Hamzah Wald Maqbul – The Rights Of Husbands & Wives Safina Society New Brunswick NJ March 2016
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AI: Transcript ©
Wife is that what?
That,
she'd be provided,
like, shelter,
bare minimum amount of shelter, and what defines
that? A bare minimum amount of food? What
defines that? A bare minimum amount of clothing?
What defines that,
right? So there's no
2 people who are like a happy couple
and a woman's like, Oh, my husband's so
wonderful! He writes me a check for rent
and a specific discreet amount of money for
food, and like a discreet like, or like
a coupon for, like, the ShopRite,
so I can get a certain amount of
food, and like, he buys me 2 pairs
of clothing every year on the same date.
That's not how, like, a real marriage works.
There's nobody who's happy like that. Right? And
there's definitely, you know,
and I I I
wanna warn parents that there are
discussions regarding
the relationship between a husband and a wife.
If you feel that the children are sensitive
and shouldn't hear them, this may be a
time to, like, take them out to lunch
or for ice cream or something like that.
So this is a fair warning. In a
couple of minutes, it's gonna go there. So,
you know,
you should you should be forewarned and then
make your decision on your own.
But, you know, whatever the rights the husband
has over the wife,
you know, that the husband, you know, say
that, oh, my wife is wonderful because I
write demand X, Y, and Z, she always
fulfills that demand at the time it's demanded,
at the place that is demanded.
Human beings don't function like that, right? In
reality, human beings don't function like that, and
I think
one of the one of the
one of the most practical things that I've
heard, that that that
makes me understand what a real marriage is
rather than what the legal,
definition of rights and responsibilities in marriage are
that you receive from a 5th book is
a snippy thing that Desi people say all
the time. There's an expression in Urdu,
miya bibi razi kya karega kazi if the
husband and wife are pleased with each other,
then the judge doesn't have a case to
rule on.
If the husband and wife are pleased with
one another,
then the judge's
opinion is irrelevant. Why? Because the judge's opinion
is only relevant when the case comes to
him, but if you can work out your
issues on your own and be happy
the way you are, then that's great, you
know? If the husband raises the children, and
the wife has a job and works, if
the, you know, if the husband and wife
have relations every day of the week, or
if they have once a year, or if
they don't have them at all, or if
the,
you know, the the husband cooks half the
time, the wife cooks half the time, or
the wife cooks all the time, or the
husband cooks all the time, or whatever configuration
that's there, as long as it doesn't involve
doing something that's explicitly haram, what a successful
marriage is, is defined by what 2 people
agree upon a successful marriage being.
And whatever makes you happy,
that's good for you, and frankly, it's I've
heard this from
I've heard this from the ulama, and my
study of the hadith of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
doesn't show me anything to the contrary, that
even the Messenger of sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
did not used to intervene between 2 married
people.
He did not used to intervene between
2 married people. How? I mean, he would
intervene in the sense that if there's a
problem and some people came to him, ask
ask for his advice how to make it
work out or had a request for him,
then he would try to make things work
out, but he never commanded for example, there's
this the hadith regarding,
I believe her name is
Barira
She was a woman who was a slave,
who got her freedom. She was a slave,
and she was married to she was a
slave woman, she was married to a slave
man.
And she got her freedom,
and when she received her freedom, her husband
was still a slave, and in our sacred
law, obviously slavery is not there anymore, but
there's a time that it was practiced, and
when a slave woman receives her freedom, if
her husband is a slave, she has an
option, does she,
does she can she stay with him or
can she leave him?
Then dissolve that marriage at that that point.
And so she chose she chose to dissolve
her marriage, she was free, she no longer
wanted to stay married to a man who
was a slave, and so she left him.
And so he he was heartbroken,
and he went to the Messenger of Allah
and said
You Rasulullah, you know to come tell her
to get back with me, tell her to
like not you know cut me off like
that.
And so Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told her,
you know, like wouldn't it be good if
you got back together with him again? And
she asked, she said: You Rasulullah,
is this a command, or is it just
a suggestion?
Meaning what? Like, if it's a command, Al
Rasulayin,
you know, I hear and I obey, and
I'm not gonna say anything, and
I'm I'm I'm pleased with what you command
me to do. But if it's a suggestion,
I'd rather not. So Nabi Salasam said it's
a suggestion.
