Fatima Barkatulla – Love #04 – Marriage Q&A with University Students
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of marriage in improving spirituality and marriage, as it is often difficult to pursue married proposals when young men are still young. They suggest that women should develop their own skills as a mother and pursue their career in marriage, as it is important for them to have a positive attitude for their work. Pr practice and practice to become leaders in a business is also crucial.
AI: Summary ©
Okay, perfect.
So Michael everyone
inshallah we're going to be doing the marriage q&a
we've got your questions and if you haven't already and if you'd like to submit any extras, feel free to drop a message on the chat box either to myself or and, or yourself if I don't
check the screen.
Would you like to begin now should we wait a few minutes?
And we can maybe just wait another minute maybe till five
or just get the questions.
Is this view okay. As it is?
Yeah, it's a real
making sure no one's waiting.
Okay.
smilla hamdulillah salat wa salam ala rasulillah. The assist is a salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
First of all, I'm going to ask you all, if you can all hear me properly.
You can just
type in the chat if you can. I'll be great.
at handling that thank you can
just a moment, we just make sure I can see the chat.
Okay, well, Welcome to this session, where we're going to be answering your questions about marriage. So just as an introduction, my name is Fatima barkatullah. And just to give you a bit of background, I studied in Egypt, and as a teenager, and then I went on to complete two Islamic Studies degrees here in the UK, in Islamic seminaries. And then I, right now I'm a student at so at University of London, I'm doing
an MA in Islamic law as part of the law department there. So I'm a student as well, even though probably a lot older than you guys.
100 like I got married, when I was 19 years old. Wow. Yeah, and I've been married since then I've got four kids, my eldest son is just started University, as well, both at university, and my youngest is like 10 years old, she's at school.
That's just to give you a little bit of a background. And
as you all must know, and maybe your parents have been saying to you or must have heard in talks and lectures, Islamic ones, that, you know, marriage is an important part of building a family.
as Muslims, we live in a society that is quite individualistic in the sense that, you know, the rights of the individual, the, the desires of the individual are considered to be of paramount importance.
In Islam, there's more of a balance in the sense that the benefit, what benefits the family unit, and then what benefits society, the community and then society as a whole is also always taken into account. And it's not just about the
what's important to the individual, right and what they want, they need to make themselves happy.
So you can see that throughout the video, you can see that pattern throughout Chile.
But anything that preserves that preserves the family is considered to be very, very important.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
he said,
he encouraged young people to get married. He said to that when he was addressing a group of young men, he said, Oh, young men, whoever is able to marry should marry, for that will help him to lower his gaze and guard his modesty.
So and this is inside his body. So the idea there is that, you know, when you're young, you especially when you start becoming more aware, and you start having feelings. The prophet SAW someone was saying, if you can, you should get married, because then it will help you because your
desires will be satisfied. You'll have that companionship that love that attention that all human beings yearn for insha Allah, you won't be tempted to go outside of the bounds right, you won't be tempted to do things that are that are not allowed to have relationships that are hard on and, and also it helps you to guard your he helps you to lower your gaze and guard your chastity. So also lowering the gaze because once you have somebody that someone special, and you're married, then your focus moves away from other people and those to that person right. So because of the satisfaction you feel, it helps you. It helps you to not feel tempted and distracted by, you know, other people
all around you. So, those are some that's one of the things that prophet SAW Selim said, in the Quran, we know that Allah Subhana Allah says, In surah to room I in number 21 will mean a Yeti and hollow Pelican mean unfussy comb as well generally tuscano la ha, right. What Jana bainer call my word that Anwar Ratna enough either dhikala is in the
law says and one of his signs is that he created for you,
spouses from amongst yourself so that you may find comfort in them. And he's pleased between you compassion and mercy, my mother and wrap them up. Surely in this our science for people who reflect
so a lot of her thought it really describes marriage in the in beautiful times in the Quran, and as as a blessing, right? There really Sam when he was alone in the garden, he was restless.
He needed a partner, a spouse and the last kind of Allah created how work
and human beings men and women have been
interdependent ever since. Right meeting each other ever since. So, that's just by way of a little introduction.
You know, we can explore more inshallah as the questions come. And I think sometimes questions are actually the best way to explore a topic.
And I just want to make clear to all of you that you should never feel shy to ask questions about the deen any question, even if it's very explicit, if it helps you to be a better person, a better Muslim,
is not to be embarrassed, you know, the the Sahaba yards, the female companions of the Prophet, they used to often ask questions that might seem embarrassing, you know, to the prophets on our salon. And I mean, they even used to propose to him, right, like, people used to come up to him and dispersed him and married. So sometimes some of the extra excessive shyness that we have is due to, I mean, it's a good type of shyness, you know, you don't want to be talking about certain topics all over the place, right. But at the same time, it can be a bit excessive, and that's usually due to our culture and you know, the way we've been maybe our family culture or our communities, culture
and upbringing. So
when it comes to Islam islamically you should not feel shy, you know, to ask any question and this is a great space that Mashallah the ISOC has created for you to do that. So, I'm going to hand over to earlier now child, I've said you can
fire away with the questions. Yes. Does that live here? Thank you so much for that. If anybody Just a quick note, also, if anyone does have any questions, and they haven't yet submitted, we did send out like a link if you want to submit anonymously, or you can drop them in the chat box, to me individually, inshallah.
I'll start right off with the first one. Is it possible to have two highest standards?
Is it possible to have two highest standards? So I'm assuming?
Is this view good, by the way?
Yeah, no?
Okay. Um, yeah, I was gonna say,
I'm assuming that that question is about, you know, is having too high standards when it comes to looking for a spouse?
a bad thing is that was not the question. I think that's what I gained from it as well. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, look, all of us have, like, an ideal list of things, right? When we're starting out, we have an ideal list that these are the, if I could meet this ideal person, with these characteristics.
