ask your questions. Now, before we begin today, I'd love to share something with you. I'd love to
speak to you about something that I think sometimes we forget about as people as human beings, and that is Silla to ram the value of Silla toe Rahim, what is silica RAM?
Well, silica means joining the relationships of the womb, technically, or literally, that's what it means, right? So keeping your relationships with your relatives alive. And it's something that is an obligation for us as Muslims. And in fact, the opposite which is cutting off from our relations, is considered a major sin in Islam. Can you imagine? And the Prophet salallahu alayhi salam actually said to us, that whoever loves that he be granted more risk more wealth, and be given a longer life, then he should keep good relations with his kith and kin. Subhan Allah. So if we want to have a longer life, and we want to, we want Allah Subhana Allah to bless our provision, our risk, and risk
can be so many things, right? It can be a wealth like literal wealth, it can be the baraka in our time, it can be, you know, children, so many things, then, the quickest way, one of the key ways in order to increase your risk, and the length of your life is to keep the relations of the war. And the person who keeps the relations of the womb, or relationships, you know, blood relationships, ties of kinship, is called a Walsall Watson. Now, the Prophet sallallahu, wasallam actually told us that, whilst the Laura him, the person who keeps those relationships is not a person who, you know, does. So when it's easy, right? Because, you know, that's something that all of us can do, right?
It's actually when somebody is cutting off from you, when one of your family members is maybe treating you badly, or who doesn't want to keep in touch with you, or is avoiding or neglecting keeping in touch with you. And you still proactively try to keep in touch, you proactively, you know, invite them, you proactively go out to seek them, find out how they are, phone them, give them gifts, all of those kinds of things, then that is what I was scelera him is actually and of course, those of you who are listening and viewing from all over the world, you will know that that's not easy, is it? It's not easy at all, the easiest thing to do is when somebody isn't being very nice to
you, or somebody isn't really proactively seeking connection with you to kind of leave them right and ignore them.
But Subhanallah our deen is so beautiful.
The guidance of our prophets, Allah Allahu wa Salam is so comprehensive, that he's telling us that regardless of how people are treating you, you go out of your way to make those relationships. And lastly, on that topic, I'd like to highlight that, unfortunately, some people, they seem to think that if they're not getting getting on with somebody, it's completely understandable that sometimes, you know, we don't get on with every member of our family. Sometimes some members of our family could be harmful to us. Right.
And it's completely understandable to kind of maybe have a little bit of a distance, not to cut off. Cutting off by the way means you don't, you know, say salaam to them, or you don't, you know, reply to their invitations or that you're having your you're not leaving the doors of communication open. You know, you've completely kind of withdrawn
it's completely understandable to
kind of have a bit of a distance, you know that that might be necessary. But unfortunately, some of some people, they use their children in order to seek revenge, or to weaponize, you know, they weaponize their children against their relatives, or they weaponize a, you know, a wife might an ex wife might weaponize her children against her ex husband or an ex husband might weaponize his children against his wife, this is a very despicable thing for people to do, you know, we should not be doing that. If you have a personal problem with somebody, that's your personal problem.
Children and other relatives, you know, we should try to minimize the effect on them, and allow them to have a good relationship as much as possible.
And with that, Inshallah, I'm going to go straight to your questions. I've got some questions right here already,
that have come in. The first question I have is
a Salaam Alaikum. Can my uncle be my Willie instead of my father? Because my father is against this marriage? Okay, that's a very good question.
The general, the short answer to that is, no, you should avoid that scenario. Because, dear brothers and sisters, especially sisters, obviously, this question comes in from a sister, sister, Allah subhanaw taala has given a certain order for the well for the Wilaya, right for the Willie, if your father was not present, then somebody else could, you know, step in his place, or he could appoint somebody in his place, if he wasn't present at all. In other words, he passed away or something, then somebody else could step in his place. And even for that there is a certain order, right?