And she said, yeah, I'd rather if it's
my choice, I'd rather not be with him.
And there are a number
of
instances
like that, that that you will find where
the even the messenger of Allah salallahu alaihi
wa sallam. And nabiu ola bil mumineenamin
and fusihimu azwajuummahatuhum.
The prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam has more right
over the believers than they have over themselves,
and his wives
are are like their mothers.
So the wives of the Nabi, alaihis salatu
as salam, are our mothers,
and to describe the Nabi salallahu alaihi wa
sams' right over us as the right of
a father over his children is, even though
the right of a father over his children
is great, but to describe the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam's right over us like the
right of a father over his children is
itself, it falls short of what his maqam
is. Even then, he chose not to intervene
between
husbands and wives.
He chose not to intervene between husbands and
wives. If you're a man and a woman,
your bond between one another is something sacred,
it's something unique, and really other people don't
have business to get in the middle of
it. In fact, there's a hadith of the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
and this is mentioned in the Birul Walidayn.
It's mentioned in this book as well, and
the context
of its mention,
we'll get to. But it's mentioned that Shaitan
has a throne, and he has a court.
And just like there's a hierarchy amongst the
angels, there's also a hierarchy amongst the shayatin,
and the shaitan has his throne in his
court, and he sits amongst all the shayatin.
He had a seat at the end of
the at the end of the day or
the end of the shift of causing havoc
in the world. He seats the shaytaan that
caused the biggest the biggest
problem, created the biggest havoc in the world.
He seats that shaitan closest to him,
and so what happens is the shayateen will
come in front of him and say this
Iblis, we did so and so, so we
messed up this, we messed up that, we
caused a fight, we caused a war, we
caused this to happen, that happened. He's like
this is nothing, it's not a big deal.
Then
when a shaitan comes to him and says
I caused a husband and wife to break
up, shaitan is super happy, he says this
one, you did something good, come sit next
to me.
Meaning what? That
the evil
separating between a man and a wife,
okay, the evil of
making problems between man and a wife is
a really big evil.
And we don't think of it as such
because we're like we live in a very
materialistic world,
and like people get together and separate,
like it's not a big deal.
We live in a world where zinnai is
not considered a crime,
It's not even considered immoral anymore.
Zinai is not really a problem. They're kind
they're even in this country, there are places
where even prostitution is legal. It's not even
illegal in all parts of this country. And,
there are a lot of people who really
wouldn't object to it morally if it was
made legal universally.
Perhaps even even a majority of the people
in this country wouldn't object to it, if
push came to shove.
And so
because we're desensitized to it, we don't think
of it as a big deal, but if
you think of it rationally and logically,
the amount of facade that enters into society
because
of, man and woman who are married to
each other breaking up,
it affects their kids, it affects their parents,
it affects both of their lives, it affects
their economic productivity, it affects their mood,
it opens the door for both of them
to,
be exposed to zinai
it opens like a lot of door for
a lot of evil. Right? Even in the
in the Quran. Right? With Tabaa'umatatushaa'atinu
ala multisulaiman.
Right? The the the the Banu Israil, one
of the things that Allah Ta'ala chastised them
for is that instead of following the teachings
of the Anbiya alaihmusati
alaihimusa'atuh alsalam, they followed the teachings and considered
it a religious teaching,
that the black magic that they learned from
the jinns that used to serve serve Sayna
Soleiman
Right? And the
black magic that was taught to them as
taught to humanity as a punishment
by the 2 angels, the 2 fallen angels
Harut and Marut, right? This is an interesting
story that there were 2 angels, and they
were sent to be a fitna on the
people of Babil,
to tell because of their wickedness, they were
a fitna for that people, a punishment for
that people, a punishment for that people, that
they started teaching them
the black magic, the black arts, and the
thing one of the one of the things
they taught them that was mentioned specifically in
the Quran is
what? Mayifaraku bein abibiilbailbariwazojihi.
Right? That how you can what? Separate between
a man and a woman. A husband and
a wife, I should say.
Right? And it's specifically mentioned. Why? Because Why
would it be specifically mentioned? It's specifically mentioned
because of how evil it is.
Because of how evil it is, that this
is the extent of the evil of what
they were taught, that the Banu Israel preserved
that knowledge of that black magic that came
through Harut and Marut as a punishment on
the people of Babil, and they preserved that.