And they can be characteristics of personality characteristics.
You know, them maybe the,
like, social situation, the education that maybe even physical, right can be those kinds of things. Um, I guess,
I guess, we all have that list. And it's good to have that list. Because that means that you're clear, right? means that you're clear on what you want. And you know what, but the one thing to bear in mind, though, is that you want to make sure that that list is
realistic, and also that it has things in it that are important, it prioritizes the important things.
So if I were, and I was, you know, a teenager, and then beyond looking to get married,
what I would do is, yeah, have that list. I think I did have a list actually, when I was younger.
But you want to store the things that are like the
uncompromisable. You know what I mean? Right? And I would suggest that the most the thing that you want to make uncompromisable
is the fact that the person is at least, you know, doing their fundamentals as a Muslim, no, has a is on a similar wavelength to you as a Muslim.
And is going to In other words, be a good farmer, right? It's going to be a good head of household good father, because when we getting married as Muslims, we're not just marrying an individual, we're not just married a romantic partner. Of course, that's that's also important. And that's one of the blessings of marriage.
But
if you're looking to have a lifelong marriage, then you know, it's more than that, isn't it? It's way more than that. It is looking for qualities of character, is looking for somebody who's committed to Allah. If a person cannot pray their five daily prayers, and cannot show that level of commitment, then, you know, you know, of course, May Allah help them And may Allah Subhana, Allah, bless them, and you know, help them on that journey. At the same time for you as a wife, you want to think to yourself, hmm, if this person cannot have integrity with Allah?
And how can I really know that they will have integrity with me?
You know, because that relationship with Allah is like the number one, isn't it? The relationship with Allah is number one. So I think it's really important to bear that in mind.
The other thing is, when I say don't be unrealistic,
we have also been conditioned, right? As young people like growing up in a Western society growing up on Disney and, you know, or some people want bollywood, you're conditioned to sort of have a certain image of what
a marriage should look like, or what you want a marriage to look like. And that's just a fantasy. Sorry, sorry to tell you that. Sorry.
Sorry to break it to you. But back then, then sometimes it can be kind of harmful to bring all that imagery, all that kind of
unrealistic staff, right. to real life. And what happened happened is people end up being very sorely disappointed because, you know, it's impossible to be somebody who's constantly buying flowers for somebody all the time, right? It's impossible.
To always at all times be praising and romantic towards your spouse. Those are the type of things that we tend to see right, like happening and in films and in,
in popular media,
and even in celebrity culture, you know, we, we only get to see like the filtered version of those people's lives, right. So you get to see, like, on Instagram or whatever, you know, people post the moments when they're so happy. And when everything is fine. They're not, they don't post the moment before when they were having a fight, or when, when something is going wrong, or when there was a, I don't know, a plumbing disaster in the house, or, you know, the everyday things when they were arguing about the laundry, they don't mention those things that show those things. So we get this false image of, of a happy marriage, we think, oh, marriage is these ticking these boxes, you know,
they have to look a certain way they have to act a certain way, he has to say these things he has to.
For me, I think it was way more important to look at things like of course, you know, that you that you find the person attractive. That's that's important.
how attractive?
You know, I mean, that's something for you to judge that, I guess. But I'd say that, you know, for most people, once they get married, and they have a good spouse, and they're, you know, having that they have a loving connection, that in itself creates attraction, you know, and builds attraction. So it's not just about love, love at first sight, you know,
the love grows, and it builds.
But yes, of course, we should, you're perfectly in within your right to look for somebody who you find attractive.
When it comes to other areas like money,
maybe education. I mean, there's nothing wrong with
wanting to find somebody who is compatible with you. You know,
in Islam, in Islamic law, we do have this concept of cafta, which means that the person is compatible. And in the past, they used to take those things into consideration things like the social status of the person.
I know, it's not fashionable to say that nowadays, right? But sometimes it does make a difference. If you marry somebody who, you know, if you're like, for example, a university, if you're like a university educated person, doesn't mean that you cannot marry somebody who isn't, right.
But at least you want to be able to make sure that you want to intellectual level, you can engage with each other, right? You actually on a similar kind of level, right?
When it comes to money, if you're used to a certain lifestyle with your parents.
It makes sense.
Even though like people say to you know, nothing, none of these things matter. Actually, in the real world, when you go to live with somebody and say you were used to having like, I don't know, a cleaner and servants. I don't know if anyone is used nowadays, but say you were then obviously like, if you're going to move into a situation where the person is not of that level, and you know, like, it's gonna be a little bit more challenging. Unless you're willing to accept that, of course, if you're willing to accept that, then it's fine.
But there's nothing wrong with wanting somebody have a similar level, right? In terms of
my mentioning, there's also nothing wrong with wanting somebody from your own culture
and your own background. You know, I know that that's another controversial thing. Sometimes people say, Well, you know, nothing should color shouldn't matter. And, of course, kind of doesn't matter. But I mean, like culture shouldn't matter, either. And your country and your however, realistically, speaking, of course, I even in my own family, we do have mix mixed culture marriages, and they have been very successful.
Well, that's a decision you have to make for yourself, right? Like, because there are certain implications. There's certain implications of both situations, right. If you marry somebody within your own culture, there's a certain familiarity, there's a certain
I would say, certain things that you don't even realize that you think are
just basic normality
that somebody from an
Other culture might not consider, right.
So that is something to bear in mind. But if you're somebody who's willing to be adaptable,
then you know, that could be absolutely fine, you marry somebody from another culture, you're willing to learn and adapt to their culture, they're willing to do the same review in your family, you know, that's great. Another consideration for Muslims will be the family, especially as a girl, you know, you want to, you want to have nice in laws, right? You want to have
a nice, wider family. Because they do affect everything, you know, like family relations affects everything.
So
you want to see if you can gel with them, and you know, what kind of family culture there is in the spouse's family.
