Fatima Barkatulla – Love #09 – What Questions Should I Ask Before Marriage?

			salat wa salam ala Rasulillah. Question number four, a sister is asking, you know, what questions
should we ask at the beginning before making the decision to commit to marriage? And how much does
attraction matter? How much does attraction matter? Okay. So
		

			well, you should ask about everything that's important to you write everything that's important to
		

			the type of family and the type of marriage that you envisage that you would like to have.
		

			So, just some pointers for that, you know, religious outlook, I think that's very important, you
know, knowing what the person's religious outlook is. Obviously, if you just ask somebody, what's
your religious outlook?
		

			You might not get like, a proper answer, right. But what I mean is, those are things to look out
for, you know, those are things to ask probing questions or, or find out about, you know, what is
this person's religious outlook? And does it match yours?
		

			What's their attitude to Islam? What's their attitude to the Salah, for example? You know,
		

			did they go to the Juma prayer? You know, how close are they to,
		

			you know, be practicing Islam, basically, those aspects are very important, because they're very
telling about a person, right? If a person's relationship with Allah is fixed up,
		

			that's a great thing. You know, that's, that's something very good and impressive.
		

			But if it isn't, if they're hardly managing the basics, then it at least makes you ask yourself,
Okay, if, if they don't have the conviction, or maybe the self discipline to
		

			make sacrifices for Allah?
		

			How is that going to be play out in marriage? You know,
		

			so question to ask
		

			questions related to maybe their attitude to family life, and to children, right, to parenthood,
		

			might seem like a bit of a jump, but, you know, some of these things are important to discuss
specially if,
		

			for example, one person is going to be studying or one person is
		

			what, depending on the situation, you know, you want to ask those types of sich those questions.
		

			But to be honest,
		

			more than questions, and by the way, parents should obviously help in that right. They should help
to ask those types of questions, especially in you know, traditional Muslim families. Usually the,
the the two perspective, people wouldn't themselves, necessarily be confident enough to ask each
other those types of questions. If you are, then that's great. But obviously, you can do it through
your parents through a brother, you know, somebody else.
		

			You you would want to find out about their financial situation, their attitude towards their
studies, and their life. So far, you know what it's been. But you know, the best way, or one of the
best ways I should say, to actually find out about somebody is not just to sit there and ask them
questions.
		

			There's a book recently that was written by Malcolm Gladwell, you know, that
		

			famous author Malcolm Gladwell, talking to strangers, right? Yeah. So his latest book is talking to
strangers. And if you if you watch some of his interviews, I've actually read the book, but
		

			there's some interviews way talks about this as well. He actually says the best way to
		

			find out about somebody, and he was talking in the context of interviewing them for a job or
interviewing them to be your babysitter, right? Like to look after your children, which is a big
deal, right? He was saying the best way to find out about them isn't actually to have an interview,
like where you're face to face, talking to them, asking them questions.
		

			The best way is actually to get references.
		

			References. So
		

			I actually believe something that a lot of Muslims sometimes overlook
		

			is character references.
		

			And I think that's actually a very effective way to find out about somebody.
		

			So what that means is getting into touch with a person's
		

			colleagues or friends, and you might think friends are bias. But
		

			hopefully, if they're practicing Muslims, they know that when it comes to marriage, when somebody
asks you for a character reference, when it comes to marriage, you're allowed to tell the truth. You
mean, you have to tell the truth. And you can't worry about backbiting at that point, you know, you
tell it like it is.
		

			So, yeah, people who've done business with that person, people who've traveled with that person,
people who've been in that person's company a lot, or people who've employed that person, being a
colleague to that person, being a classmate to that person,
		

			or lived with that person,
		

			I would say, get a character reference from,
		

			from at least two of those if you can't, you know.
		

			Because you'll, you'll learn a lot more from that than you will, from a face to face meeting people
can be lovely face to face, you know, just just as everyone is nice at an interview, right?
		

			Most people, you interviewed them, and they're like, Wow, that person seems good, that person seems
good. Sometimes there's subtle things you can look out for. But if you really want to know, get a
character reference, I know, sisters, who found out that the person was a heavy smoker, you know,
like through character references, or found out somebody had a bit of a bad temper. And so that
doesn't mean necessarily that that those might be reasons that you might say no.
		

			But what I'm trying to say is that it's very easy for people to,
		

			to not mention certain things, you know, when you just meet them face to face. But when you get
somebody to write a character reference,
		

			it's a different matter, you know, you'll find out a lot more, if you ask them things like, you
know, how did they react in a situation of pressure, you know, those kinds of things, you know,
you're really going to get to know the person and at least you can maybe bring it up in a meeting.
		

			Or it's something you can have in mind, you know?
		

			Yeah, I remember when I was looking to get married, there was a brother who was part of some cult,
you know, like it was part for some cult Islamic group. And
		

			as an 18 year old I am you know, how old I know that, how would I be able to judge that right? But
what my dad always did was get character references.
		

			Always. And for my dad character references, were either people writing a character reference, or he
would actually go and meet, meet them, sit with them and say, Okay, tell me about your friend, you
know, or tell me about this person who you've lived with.
		

			And we need our Wally's to be doing that, right. We really need to get our wellies to do their job,
which is to check the person out properly. Right. And the other way around to you know, brothers,
you can ask for character references, or make your own inquiries. But the main point there is get
character references. But when you ask questions, ask questions about everything that's important.
Don't just ask shallow questions, you know, when you hear sister say, What's your favorite color? I
mean, that is one of the most irrelevant questions like, unless you're trying to decide what color
to wear for your wedding dress, you know, like I can, I can understand why somebody would ask that.
		

			But like, in general, like, don't ask dumb questions, you know, that are irrelevant. Ask about the
nitty gritty, you know, show that you mean business, right.
		

			We'll get your parents to ask those types of questions.