And it's so bad that it even includes
that black magic, even includes how to break
up a husband and a wife,
which
is sufficient in terms of
how evil it is. So just like for
example, a person who comes to a
child and or to a person and,
poisons their mind against their parents and tells
them to disobey and to treat your parents
badly, or have a person comes to their
parents and poisons their mind against their children,
just like that poison someone's mind or to
encourage them to treat
their spouse badly
or to think bad of their spouse
it's
very evil, it's very horrible.
So coming back to this idea of how
you're going to have
a relationship that works, is that you just
you have to be pleased with each other,
and that's a very human endeavor. That's going
to be very different,
based on the personality of the husband, the
personality of the wife. Some people have very
similar personalities, and so the way they reach
resolution with each other is she looks like
one thing. Some people have very opposite personalities,
the way that they'll reach resolution with one
another is another thing.
And some people, you know, frankly, there's
there's very little or perhaps no chance of
them resolving with one another, and then the
shari'a, you know, basically teaches that in those
specific few cases that they should
part ways with one another, but even in
the parting ways, there's some
sort of harmony in the sense that we're
commanded
to
Imsaqum Bilmaruf
Otasriham
Bil Ihsan
that when you when you
when you stay with each other, when a
husband holds on
to a woman as his wife,
that he should do so in a good
way, and if he lets her go, meaning
that divorce happens, he should do it in
also in a beautiful way, right? Right? That
you should part ways,
you know,
in
in in an amicable way. You should part
ways amicably.
It shouldn't be like the partition of India
and Pakistan, that like a 1000000 people are
getting killed going one way or the other.
It's not the total catastrophe where you that's
not allowed in our sharia, that's not the
commandment of Allah or Hisr Rasool Allah alayhi
wa sallam, even if divorce is permissible. So
even the act of separating from one another,
it should be done in a manner
harmonious relationship
between a husband and a wife.
Now, there's a couple of things I'm gonna
say that are going to be
I don't think they're unreasonable, I think they're
very reasonable and I think a person who's
fair in their judgment should understand what the
reasonability is, but that being said, they're definitely
not not concepts that are gonna go over
well with,
contemporary sensibilities,
especially with regards to,
the way
society sees gender, or is blind to gender,
I should say, or,
to contemporary notions of political correctness. All I
can say is that,
you know, I'll try to bring the text
of the Quran and the text of the
hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
to back whatever I say that may be
a little bit awkward for people to hear,
and then afterward if the person has an
issue with it, let them know that the
issue is not with what's being said, but
the issue is at a deeper level with
having to, you know,
be comfortable with what Allah and His Rasool
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam say, and working on that
issue.
And so,
the first thing I wanted to say is
that the Quran
describes the husband as a qawam
that
The qawamiyah
of the husband means that the husband has
a maqam
in the in the relationship,
and that the relationship is indeed hierarchical.
The relationship is indeed what? It's hierarchical.
It's not a relationship of equality, even if
it is a relationship of
of of of equitable terms, it's not a
relationship of equality.
That the husband has a maqam over his
wife,
and this is what by the text of
the Quran and the text of the the
sunnah of the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam as well.
And
the the Quran,
sorry, the hadith of the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
it's inescapable,
this conclusion from the text of the hadith.
For example, there's a hadith of the messenger
of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that what?
That
if low
low is the like when pigs fly, if
pigs fly, like it's not gonna happen.
But if it were to happen, right? So
for example, the Nabi Sultan alhambiya, he said
if there was lokana nabiambadilakana
umara, if there were to be a nabi
after me,
and the if that's used here indicates that
it's impossible that there will be a Nabi
after him sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, but if
there were to be a Nabi after me,
it would have been Umar.
This is hadith of the Prophet
So the same if is used that if
I were to if I were to command
a person, one human being to make Sajjad
to another human being, I would have commanded
a wife to make sajjad to her husband.
Now you have to understand, what does this
mean, that this is the nabi of tawhid.
This is the nabi who comes at a
time that there's no one who upholds Tawhid
in the world.
He's the only one, and he's the only
one who it's going to be upheld with
until the yawul qiyama.
So for him to say that
that if I were to command
one human being to make sajdah to another,
what does that mean?