So there's nothing wrong with having high standards. However, I think as you get a little bit older, and as you're seeing that the options are getting less, okay. In terms of, you know, suitable people for marriage, then it's, there's nothing I mean, it's gonna, it's just gonna be foolish, to hold on to extremely high standards that nobody can meet. Because, you know, there comes a point where it's more important to get married to someone who is good enough. Good enough, okay, then to find some kind of, idealistic image that you have of a person who you can marry, right, like some kind of Prince Charming. So
I hope I've kind of summed that up, I have high standards, not unrealistic. Look at the society around you, you know, what kind of people are available? If millionaires are not available? Don't put that as one of your things, you know.
And remember that young men nowadays, haven't really hard. Like,
I was on a nother call the other day, and some of the brothers phoning up saying, you know,
people's dowries are so high nowadays, like, and we can't, we just can't afford it. And marriages become hard, you know. So, we want to have standards, we want to have the standards in the right places. Want to marry somebody who's not perfect, but who is good enough, okay. And inshallah you will grow together, right? Like you're not perfect, right? So trying to find somebody who is perfect
is not really necessarily a clever thing to do.
Better to find somebody who's good enough, and who can grow with you. And to make the marriage easy, you know, don't make marriage difficult. Don't make it difficult in society. I think that something happened Charlotte, and Charlotte, just like a lot. Oh, yeah, definitely was very, very
useful information. Oh, there's a question here.
It's quite long. But I just wanted to ask the question regarding a couple of themes with which mentioned about how wives should not deny their husbands *? To what extent must this notion be followed? I know it's a bit taboo to probably suggest, but can these Hadith be used to allow marital weak? I know, this is most likely not the case. But I just wanted clarification on basically the interpretations of these Heidi, for example, if a wife just doesn't feel like having *, is it considered McCool if she says no to her husband?
quite long question. But, yeah, um, okay. So
the one thing to know is that the marriage contract
means, okay, that
you are now
allowing each other, to have relations with one another, right?
That's one of the meanings of the marriage contract.
That now you are allowing one another, to have sexual relations with one another. And, of course, you know, that's why there's, there's there's of course, certain responsibilities that come with that for the man you know, he has to provide for the wife has to provide to the family.
And he has to uphold whatever they agree in their contract. And the wife as well, right? So the both have things that they have to fulfill, okay.
And it's, sometimes people present as if, you know, it's an obligation on the wife, but actually, it's an obligation on both of the spouses to fulfill each other's needs to the best of their ability, right. That's the that's the basic rule.
All right, you fulfill each other's needs, to the best of your ability. Yeah, I mean, it's not even just sexual, when it comes to just everyday needs, you know, if your wife needs a break, give her a break. If she, if he needs, I don't know, a massage, you know, give him a massage your bed because you love each other. And you're,
you're mutually caring for each other. Right? So the way sometimes people present as if it's like, a bunch of rights and my right hand versus your right, it's not like that, you know, say, like, the last minute, Bella says it's more than rathmann, right?
So there are a heartbeat, in which the Prophet sallallahu wasallam emphasized that the wife shouldn't, if her husband is really asking her to come on, they want to have relations, that she should do the best, she should do that to the best of her ability. That's what those had these mean, you know, and she shouldn't just out of kind of feel like I can't be bothered, basically, right?
Not want to fulfill his need. In the same way, if he has a need, and believe me, I know you guys are young, but when you get married, and when you get used to having marital relations, okay? As a woman, you also need to have sexual relations, right? Sorry to be so explicit about it. But you know, it's like, we always present it as though
men really want. And the sisters are like sitting there. Like,
it's not like that. Sometimes the wife would really like to have sexual attention. And so in the same way, the husband can't refuse, you know, the husband shouldn't refuse. That's the point you shouldn't. Now if the wife has a reason, there's nothing in the Sharia that says that she has to be forced to do it. No, not at all. Now, she might not be feeling well. She's,
you know, whatever reason, she might, she might have some
pain, some, she might be extremely busy and have some distractions. If that's the case, you shouldn't negotiate with him. You know, she's just telling him because sometimes the husband might not know. Right? And, and, and vice versa. And vice versa.
You know, but the point is that a man can't force there's no heavy. There's no, nowhere in the show that says a man can force himself on to a woman. Yeah, his wife, I mean,
no, it's just that there are addicts that are warning the women not to,
not to refuse the husband,
to kind of Allah is showing us all the profit cells and showing us that it's a big deal, you know,
to kind of turn the husband away, if he comes to you, because you see when somebody comes to you, and they have sexual needs, they're actually in a very vulnerable state.
Believe it or not,
we don't really look at it like that. Because, you know, unfortunately, people have framed it in this kind of very negative, violent way. Know, when somebody has sexual needs, they are often in a very vulnerable state. So to be rejected, and to be, you know, without a reason
is, can actually cause a lot of damage. You know, first of all, it means that the one of the purpose of marriage is not being fulfilled, right? That person has a need, and that need for that need, they got married, right? I mean, one of the reasons why they got married is for that need to be fulfilled. Now, that need is not being fulfilled for the slightest of reasons, then no, that's, that's not fair. It's not fair. And vice versa, whatever I'm saying, You should also imagine that you as a wife might be in a situation where you feel that you need some, you know, you want to have some attention and some intimacy. And, you know, what, if your husband was too busy all the time, or
whatever, he was always, you know,
making, excuse me, if you didn't feel like it, you know,
that can cause a lot of frustration to build up in a person. You know, I'm being really realistic with you, you know,
people don't often say stuff like that, but it's, it's that's the truth of it, you know, frustration builds up, and then resentment can build up as well. Right. So
This is basically a last minute that or the profit and loss element, the fob, when he says that the angels cast the wife who, basically her husband called her to have relations with that. And then she just kept saying no.