For this reason, that your father is not happy with the marriage, the first port of call is not to then you know, just pick and choose your willy. Obviously, that would defeat the purpose of having a wali right, if every woman could just pick and choose who her well he is, and that would defeat the purpose. The point is that what we should really try to do is to bring, I would encourage you to try to bring your father on side, use different means to try to bring your father on side and inshallah that will be the best thing for your long term future. If there's an extreme situation, where, you know, the father is being extremely unreasonable, et cetera. For that you would have to go to a
Sharia Council. And you'd have to seek a fatwa and seek advice from a judge from a kadhi. Okay, it's not something that you can just, you know, nonchalantly, just do right. Alhamdulillah we've got a caller right now, so I'm going to go straight to the caller.
Salam Alaikum. Salaam aleikum, Kula
sister I will prefer not to give the name okay. Sorry, sister, where are you calling from then please from London, okay, Mashallah. Okay.
Yeah, so, the question is, like, I mean, my
Okay, let me talk about sorry,
if as if I know marriage husband has got habit of getting in touch with, you know, the
strange woman then, you know, just having telephone calls, meeting them up and all the relationships outside the house, and not looking after the wife or interested in wife, as a wife do, we have to tolerate and just carry on because it is like, because there are good things in their child the and and in that marriage, and, you know, few protections and everything and just sacrifice or if she feels inside herself, that she's torn apart. And she's living a life with the person who she does not respect or trust, and she knows that he has got wrong habits. And he's not interested in her and giving her rights to other woman who are not inherited Nikka and stuff.
So shall I mean, she should consider divorce. I mean, I am just trying to understand that how much patience Allah has allowed to continue the marriage which is a good thing, avoid divorce, or at what point your own values your own morale just, you know, put you in a difficult situation and examples are like, you know,
I asked you she was living with Iran who was
a very bad person but then you think that does Allah like
us to be compromising to that extent at the cost of your own peace of mind, inner
conviction that you know you're doing the right thing. Because if it's not true, if you know what I'm trying to say.
And when you say when you say that the rights are not being fulfilled for this wife, for the wife, do you mean like things like, what kinds of things do you mean? Like nor physical affection, or communication or sharing or you know, anything? So just living together? Like two people now?
Knowing it intimacy, no hearing no trust, because his mind is all the time out of the household with other woman. And this is a habit letting you know.
i Yeah.
Would you say this is just to understand, you know, the extent. So would you say that the, you know, when you say relationships with other women, are you talking about for probably relationships, or just or flirting? I'm not saying that's flirting for sure. And possibly relationships? Because then where he goes for the, you know, the physical satisfaction, if you know what I mean, if he's not coming to wife?
Yes. Yeah.
It's not merely a suspicion.
It's something at least not probably it's not a suspicion it is a definite. Yeah, I mean, few things are confirmed 100% confirm, but nobody has seen him with with another woman in bed, for example. But definitely, if he's not coming to wife and he has relationships, so ultimately how far he goes,
You know, we haven't seen with eyes but where this lady stands in terms of because feeling apart that, you know, she's living a life of untruth, you know, love trust, it is not love, it is not trust, yes. But
social label, you just carry on, and there are many, many women. I know in this situation. So what will be their advice? Shall I mean that the lady should continue as taking as a loss in the hand and just show the patients and suffer and everything or just leave out of the relationship and you know, get separated? To kill her and sister for the question, very comprehensive and very pertinent question, I think, for our times, Inshallah, I'm gonna answer it very soon. Thank you for your call. I appreciate it.
So, in,
so Inshallah, I'm going to, that was a very good question. MashAllah from the sister from London.