Nabi'alaihi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is not throwing
around this expression lightly, it's a very serious
matter.
What did he say? I would have commanded
a
a wife to make sajdah in front of
her husband.
There's another hadith of the messenger of Allah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, a Sahih hadith of the
messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, in which
he was asked what is the haqqat? The
right of a husband over his wife.
And the right of the husband over the
wife was what? The ride of the husband
over the wife that Nabi said was that
that if he had a wound,
and the wound was festering, and the only
way to clean it was for her to
lick it clean with the blood, and the
pasa, and all of that, then the only
way is for her to lick it clean
that if she did so, that would be
his right.
What does this mean? Okay? You have to
understand this in context, right? What does this
mean? Just like when we said in the
discussion regarding parents,
that as a parent,
you Allah didn't give you
children
because He wanted you to take benefit from
slave labor
or that he just said here, here's another
person, this is my gift, go run him
into the ground if you want to.
Rather, as massive and as
just enormous
as that
commandment for the children to
show respect and honor to their parents is,
just in that same way is the responsibility
of the parents to do what's best for
the children in their,
duniya and in their afira.
Okay? Just like that in a marriage,
as huge as this respect
and this honor
that is due to a husband from his
wife is,
just as huge is the
expectation from Allah Ta'ala for which hisaab and
which account will be taken. Just as huge
as that expectation is from Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, that for which account will be taken.
For which account will be taken,
the expectation is that he does what's best
for her, that he treat her with honor
and he treat her with dignity.
And this is expressed by the Prophet
over and over again in his life, right?
Including in his farewell Hajj,
That he what? He told the people, the
men to fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
with regards to the women that
are under
the control of their husbands. Meaning what? That
we can shout equal rights
under the law,
and court protections,
and
domestic violence
laws, and punishments, and all that we shot
till we're blue in the face. The fact
of the matter is what? Is that a
husband has a certain, power
over his
his wife that cannot be legislated over a
way and that he will be able to
do certain things because of this hierarchical relationship
that he's been given, and he needs to
fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with regards to
that relationship because if he abuses it, Allah
ta'ala will take him to task regarding it.
The Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, in his farewell
Hajj, reminded the Ummah of this,
and and and he reminded the men specifically
not to abuse this this this authority that
Allah invested in them. Whether a person acknowledges
it or not, it's still there.
It's still there, it still exists. Even if
a husband and wife were completely equal, etc,
you'll see still that
a woman will still sacrifice
from herself for her husband,
even if she's not doing so,
you know, consciously,
she will still show this level of submission
to her husband,
whether it's conscious or unconscious, and to abuse
that as a man is one of the
most despicable and lowlife things that a person
can do.
And you know, political correctness, and like modern
theories about gender, and all these things are
so far from the fitra, they're so far
from the fitra. I'll tell you what the
fitra is, right? The masha'ikh of the Indian
subcontinent, the masha'ikh
of, you know, Deen, and the people when
they would write poetry with regards to the
ma'rifah and the love of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala,
Right? They would refer to themselves
in the feminine gender. Right? In English,
when you refer to yourself, me and I,
there's no gender assigned to it, right? But
in Urdu, when you refer to yourself, there's
a different way to refer to yourself if
you're a man, and a different way to
refer to yourself as a woman. So they
would refer to themselves when speaking about Allah
Ta'ala and the feminine gender. Why?
Because they had doubts regarding their
whatever, or the because the old masha'ikh were
gender fluid people. No, it has nothing to
do with any of that. Right? What is
it? It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor for
complete submission.
Right?
That You Allah,
that I speak to you in a manner
like a wife submits to her husband. Why?
Because that's something universal
throughout throughout the human experience, that a woman
respects her husband,
and honors her husband, and understands, just like
a son understands that his respect and his
honor is tied to the respect and honor
of his father, that a woman understands that
her respect as a woman is also tied
to the respectability of her husband as
well. So what happens when I mention this?
This may be even some people in the
crowd right now may feel very uncomfortable, like
Oh my god, who is this guy? What
is he talking about? Why is he saying
all this stuff? This is, I don't know,
this is the last time I come to
NBIC, blah blah blah. You know, this may
happen, InshaAllah, it's not. But I mean, this
is a very I
totally would understand. I wouldn't agree, but I
would totally understand if someone had this reaction,
given
how we deal with these issues
in America.