The reason is that there's like a big kind of emphasis being put on us, the profitsystem is saying,
Don't refuse, you know, if you at all can Don't refuse, not refuse.
And, by the way,
when like, I've been reading a lot of literature from non Muslims, about marriage, as well. And believe it or not even non Muslims, when they're talking about when they're talking to women, you know, about how to how to keep your marriage alive and all this kind of stuff. They one of the things they say is, don't refuse *.
Because
even if you're not in the mood right now, the harm that it does to kind of say no, especially on a regular basis, is really
is really damaging, you know, to the marriage. Okay, so even non Muslims is a book called The empowered wife.
By what's her name, I forgot the name, but you can look it up the empowered wife, she talks about, and obviously, we're talking about long term marriage, right? We're not talking about people who are just having little flings, and then moving on, we're talking about trying to build a long term marriage. And in a long term marriage, you get into a certain pattern of living. And so then, you know, sometimes you start getting irritated with one another over time in just just like life, right? Like, when you have a flatmate moment, right, that happens. So that you start needing to take care and really like, I would say, nurture the marriage in order for it to be successful in the long
term.
So in the empowered wife, one of the interesting things she says to women, is that if your husband is like, he wants to have intimacy with you,
you know, just be available, be available as much as possible. Because
even if you're not in the mood, right now, you, you might get into the mood, once once you start having intimacy. And also, because if you care about your husband, you should want his needs to be fulfilled, right?
It's not like,
it's not like it's not enjoyable, you know, like, I don't want to be rude about it. But I don't know why people always present it as if it's like a chore, you know, for women, that
women also get married in order to have intimacy, right and have that connection. So. So in summary, there's nothing in Islam that allows a man to force himself on a woman, even in marriage, some men might have misinterpreted or even,
they might just do it because they're violent men.
But islamically, there's no legal sanction for them to do that. It's simply that morally, morally, see, there's a difference between legal and moral, right? legal is, oh, I have a right to do this. I have a right. No, the man has no right to force
to force her to have sexual relations with him.
But morally, which means from what Allah says to us from God, and what are the messengers on our solemn
like, emphasize to us morally, we should always be available when our spouse and this is for both spouses
when the spouse has a need for intimacy. So I hope that kind of sums up.
I have another question.
When getting engaged, is it allowed for the couples to put the rings on each other? Also, is it true that marriages that have been quickly or more blessed than those that take longer to happen?
Um,
rings.
I mean, giving rings as gifts, there's nothing wrong with that, you know, but the symbolism of exchanging rings.
The problem with that is that it's it comes from a Christian tradition, right? It's a Christian practice, from what I understand.
And so in that sense,
it's not something that we should be doing, you know, we don't take the rituals of other religions and then adopt them and
And acting them out, you know, but as a kind of giving each other rings as a gift as part of the marriage, that's fine. No.
Because just as any jewelry is given, right, this one, I would kind of avoid that kind of symbolism of exchanging rings in front of people and all that because that's, that's a Christian that's like doing a Christian ritual in front of people in an Islamic wedding. So, you know, there's no need for that.
You can feed each other lead do something and
engagement in itself, like not something, it's up to you. So what's the question about engagement? Yes, it was about exchanging things during an engagement. If I'm not wrong, I'll just double check.
When getting engaged, is it allowed for the copper to put the rings on each other? I don't know if it means like, just All right.
Well, engagement is not a marriage. Right?
It depends on what the question means. Because some, some listeners when they having a nikka, which is like the actual marriage contract,
without living together, without, which means consummation. consummation means you're living together now. Right? Once a person starts living together, then the marriage is like,
I would say,
another level, right? takes another level. But once if you have a nica, which is a marriage contract, and you don't live together, yet, you've never been in seclusion together, in other words, okay.
that some people treat that in some cultures, like in our culture, for example, they treat that as a type of engagement, right? When, in reality, it's a marriage. So if, if that marriage contract has taken place,
then obviously the, the couple are allowed to have a lot more freedom together, in the sense that they can go out together, they can hold hands even, right? They can have physical contact, if that Nika has not taken place. And it's just an engagement engagement. I don't want to say it doesn't mean anything, but
it doesn't really mean anything. Like
it doesn't actually bind you. It's almost like, well, it does mean something in the sense that it's like a promise, right? It's like, okay, yeah, we promise we're gonna, on that date, we're gonna get married, right?
But it's not like, an actual binding together, you know, really, so it's just an engagement as in,
like, okay, we agree that we're gonna marry each other type thing. And then any type of physical contact is not allowed anyway, right?
You're not, you're not allowed, you're not free yet to have physical contact with that person, and to do things that a married couple would do.
So there's that. And then just the symbolism of exchanging rings, like I said,
is a very Christian thing.
It's not, it doesn't come from our tradition and the prophets, Allah encouraged us not to adopt and not to follow the foot, like the rituals of the Jews and Christians now.
We have our own way of doing things. And it's distinct. And that's what we should do. Because those things, sometimes they have some religious significance. And,
you know, Christians don't copy us, do they, they don't. They don't do the things that we do. So why do we try to copy them and do the things they do? It's obviously because we've been brought up in sculpture, and you know, those things. Like, today, you know, Prince Philip died. And, you know, when you were just watching the news starting, you know, like, you can get very easily drawn into, like, all the stuff, right?
So similarly, rings and this kind of thing. We've actually grown up in a very in quite a Christian culture. So those things stop feeling like they mean something, but actually know that they're from another religion. Right. So.
So we shouldn't do those things.
Yeah, I think it was similar to your point about like firms and stuff as well. It does dramatize the whole brewing process, and it builds a lot more significance to that. I think there was a second to that question, the idea of giving gifts of rings. There's nothing wrong with that. Really? No.
I think there was a second part about
if Uh, oh, sorry. Just a second.
Is it true that marriages that have been quickly or more blessed than those that take longer to happen?
That was like this? Oh, yeah.