And it's very pertinent for our times, because Subhanallah brothers and sisters, we have these phones. Now in our pockets, right, we have these phones. And for the first time in history, we are able to communicate and contact people in an unprecedented way. And so that means we have to have Taqwa as well, right? Unfortunately, I actually get some calls from sisters sometimes. And I'm sure that the same happens for brothers, where, you know, their husband is communicating with another woman, even something like that, you know, just flirting, communicating with another woman and developing a relationship and ignoring his wife.
with the, with the question that the sister asked, look, it's very difficult. It's it's very difficult. I'm going to begin answering the question, the question now and then we will carry on after the break. It's very difficult to give a blanket answer. Okay. Because brothers and sisters, every single person has has their own personal situation, right. But here are some pointers that I could give to a sister who is facing this. First of all, you want to make sure that it's not just merely suspicion, you know, sometimes our minds can go into overdrive, right? And spouses can become overly suspicious of each other without any evidence. Okay. So we want to make sure that that's not
the case. And probably the way to do that is to have a frank discussion is to have a family meeting, when I don't mean with every with the children or anything like that. I mean, as a couple, and to have a frank conversation, you know, now, once it has been established that this is going on, okay, through whatever means, and the wife can confirm that this is happening. Plus he's not fulfilling her intimate rights as a wife. Now, the question comes, you know, how much can this wife bear? That's the question, right? How much can you as a woman bear? Because it's very easy for me to say to you
Oh, you know, he's not fulfilling your rights, so you should just leave him. But maybe you've got children, maybe you're financially dependent on him, you know, I don't want you to be thrown out onto the streets, right? So I'm not going to give you an answer like that. But I'm just gonna give you some pointers, you have to ask yourself, how much can I bear? And what I would recommend that you do is to seek mediation, okay, to go to one of these sharia councils or services where you can have mediation, there's one called reconcile, you could go to just look it up on the internet, and go in front of somebody and have this discussion, you know, now, usually what she'll do, what
scholars do is give a couple is give a couple a year, right? They might say to the wife, look, give this situation a year, you know, the exalt the husband, look, you know, you need to cut off from these women. And of course, you know, this is highly problematic, you know, we should be having taqwa, Allah subhanaw. Taala is privy to every conversation that we're having in private and in public. So brothers and sisters, we need to have taqwa, we need to fear Allah when we're having these extra marital conversations, right, and relationships.
And so, you know, perhaps one of the ways forward could be that, that, you know, the situation is brought in front of a scholar, the scholar exhorts the couple, you know, especially the husband, in this case, or, and even the wife, there might be things that the wife is doing that alienating the husband, for example, right? And then
usually, she'll give the couple a year and say, you know, in a year,
you have a year to help to try to mend this relationship. Okay. And they might say, you know, take these means to increase the intimacy again, et cetera, et cetera. And after the year, we can reassess the situation. Okay, this is just so that, you know, we don't have knee jerk reactions, and that we give people time to mend their ways. Inshallah, after the break, I'm going to carry on answering the question, so stay with us, and I hope I can benefit you with the answer. After the break. Does akmola Ferran Salam, Wa alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
Salam aleikum, brothers and sisters, welcome back. Before the break, I was answering a question from a cooler sister in London, who was asking about a husband who doesn't have intimate relationships with his wife.
And he seems to be having an affair or having some relationships with other women flirting with them, perhaps even more? How much is the wife expected to bear? And it is? Does she have any recourse to leaving such a marriage? And I was saying that, you know, there is no blanket answer to this question simply because every single situation is different. You know, each woman has to judge, you know, all of the factors that she has to take into account.
You know, when making a decision about such such a predicament, and it is a predicament, you know, I have a great amount of sympathy for any sister who's going through something like this, it's very painful, of course, it's a very painful thing to have to go through.
But I mentioned that I can give some pointers and some of the pointers, I gave it, our number one to have a frank conversation and open meeting with that spouse, you know, to make sure that things are out in the open and things are discussed.
And it's not just things are not just based on suspicion, right.
And then, you know, one of the things that you could do is to go for mediation, go to a share, or you know, some Shijo who are specialized in mediation, or a service for mediation. And usually what a chef will do is give a couple a year, okay, to try to take certain steps to improve their marriage to turn away from this bad thing, or any bad things that the couple are doing.