And what what I have to say
with regards to that, is that
the you know, and the specific objection that
people have, a lot of people are gonna
be they won't
be such that they'll be like, even if
the prophet said it's I'm not gonna believe
it, right? Because that's kufr,
that's dis even if Allah said it, I'm
not gonna believe it. You know, we need
to reinterpret the Quran then. That's
very few people are are, you know, gonna
come to the Masjid on a Saturday morning
in order to say something like that. There
are those types of people, they usually don't
they're not really into the scene, they're doing
something else right now. That's a different crowd.
But what people will come and say, with
great sincerity, and I don't question that sincerity,
and I've had when I've said this in
public,
these types of things in public before, people
have come to me and said, Look, we
understand that the Quran says what it says,
we understand that the hadith says what it
says, we even see some
You know, we see the truth in what
you're saying,
but
saying it like that in public will what?
It will empower men to abuse women.
Why? Because the fact of the matter is
there are some men who abuse their wives.
Okay? There are some men who abuse their
wives, and it's particularly horrific,
and maybe there are some women here who
have been abused at the hands of their
husband.
And when when I say that, like, you
know the thing about licking the wounds and,
you know, like making sajdah, and whatever, maybe
someone will be able to stand up and
say, look, I did I actually did that,
and still my husband abused me.
Right? And it hurts, it hurts inside.
What did we say from before?
What did we say from before? We said
that you have to understand the rule.
Okay?
The exception the mind fixates on the exception.
It's human nature, but the mind is fascinated
by
fixates on the exception,
and American culture perhaps teaches us to fixate
on the exception
more than other cultures do.
Okay? The mind is fascinated and fixates with
fixates on exceptions and is fascinated with exceptions.
However, the exception doesn't teach you about the
rule, a and b, it doesn't negate the
rule. The rule is what happens 99% of
the time, it will give you it will
give you a good outcome, and there are
certain
there are certain,
exact you know, just extraordinary circumstances
that cause the rule not to be
not to be something that should be followed,
that are the exception.
And in those circumstances,
you know, then the exception
comes into play. Okay? Who here says this
Jai is to say I worship Jesus Christ?
Nobody. What if someone put a gun to
your head and says I worship Jesus Christ
or I'll blow your brains into the NBIC
floor, then it all of a sudden becomes
permissible,
right? So what if someone were to come
to you and say, hey, I don't think
you should tell people not to say I
don't worship Jesus Christ. Because what if someone
came with a gun and put pointed it
to my head, and said that, and you're
just gonna cause someone to die, right? Why
do you say pork don't say pork is
haram publicly, why? Because maybe someone will be
starving to death, and they'll remember what you
said, that you said was haram, and they'll
die, whereas in that situation, they should have
eaten it. Right?
So the argument that what? To say these
mention these hadiths and these teachings of Islam
that are very foundational teachings of the deen.
Okay? Very foundational teachings of the Deen. To
say that don't mention them in public because
you empower men to abuse women is
along the same lines of reasoning.
Okay? That it's along the same lines of
reasoning, that there's a fixation
with the exception,
and that fixation is to the detriment of
the rule. The detriment of the teaching, the
learning of the rule.
Now, this is a very abstract concept
to mention if there's someone who says, no,
look my husband beat me, my husband did
this to me, my husband because for that
person that's not the exception, that's
their only experience. You understand what I'm saying?
And so that's not, you know, I wouldn't
be like, Look sister, put your feelings aside,
and
you know,
try to understand what I'm saying. I would
just feel bad, I would feel horrible. I'd
be like, Look, I'm sorry, bro. I didn't
mean to bring it up. I didn't mean
to hurt your feelings Because it's a human
being you're dealing with, you understand what I'm
saying?
But
again, there are competing rights,
you have to balance them. If you're talking
to 1 person, or in a room with
1 person, then maybe it's inappropriate to bring
these things up, because you know it's gonna
hurt the feelings of somebody who,
you know, for whom,
you know, what you're saying is completely alien
to their context.
But when we gather here, and this gathering
here is not a personal gathering, this gathering
here is a gathering of knowledge, right? We
must establish first what the rule is.
And the rule in our Sharia is what?