I think that sometimes exaggerated you know, like, the idea is that the easier you make marriage the more like Baraka there is, you know, the marriage that is a bit says, The marriage that is not very expensive, you know, that a lot of money is not spent a lot of excess is not done, that is simple. It's not expensive, it's, it's affordable, you know, everything is done simply, that has more Baraka, definitely, in terms of time quicker.
I don't really see any evidence for that, because,
you know, like, in the time of the prophet SAW Arsalan, people used to be
engaged for marriage, meaning like, sometimes from childhood, like, never going to, they're going to get married, when they think they're ready type things. So
I'm
definitely I would say, from, like, just social level from a hikma wisdom level, the longer you leave something,
the more tension that's built up, sometimes,
you know, certain things can happen that will
maybe
make maybe affect the marriage and stuff like that. So, definitely, once a person has decided, and once you're clear that this is the person that you're going to marry,
there should be no reason to delay it without a good reason, you know, but I don't think you can really say that,
you know, delaying it.
Now, people, often they say, Well, you know, that we'll do, we'll engage and we'll get married after, either now, after we graduate or in the summer, when the weather's better or whatever. And those are just practicalities. No, unless you think that you might fall into some heroin in the meantime. And I think there's a real
problem with having some delay. But from a wisdom perspective, it's a good idea once you've decided to get married, because otherwise, you can easily fall into her arm, in the sense that, you know, communication, and it's not getting romantic. And you know, that all of that romance and all that stuff should be happening within marriage. Right.
Right.
I think that answers the question, there was just a quite, I guess, it's a broad question, but how do you know, you're ready for marriage?
As a woman,
I would say,
when you start having when you start feeling attracted to men,
you know, and you know, that you are, then there's obviously desire there. And so
that's definitely one thing that tells you
that desire to have children sometimes, you know, some, some girls actually have a very strong, like, maternal instinct, they feel it. So there's that. Um, so
it becomes more like, definite when you know that you are feeling attracted. And you do have desires that need to be fulfilled.
And it becomes more urgent, if you think, by not getting married, you're going to fall into something, how wrong, right? So and when I say that, I don't just mean Xena, you know, like, which is
in sexual relations outside of marriage. I mean, even the things that lead to Zilla, right, like, for example, flirting,
you know that sometimes it's a strong temptation to flirt
with the opposite * now, flirting in and of itself, within a marriage, this is needed, you know, like you need to be teachers. But the problem is when you start expressing that human need that human and as women we do have a desire to be admired, you know, we have a desire to be looked at,
to be appreciated for just our appearance and also personality, you know, to be adored, every human being wants to be adored by somebody.
So, sometimes if we don't
look for the halal way to fulfill that, it can start coming out in haram ways right like
People start flirting with, in general with everyone, you know, we all know somebody is flirting
with all the brothers, right?
And that person might not realize that they're doing that, you know. But it's like, it's just such a strong human kind of instinct almost, to draw attention to oneself,
or appreciation. So, if it starts coming out in that way, or you start having crushes on people, for example,
which can start happening, even when you're like, at school, right?
You can tell that you do have this kind of need, right? There's a need that that needs to be fulfilled. So I think, especially when that needs starts becoming clear to you,
it means that, you know, you're probably ready to start thinking about marriage.
And that you should start
preparing your parents somehow, you know, and talking to them about it, etc, rather than,
you know, going out and acting on certain feelings that you have, and then inadvertently falling into her arm. Right.
knockdowns is
so cool. Okay.
There's just loads coming through.
What if you? What if you're wearing a wedding ring to deter others from approaching you as an outwardly showing you? I'm
not too sure what the question part of it is just, it just is what I mean. Like I wear a ring that my father in law gave me know, when I was getting married him. He was he actually used to make jewelry himself. So
it's quite bright. I couldn't say
he made it himself. And he gave it to me as a gift. And yeah, I get that, like, there is a certain
you know, the thing is in the Muslim community, it wouldn't necessarily mean anything. Like people don't necessarily think that you have wearing a ring means that you're married.
So I remember when I was when I started doing more public stuff. And even some of the brothers who are married who don't want to get proposals and stuff, right. What they do is they write it on their profiles, right? married with kids, you know, just to kind of make it clear that
their status, I don't know if wearing a ring is really gonna make much of a difference. But there's nothing wrong with wearing a ring. Yeah.
makes a difference. I guess it might make a difference in the wider culture like the non Muslim, non Muslim environments. Yeah.
I guess maybe at university and stuff as well.
Nicole is completed, but not the official wedding. is physical intimacy not allowed until after the official wedding.
is completed.
Yeah, but not the official wedding. I think that would be ceremonial equities. Attend thing.
is physical intimacy not allowed until after the official wedding?
Not really, no, I mean, technically,
you can, you can have intimacy, you know, because you're married, you're actually married. So maybe if your parents have kind of made you agree that look don't don't have any intimacy until, until we have this kind of official rasathi as they call it, right, because of the meaning like now you're basically like consummation you're now leaving, to live with your spouse.
Um, if you've had that kind of agreement,
and understanding, then you can avoid it, you can avoid having, like,
what that means is avoid having full relations in a full intimacy. But in terms of like holding hands talking, because for us as Muslims, even those things aren't a big deal. Right? Those things are something that you do within marriage. So,
you know,
talking in a romantic way, talking over the phone meeting up going out, those types of things are fine, you know, and even having physical contact. But I guess what people are saying is like, just wait until the day when you
have that official, we're not certainly in order to actually
have full sexual relations, right.
That's just like an adverb that people have but islamically taken
Once you've had the nigga, the couple are allowed to now start living together. You know,
I guess people just make an agreement that they're not going to until a certain date. So if you made that agreement, then you can keep to it. You know, that's good.
But technically, if you wanted to, you could say, well, actually, we want to move in now together.