And to try to reestablish intimacy, in that time, perhaps he will say to you, you know, you need to have some counseling, therapy of some sort, et cetera, et cetera. So the couple will be taking as many as many means as they can
to fix things as best as they can, and then after a year,
you know, they can reassess the situation. Now, you know, to be clear, our dean does not expect a woman to stay in a situation that she cannot bear. Okay, there's no, there's nothing in the DM that, that tells a woman that she must remain in a situation that she cannot bear. Right? At the same time, we don't want to take divorce lightly. Right, because we know that divorce impacts children, divorce does impact the woman herself, right, it could impact her to in a way that she didn't expect. So it's not a thing to be taken lightly. But rest assured, our dean does not expect us to stay in a situation that is unbearable, where our rights are not being fulfilled. And so if a
person's rights within marriage are not being fulfilled, for example, the rights of intimacy,
or, you know, the right for provision for a woman, if those are not being fulfilled, now, it doesn't automatically mean, you know, that the marriage can end. What it means is she has the ability, she has the right to take the situation to occur the and, you know, to escalate the situation, she has the right to do that. And yes, if you know, the couple, try everything they can. And there's no, there's no solution. And the woman, the wife decides that she cannot bear this situation. Then as I said, you know, in our DNA marriage is not the same as is in Christianity, which is a sacrament, which is till death do us part, although we want our marriages to be lifelong marriages, right. And
we know that children thrive within marriages. And we know that children thrive when their husband when the husband and wife stayed together, most of the time,
at the same time.
Divorce is not haram. There is a way out for both women and men, if there is a situation that they cannot bear. Now, the question is, is it a situation that you can bet? That's the question, now you made a good reference to asiyah, the wife of Pharaoh, now the situation of us cry for Pharaoh is not encouraging us as Muslim women
to, you know, endure, or to think that it's that we must stay in a situation where we are being abused or oppressed. Okay, the situation of asker is not encouraging us to stay in that situation. What the situation of asiyah Alayhis Salam, you know, the wife of Pharaoh, promise, Jana, that what her situation does show us, however, is that if you are a wife, who is in an oppressive situation, and if for some reason you cannot escape that situation, or you know, for various reasons, as a woman may decide not to go for divorce, you know, there's can be so many such reasons right?
Then, rest assured that Allah subhanaw taala will reward you, He will reward you for your patience, he will reward you for your and he will see your suffering, just as he saw the suffering of us here, and he has Salam, she couldn't escape from that situation. That's the point. It's the point isn't that we are encouraged to endure an abusive situation. If there are ways that we can, you know, remove ourselves from it.
I hope that helps in some way. You know, may Allah subhanaw taala make things easy for you. And I would say to husbands who end in such a situation, you know, fear Allah, fear Allah. And really, if you cannot uphold the rights of your wife,
don't turn to cheating. Don't do these things that show how much of a coward you are. To be quite frank, you know, you're a coward. If you cannot fulfill your wife's rights, and then you go behind her back and you develop relationships. Be upfront about it. Either be a man and fix the relationship help, you know, do something to fix the relationship. Be honest with your wife about your needs, or find a solution. Let her go have some Taqwa. Right and don't have these relationships outside of marriage. They're so destructive. And these are major sins, major sins.
So I hope that helps. I do think we have another caller. So I'm going to go straight to that call. A Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakaatuh. Call it
according to
Yes. Okay. kondalilla
very quickly, my observation, may Allah bless this lady up this
resolves the problem. But I just wanted to give you as a man, yes, the opinion that under I doubt that a man who's going going to committing all these wrongs will go to a third party and discuss it and openly, you know, reveal their fear being. So that is not going to happen. I'm not saying to give up hope. But a man will never do that one, to even to admit to the wife does or openly, you know, to admit, obviously, unless he develops fear or like you rightly said, and that if that comes, obviously, he's gonna stop. But having said that, is the fear of security, losing the security of financial support, and presence of the Father, etc, all these things, which stops the woman from
taking a severe action? So
end of the day, there is not an easy ride at all. Absolutely. So
for him to go to Kasi, I really have two very, very slim chances. Because he can if he resolves it,
himself. Now if he's out of the marriage, what responsibility if she divorces? What responsibilities does he have? was a financial reason to have the children or the support?