Is that whatever the American court system tells
and whatever the university and the culture teaches
us, the fact of the matter remains that
what?
Allah has made this a hierarchical relationship,
that the husband has great rights over his
wife,
and the wife in fulfilling those rights, and
and
in,
respecting her husband,
and respecting the position of her husband
over her.
That she will attain great spiritual
benefit in that. Okay?
And that actually brings us to what?
It brings us to the context, even in
this Birul Walidin, which is a book ostensibly
on a different topic,
with regards to the discussion of who has
the most right over a man, is it
his mother or his father, right?
In that chapter, that's where it's mentioned.
That's where it's mentioned in this in this
book, in that chapter is where it's mentioned
what? That as for a woman who has
more more right over her, it's neither, it's
her husband.
It's neither, it's her husband. And so, if
for example, a woman who's married, her father
tells her to do something, and her mother
tells her to do something else, and her
husband
tells her to do something else,
she
is to prioritize her, what her,
what her husband says over that which her
parents say.
And this is one of the reasons that
a man must have supreme respect for his
father-in-law and for his mother-in-law,
Supreme respect for his father-in-law and his mother-in-law.
Why?
Because they raised
their daughter,
they paid for her upbringing,
they gave her everything that she has, they
are the source of her physical beauty, they
are the source of her good akhlaq,
they are the source of her her refinement
and her education,
they are the source of everything that the
husband is going to enjoy
in living with such a wonderful person together,
and they are the ones at the end
of the day that they're giving
the rights of all of those things up
to who? To this man, okay?
Second thing,
this also should bring into the minds of
women
who are seeking marriage
as well as the parents of
sisters who are seeking marriage, which is what?
If the rights of the husband are so,
you know, like superlative
really,
right? Literally they're superlative, meaning that a woman
There's no human being that
is owed respect,
like her husband is You better be very
careful who you
you know, who you choose to be a
husband, okay? Because if you're gonna marry him
just because he's good looking, or you're gonna
marry him just because he has money
you know what I mean? That's not that's
not that may be a bad decision.
That may be a bad decision. You want
to be very careful who you
who you,
accept in marriage. And that's that's literally what
happens, because when a
woman gets married, 3 of the 4 madhhabs
consider the marriage to be invalid if it's
not contracted on behalf of the bride
by her wali, by her lawful
guardian,
which if the father is alive it is
the father,
and if
the other male relatives
from the patrilineal line are alive,
if the father is not alive, then they
have
the right to be her
legal guardian, and if a woman
is a convert to Islam then
If a woman is a convert to Islam
then,
it will be whoever the Ahlul Fadlul, the
Ullama, or the
the the people of
status in the masjid. So I would say
like the imam of the Masjid if he's
a God fearing and knowledgeable person. 3 of
the 4 madhhabs say that without the without
the
Imam Abu Hanifa says
it's valid not valid, right? Imam Abu Hanifa
says it's valid, but the sunnah way of
doing it, the proper way of doing it
is still to have
the the the the the Wali consent to
the marriage. Why?
Because
you know, if if I were having this
talk with my daughter, to be very frank,
I would tell her, look, you know, men
are not
super good people.
Some are better than others,
okay? And,
unfortunately your father is one of those people
who's not a super good person,
and in this case, it takes one to
know one, so,
you know,
it's worth your while to take my advice
regarding who to marry, why? Because I can
see who's a scammer and who's like, you
know, really gonna love you and take care
of you, and who's taking advantage of you,
and who's responsible, who's not responsible.
And why? Because
of the the law of it takes one
to no one, you know? So if nothing
else, you know, I'll see and recognize certain
things in a person, I'll be like, something's
not right here. You understand? Because I know
who's who are, you know, as as your
wali, I'll be able to detect who's,
you know, who's at what point in their
life,
morally and developmentally and
financially and spiritually and in their need and
their knowledge, etcetera, etcetera. And whose motives seem
to be in what direction.
Now
and I think that's really important, I think,
because we're gonna talk about this, I guess,
in the next session, so I don't
wanna I don't want to go into too
much, but,
you know, once you get married to a
husband, right? The law is
is such that, in order to separate from
that person it's very difficult,
and what the half of that person is
over you is great,
and you don't want to submit yourself basically
to somebody who's a loser or somebody who
is
gonna have bad intentions.