And you would be allowed to you I mean, islamically, that would be fine. Because you are literally married. Right?
Yeah. So there's no reason not to.
Thoughts on Nicola during Ramadan?
That's just the question, just his thoughts on a nick Archer.
Sorry.
I wouldn't recommend it. I mean, because
because when you first get married, you really, really love it like to be with each other. And, like, the level of intimacy is much higher than when things settle a bit.
into a rhythm and a pattern. So
it's gonna be really hard, I'll say, I mean, like giving, getting married and living together, will be quite hard to do that. Because obviously, for all the entire day, you're not, you probably won't even shouldn't even
be very close to each other. Like, we can be quite sensitive, when you first get married.
both spouses can be quite sensitive, because obviously, it's very, it's a novelty, isn't it, it's like it, and you feel very, very close, and in love, etc. So, um,
if possible, I would avoid it really, just to make, not to make life difficult. And also, because I guess Ramadan is like a time to focus on a bother. And then
you know, it's gonna be, it's just gonna be a struggle. So if I had the choice to either no schedule my child, my son's wedding,
I would avoid drama on from the thing that makes
another question when getting married? Are you obliged to tell your husband about your past? example past relationships? Or can you just deny it even if he asks?
That's a good question.
I think in general,
you're not under an obligation to
tell people about your sins. You know, if you've committed a sin in the past,
if you
made a mistake, or if
really, you're not under any obligation to, like, you know, let me let me tell you everything, you know, you're not under an obligation to do that, especially if it's going to
affect your, you're getting married, you know,
at the same time, it's a judgment call that you want to make, because
it depends on if that thing is going to directly impact the marriage significantly, you know,
some people they don't want to have the type of, they don't want to be in a marriage where they have anything that they
have held back from their spouse, you know,
because then it haunts them.
But if it's not something that's going to really bother you, you know, that you have literally like, for example, people who become practicing, or people who convert to Islam, you know, it's, it's like a clean break, isn't it? you've you've, you've changed your life now. So there's no point and no need to tell them about everything that's happened before right.
Now, I don't know like when it comes to, if somebody asks, in the marriage meetings, like,
um,
I would say that
that's very difficult, because
that could cause a lot of harm. You know, if somebody asked point blank, for example, have you ever had a boyfriend or have you ever had
any kind of marriage or intimate relationship before? Okay.
And that's something that's very important to them for marriage.
Then it's just not right to not tell them the truth. You know?
So, either that could be a sign that you actually, you know, you're not it doesn't mean you have to tell them. You can say, I'm not comfortable talking about that, or whatever it is that you want to say.
But I would say that's probably going to put them off anyway. Okay? If that's something that's very important to them.
Or it's kind of a sign for you that maybe that's not the right person for you, because
at some point in the marriage, it might come up, you know,
and then it would be quite disastrous, you know, so
it's really a judgment call for you to make.
You know, it's very hard to give like a very blanket general statement, the blanket general statement is, you don't have to disclose anything, right?
Why is Parson when they're going to get married? They're not going to dig into every single corner of your life.
So Excuse me.
But to some people, certain things might be so important that they?
It would, it would affect their marriage, you know, so that's why they ask.
So if they do ask,
then, you know, I wouldn't avoid it, because it means it's that important to them. And,
yeah, so in other words, you don't need to volunteer the information, you know.
But if somebody asks you point blank,
especially talking about before the marriage, you know,
you don't have to really make sure that you're, I mean, you should tell them the truth. Sorry, I can't hear this. There's some,
if everyone can just make sure they're muted.
I'm
sorry, I hope I've been clear. What I'm saying is that if, before marriage,
the person asks point blank something, if you don't want to tell them, tell them that you're not comfortable telling them about this area. But
if you want to go ahead with the marriage, then it's probably a good idea to tell them if they are, if they ask
after marriage, say you're married now. And then your spouse starts asking you stuff. That wasn't important to them before, they'd never asked about before. Yeah. And now there's no need to talk about it. You're not on, you know, you should do what you can to keep the marriage in a good state.
Just as we don't share with our spouse, everything we're thinking, right? Like, you wouldn't want him to share everything that he's thinking with you. Right? If you if he's at work, and there's this really good looking woman who works with him, you don't really want him to tell you that.
Or if you know, if you have a similar experience, you know, he wouldn't want you to tell him that, right. So it's not about like, you know, there should be no secrets between us. It's not like that. It's that we're supposed to be Muslim. And we're supposed to do whatever it takes to mend a marriage to keep marriages together. So once you're married, you are you are even allowed to lie to your spouse in the sense that
like, in order to bring hearts together, you know, you're allowed to say to yourself, you're the best looking guy I've ever seen, you know, let's
say the same to you. You know, ever since I've married you, I could never think about anyone else.
it cetera, et cetera, whatever, whatever it is, you you you can
you know, if your spouse asks you a question, like,
do you find me attractive or do whatever? I can't think of any examples right now. But you're allowed to say yes, you know, I've never found you unattractive, or whatever, you know, just to keep an appease and keep relations good. So once you're married, there's no need to tell each other every little thing you know. And, of course, you should be honest and open. And that's the ideal. But I mean, if there are certain sensitive areas, you know, there's no obligation to kind of
tell somebody, everything. In fact, Islam encourages us, if we have sinned,
in the past, especially, or anything that is kind of unsavory or on.
Something we're not proud of, if you like,
encourages us not to be very not to tell people no because it's like, Allah has
protected you he's, he's kept a cover over that for you. Now for you to go out and just expose it, it's like you're exposing yourself no reason Allah is giving you another chance to make amends. And, you know,
but of course, sometimes people have traumas, they have things that happened that they need to have dealt with, you know? So I'm not saying, don't get those things addressed. You know, don't get those don't get help from a therapist or whatever.
I'm just telling you like, technically, what the, the, you're not obliged to tell somebody, something you don't want to tell them.