Because we can't just wash their hands off? Oh, now you have divorced me, I've got nothing to do with you. And freemen? Because there must be no consequences when she also goes through the legal channels. channels if need be.
So that's kind of investment was my observation.
My
My second point is that in relation to this situation, there's another situation where if
man and a young lady or a man, they are both divorced, or she's a widow, and they don't need financial help from each other, they're okay they're comfortable, but they can end the over 50s With revive
care can they do the Nikka is
not publicizing it, because of the other situations, but are having
Alon relationship situation?
Do they have to
disclose it? Or can they come to an arrangement? And they can do instead of thing called self Nica? Can can one do that?
Are you referring to like a polygynous? Setup? Is that what you're referring to know if a person is divorced or completely out of the marriage? The first first marriage there is no relationship there's nothing whatever whatever. Yes, so
not for a long time. So does he then entitled to
do this have a private you know
not to disclose it
avoids unnecessary pressures from different quarters whatever the party's people know around so you mean like
somebody and that he goes on to marry somebody else You mean Yes.
So you're saying not publicize it?
Yeah. Because of the because of
repercussions. Yes. Okay.
You know, kids are all grown up or appointed
close quarters family, they know the situation, but he's not all he's doing is that they're coming to
you elderly arrangement.
Adult arrangements. This is to rather do this
then, or is there a reason you can't or they can't. Okay.
Inshallah, I will. I will address both of the points that you made. Thank you so much for calling
us for the first observation that mashallah brother you made
But it's absolutely true. I know, it's very difficult to get, especially, you know, brothers to actually take a situation, a case, their case, their own case, in front of somebody else.
That is very difficult. But however, I do know that they're all brothers out there, there are men out there,
who when they get to a certain situation in their marriage, and the wife confronts them about it, and they see that things are getting very serious. You know, sometimes they have an addiction, sometimes they have some, something that that a weakness that they know, and they acknowledge, and so then they are actually prepared to go in front of a share or somebody who they trust, I think that's the key thing, isn't it? Like, it's got to be somebody who both parties agree, agree on. Right? Another way is, of course, to get a member of each other's family. So the lady gets somebody from her side, or somebody to represent her, and the husband gets somebody to represent him. And
they have this very private, but very frank conversation, and these two people act as arbiters, right, they give the couple an ultimatum, or they give them, you know,
some kind of verdict as to how they should proceed. So there are various means, and I would say to any brothers out there, you know, if your marriage is in a sore state, and your wife is suffering, and you're suffering,
and the opportunity arises, not to share, you know, air, your dirty laundry, as they say, in public, or with family members, or nothing like that. But to go to a very professional, and a very professional setting to sort problems out. This is there's no shame in this at all. But there is no shame in this at all. In fact, it takes courage. And it's something that is the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. And this is what he encouraged. This is what the Quran encourages, in fact, right.
And so there should be no shame. In fact, there's more shame in going around doing haram things, there's more shame in not confronting the problems in your life, and allowing people to suffer. You know, that's actually where the shame is. So I think we need to remove this taboo of seeking help. You know, like I said, it's not about publicizing your problems and your sins, it's about going to the right channels, and getting things addressed properly. Right. If you as a couple can't resolve a situation,
then you've got to, you know, get some outside help. And there's no shame in that with the second point or question. I think, to summarize the question, it is that can an older man who is no longer married, right? Oh, well, he's divorced, previously divorced,
if he meets a lady, an older lady, and you know, they don't necessarily don't have any kind of, they don't want to have financial obligation towards each other, or whatever it is. But they want to be married. And he doesn't want to publicize it very loudly to you know, everyone, is it okay for him to do any QA with her? Right? The point is, brother, that as long as the, the, you know, the conditions of a marriage, as long as the conditions of Nica are met, you know, there's no obligation to kind of shout from the rooftops that you have married a certain person, right. But the necessary elements must be in place, right? So for example, the witnesses, yes. So all of those elements that
usually should be in place, a dour witnesses,
you know, the actual statements that need to be said, et cetera. If those take place, then in sha Allah, there is a Nikka. And as for conditions and things like that, a couple can negotiate conditions within the marriage contract, right? So if for example, you know, there's something that the wife wants to add, or wants to say, you know, I don't mind about this. She can say that, right? And vice versa.