Right? I realize that we hang we've just gone past six o'clock, or you have a few more questions, or do you want to?
Yeah, I'll try to do some quick ones. And
there was a few more that were.
Okay, here we go. I'm a bit scared to get married because I feel I need to improve my connection with Allah, how does one balance the need to improve spirituality with marriage? Because I've often heard time decreases when you're not single. So I'm worried I won't be able to study as much.
long question.
Yeah. So I'll just say that, you know,
if opportunities to get married, come your way. And proposals come your way. I think all of us should consider those to be
like,
a blessing from Allah, you know, like, sometimes we take proposals for granted. We just think, Oh, you know, some guy like, you know, and, and they'll be, there's plenty of more fresh fish in the sea type thing. Right. But actually, each of those proposals is, is a gift from Allah, you know, something that you should really consider. Think about with your family. I mean, if your family are okay with that,
and not just kind of
kind of ignore, you know,
because at some point,
I don't want to scare you, but proposals can start becoming few and far between, because if think about it on a very practical level, Muslim men,
religious Muslim man, he wants to stay chaste.
He doesn't want to have any, he's not going to have girlfriends, right. So the average man out there is having girlfriends Yeah. And woman as well. They've got girlfriends and boyfriends. So they have that natural desire that humans have. They're satisfying in different ways, right? A Muslim man who is from a religious family, or who is religious, he is not doing that, right, he's holding himself is protecting himself. But that means he's probably going to want to get married as soon as possible.
Right. So sometimes what's happening in our society is that the young men, as soon as they get their first proper job, you know, and as soon as they're able to, they'll try to get married, because they've all these years, you know, they haven't had any kind of relationship.
Now, why would they want to delay anymore? Right. And then what's happening is on the flip side, the sisters, the girls are
delaying marriage, right?
Sometimes a bit too much.
And putting career fast, and putting these other things first.
And so what happens is the young men by the age of 30, they're all married.
Most of them, they've, especially between 25 and 30, they're just getting married or getting married,
to whoever will, you know, good sisters that they find and who will accept them. And then the sisters, now by the age of 30,
the number of brothers that are actually looking to get married, is starting to go down. Yeah.
And then by 30, you know, it's, then it just gets more and more difficult. Yeah, it's, I'm being really realistic with you. Okay, I know that it's not, might not might not be a very nice thing to hear. But
sometimes society lies to us that we can just do everything, you know, we can do everything at any time. But actually, there's a biological clock ticking, right? And these things are just inside us as human beings that you know, the desire to have children the desire to settle down.
So if we delay those things, and we know as women, it does become harder to have a child, the older you get.
You know,
everyone is different, of course, but
scientists from a scientific perspective, medical perspective
between the age of
After the age of 35, I would say, even 30 is like the optimal,
most fertile time for a woman, right?
Then beyond 35, it can start becoming harder.
Beyond 40, it becomes very hard to have a child, for some women, right? Not all women, some women, they seem to be able to, you know, they have, they're very fertile, they just have that.
having their babies, you know, 40s, but I'm just saying there's that, but also as a, as a human being, you become,
you know, like, I had all my kids in my 20s. Mostly, that's when you're at your strongest and most energetic and you can run around in the park, and you can, right now I'm like, 40, and I don't really want to go to the park to be
avoided, if I can avoid it, you know, I'm not going to go to the swings and the slides and stuff. Yeah, so that could just be me. But I'm just saying, like, the reality is that as people as human beings, we have our energy, we have our like, youth, right. And we think that that that youth should be spent in studying and making money or having a job or whatever. But building human beings,
the next generation of human beings may not just come out of nowhere, good human beings, good. Muslims, good worship is of a lot. They have to be nurtured and built. Right. And that takes energy. That takes effort and energy as well. So I'll say, Don't
Don't belittle that, you know, because that's a very, very rewarding and very important role.
Unfortunately, our society belittles that, you know,
encourages us to go into
other things and prioritize other things, when actually very few people when they're very old, say, I wish I'd done this career, or I wish I'd done that career. Most people are thinking about their family, no thinking about the relationships they had.
And they find a lot of comfort in having children and grandchildren. And I know that it's like, why talking to us about grandchildren? We just, like,
just started life, you know?
I know, but I'm just encouraging you to think practically for the long term, right? Because society often tells us to think about instant gratification, what feels good. Now, what's going to get you the winds now. But
you know, you have to think if you're if you're getting proposals, in other words, take them seriously, right?
If you have a desire for marriage, and a desire, any, for any kind of like, you have that sense of desire, you should try to get married.
And don't worry about not being good enough. This and that, you know, none of us ever feels good enough or anything, right?
through marriage through having children are you actually mature a lot,
naturally mature a lot. So, definitely do your best to develop yourself as a future Mama, right?
What are some of the skills you're going to need as a mother? Those are important too. We often don't get talked to about that. But then when girls get married, they get quite shocked that they are not gonna have to do this or that.
No, look after the house, or I don't know how to do the basics. So make sure you spend some time learning those things as well.
Yeah, so as I said, there's a lot of things that we learn by actually taking the plunge and
maturing and going to the next stage of life. Right.
Definitely, I think I do agree that I don't think we ever will feel like very much ready for anything in life even.
There was I think this will be the this is the last question. How do you look for a husband? What kind of questions should you ask at the marriage meetings? That's a good one. Yeah. Um,
okay. So some of the things too. When you're looking for marriage, I think you should have your own list of questions. They should be questions about the person's attitude towards things you know, I think
like,
you
You can also learn a lot from listening to, especially when you're having a meeting and you see the way the person interacts with your mom, your dad, other people, other people around and what they say. And
but yeah, like, of course questions, some of the questions that are important to you, you only you know, right, you want to ask, especially you want to know, you might not need to ask about this might be just kind of clear. You want to know that the person fulfills their fundamentals as a Muslim, right? You want to ask them? What kind of how do they spend their time throughout the week? Now?
That tells you a lot about them.
What kinds of
I don't know, nowadays? Probably,
who do they follow?
probably find out.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
You can have a good look online, what, what the person is up to you?
But yeah, you know, just to get an idea, like, who are the scholars and the people who they're attached to, for example? Um, do they have some time in their week, where they spend some time with some scholars and some
scholars? I mean, like, mentors, Islamic mentors, you know, do they have that connection. And of course, that's going to depend on how much of a connection you have, if that's important to you, you know, but it's always a good sign when a young man is spending some of his week devoted to align some way or learning and nurturing himself, you know, in some way.
You can learn a lot from all of that. But there's one thing that is quite important that sometimes people don't do. And that is, and this sounds a bit like getting a job. But can you imagine, like, when we're when we're getting a job,
we want to get a job, or even when we want to do something academic,
we have to get references, right?
We have to provide references. And
we don't do that. Sometimes people don't do that for such an important area of their life, which is married. And you know, spy interesting because Malcolm Gladwell is author, you know, his recent book,
on what it's called,
his most recent book, he actually talks about how you probably learn more about a person, not by interviewing them, right. And he was talking about, I think he was talking about work, you know, finding people to work for you.
interviews, he said, are very little very,
have no utility, right? In terms of really getting to know a person, if they've, if they're, if they've got a good character, for example, or they're, you've got good skills in the context of work.
He said, reference is actually much better. People who've worked with the person, people who have lived with the past and people who've traveled with the person.
And he was talking about, you know, work, but I was just thinking about it when I was reading it that panela, like, when I was getting married, my dad actually bought references for my husband, like, got two friends to people who
had either traveled with him or worked with him in the past, or we're at uni with him. And he literally sat down with them, and it's telling me about, about this person, you know, and islamically, that person has to say the truth? No, that's one of the instances when you're actually allowed to back by you're actually allowed to be explicit in positive or negative about somebody, when somebody comes and asks you
tell me about this person, you know, what is it like? What's their character? Like? What's their personality? Like? Because things like having a bad temper, or, you know, whatever it is, you don't get to know that from a few meetings, you know, people always put their best face forward, right? Same as you when you're in a meeting. So, by having a character reference, it doesn't mean that everything you find out that's negative means that Okay, now you have to write them off. No, just means.
Like, for example, one sister, I know she found out that the person smokes, which they hadn't said, you know, in the meeting, but their friend said, Well, he smokes
and that was like a no no for her. Okay.
So then that kind of made it easy and clear. But for somebody else, somebody would say, you know, that person she gets she gets stressed out very easily.
That's not necessarily something not to marry someone for you. Yeah, that's something for you to judge me yourself. But
so it doesn't mean that by getting character references, you need to write anyone off. But at least you get a more detailed and realistic insight into them, you know. So I think it's really important that if your dad or your you know, whoever your male relatives are, who are helping you to get married, if they don't do that, you should make them do it. You should ask them, Oh, please, can you do the character referencing?
And shouldn't be shy about that, because that's an Islamic way of doing things, you know, getting witnesses getting people, even people used to sometimes ask the Prophet, so I'm about son, so he's getting married to so and so. And he would say, Oh, I don't think she should marry him. Because he's, he's quite.
And he gets angry. He hits, right. I mean, he
used to give his new like that, you know?
Um, so?
Yeah, I think it's important for us to have character references, that's a very good way to find out how a person is maybe meet them in a different setting, you know, maybe get your brothers or sisters dependent, brother, or to hang out with them as well. Yeah, give a bit of a get a bit of an insight.
But yeah, of course, like, acid, everything in life
is a little element of risk, you know.
But that's why as much as we get our family involved, isn't it like we get our father, there's things that your dad will notice, that you won't notice, especially if you really like the person? Yeah, you tend to gloss over the negatives.
But the but your mom and dad will be very realistic, probably about certain things. So it's worth taking their views
on board, you know,
that answers that question.
I think so does apple. Okay. I think we'll
see what that question was. I was just saying,
sorry that we've taken a bit extra of your time. But honestly, it was very, very useful. And for everyone that came today on benefit.
I think they've had a lot of questions that came in today that weren't just from the Google Doc.
And I hope I've answered the questions in a balanced way. I think in summary, I'll just say that. Look, you know, sometimes we hear things about marriage that people say, or they think that has become culturally normal. But we have to go back and find out does Islam actually say that? You know, Sam doesn't? Doesn't anything unjust, Islam doesn't promote that. We should just know that. Right? Anything that loss of habitat Allah has commanded us, there's something good in it. And anything he's forbidding us from, there's definitely something harmful in it. And whether we can see or not. Because sometimes later on in life, we realize, Oh, that's why I see the wisdom in that now.
Right? And that's why we say, you know,
perhaps there's something even in it. But I mean, Allah Subhana, Allah knows, and we don't know, right?
When we obey Allah, we should just be sure that there is something good in this for us. And that should give us peace of mind. And of course, we should practice the hierarchy, right? So when you find when you're getting married, or you're thinking of getting married, and you've made a decision, you think, yes, for example, make a decision in your mind and then go and pray. istikhara
and then Allah, Allah will help you, whatever is good for you will happen for you. That's what this decoder means, right? Whatever is good for you, you're seeking that. So if this thing is good for you, Allah will help it and facilitate it. If it's not good for you, then maybe something will happen and it won't go ahead or for whatever reason. And then you'll have that peace of mind, you know, in your heart that well I ask Allah to give me the fat and the fire must have been in this
I'll say that the archer and the modulus.
Panic Allahu
Allah in
Urbana habla Rahman as watching our
reality now. You
pray that Allah gives us in our spouses and our children the coolness of our eyes and makes us the leaders of the righteous and I mean for me
it really comes down