So I hope that answers your question. You know, Hamdulillah, Islam has made Nikka easy, it's made * easy. You don't need a lot of fuss. It's, it's but the most important thing is to make things * out to make sure it's halal. And you do that by having witnesses
for the woman's rally to be part of the process, for example, you know, if, if she doesn't have a father, for example, it would be somebody else, right?
Could even be assigned in some cases, right?
Et cetera. But to make sure that all the conditions of the Nica are
Ahmet, apart from that, there's no obligation to kind of publish it or to publicize it to everybody, you know. But the point is, it shouldn't be completely secret, right? It's not a completely clandestine type of arrangement. As long as the as I mentioned, the conditions are met. I hope that answers your question.
Okay, now, let me see we've got some more. We've got some more questions. We have a question here. A Salam aleikum. My children want to wear their hijab and they are seven and 10, masha Allah, at what age is it compulsory for them to do so? Well, you know, subhanAllah, that's a great blessing that your, your daughters are in, you know, already interested in wearing the hijab and want to wear the hijab, probably because you wear the hijab, right? So usually daughters, they like to copy their mom's right. So mashallah, that's a blessing, because, you know, some parents do actually struggle with introducing their daughters to the hijab. Now, what you want to do is to nurture that, you
know, nurture that interest in, but not to allow it to become so burdensome on them at a young age, that they find it difficult. So for example, if they're playing sports, if they're, you know, whatever, in certain situations that they want to take it off, let them take off, it's fine, you know, their little, let them do it.
When does it become obligatory? Or compulsory? Well, technically, it becomes obligatory from the age of puberty, right, from the point when a girl reaches puberty, which is, when her period starts, right, usually her menstrual period, when that starts, that's usually when she would be considered
Baliga, or, you know, having reached puberty, and then all the Islamic obligations would be obligatory upon her. And so because of that, it's a good idea to start a little bit early, you know, it's similar to Salah, you know, the Salah, we start, we start encouraging them at seven, and then at 10, we start making it a must for them, yeah, I would say, a similar path can be followed for the hijab, you know, just start making it normal, you know, from the age of seven. And then, at the age of 10, you want to start encouraging them even more. And also making them aware that there is going to be an age you that it's going to be puberty now, you might not want to tell them about puberty
right now. But you can just say, there's something that happens that makes you that you become an adult, right?
Or the age of 15, right, usually, whichever comes first, either the period or the age of 15, it will be necessary for you to cover when we go out, very important to start teaching our daughters why as well, you know, that Allah subhana, Allah has commanded this in the Quran, because he wants to protect the believing women, because he wants the believing women to be recognized. And because we are precious, you know, women are precious. And Allah subhana, Allah has ordained this for us for our own protection. Right? So you want to kind of make it easy, make it understandable, let them understand the why show them the verses of the Quran about it, you know, it's sort of a heads up, et
cetera, et cetera, nor, and let them really
appreciate and love the hijab, right? Not not let it be something, don't let it just be something that you're kind of forcing them to do. But also help them to have friends who also adopt the hijab, so that then, you know, they find it easy. They don't feel like they're the odd ones out, which sometimes can be a detriment.
At the end of the day, brothers and sisters, we've got to teach our children that yes, especially in the society we live in, in the West, we are different, you know, we all going to stand out. There are things that we're going to do that aren't the norm. But be proud of your identity. Be proud of being a Muslim, be proud of being a person who obeys Allah subhanho wa taala, hold your head up high, and do it proudly and happily, along with being humble enough to be kind to people to share Islam with people to share the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu when he was salam, which was, you know, to spread the salaam, to feed people, to be kind to keep relations with our relatives, our
neighbors, et cetera.
Brothers and sisters, we've come to the end of another show. I hope that you benefited today, until next time, Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Subhanak Allahu Morbihan. Because shadow Allah, Allah, Allah and as the felucca word to be like that