And this happens oftentimes in marriages that end
in divorce. It's not the only thing that
happens that causes a divorce, but and sometimes
it doesn't even end in divorce, it just
ends and it just continues in misery,
oblivious to them, or understands and doesn't care,
and doesn't feel responsibility.
So he will use the
rights that he has in the Sharia as
a way of tormenting
his wife, just like sometimes parents use the
rights that they have in sharia as a
way of tormenting their
their children, which is so totally haram. And
all I can say is people have to
fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
that the fire will be filled with people
like that, they have no
regard for another person and other people's rights
on top of them, and all of those
rights will be fulfilled on the Day of
Judgment. But it's just that what? Remember we
talked about that there's an easy way of
doing things and a hard way of doing
things? Hurry up, finish your prayer, and go
to your parents because you don't want them
to make du'a against you. You know, you
won't go to * for it, but it
will make your life in this world pretty
atrocious, so just don't don't go there because
you don't have to.
The same way you just, you know, I
mean,
all I can stress is that it's very
important to have a very holistic
a very holistic and a very
just
eyes wide open approach to who you want
to marry, because once you're with that person,
then you're stuck with them, and the only
way out is divorce. And divorce is not
a good thing, and being stuck with someone
who's going to make your life into a
living * is not a good thing either.
Okay?
So what are the legal rights of the
the the the husband over the wife? The
legal right of a husband over a wife
is,
essentially
The the the most basic right that's the
most specific and basic right is the right
of relations.
That a husband has a right if he
asks his wife to have relations, and she's
physically able to do so,
and she's lawfully able to do so. Physically
meaning that she's not ill, it's not gonna
cause her to become ill or more ill
than she already is, or, you know,
could cause her some sort of physical pain.
And And then the second the second thing
is that she's not in her,
in her menses,
which is haram to have relationship relations between
man and wife in
Menses. And there are certain also modes of
of of of relations between a husband and
a wife that are unlawful,
that are unlawful, and those can be those
can be discussed inshaAllah afterward as well. But
as long as it's not in a way
that's that's haram in the sharia and that's
going to cause physical harm to the woman,
it is her it is it is his
one specific right that he has over her
that
that that when when asked
that they have relations.
But again, what did we say? Right? Just
like a woman is not gonna be like,
you know, a woman is not gonna, you
know, expect
like,
for this month to, like, buy bare minimum
food and this much for my 2 pairs
of clothing,
1 for the summer and one for the
winter, and like my, you know, like, whatever
this much for my my part of the
rent and things like that. Just like that,
you know, a a man has to know
that you can't just look it up in
a fiqh book that, oh, you gotta do
this for me, and then be like, bam,
I asked for it, and now you have
to provide. It doesn't work like that. Human
beings don't
don't don't really it just doesn't work that
way. Whoever thinks it does work that way,
whether you're if you're not married, trust me,
once you get married, you'll realize it doesn't
work that way.
And even if even if the wife were
trying to to try to oblige you in
that manner, it wouldn't be satisfying anyway.
And the second thing is if someone is
actually married and still thinks they work that
way, it's you're suffering from a type of
cluelessness. I don't know what like, You need
to just go see like a mental health
professional, because it really doesn't work that way.
Okay? So that's the specific right that the
husband has, has, and then the general right
that the husband has is the wife should
respect him and all other and all other
things, all other reasonable requests.
Now again, like I said, you know, as
a husband,
how dare you, don't ever go home to
your wife and say, don't you know use
the Qur'an and sunnah as an argument in
your favor when you get into a marital
argument and say don't you know shaykh said
this hadith and that hadith
and this ayah of the Quran that I
don't use the Quran hadith as a as
just like a tool in your arguments with
other people for your nafs, right? Because Allah
knows best, right? Whenever you quote any of
these ayaats and these ahadith in your marital
arguments,
the you know, it will be used as
a proof against you on the Day of
Judgment. You demand your right absolutely,
then you should fear that the responsibility
Allah
Allah placed on your shoulders will be demanded
from you absolutely, and none of us are
going to be able to fulfill that responsibility.
But at the same time, Birel Walidain,
there should be a
good natured agreement. And there's actually the last
chapter with regards to the
Birul Walidin
is about ta'awun albibi wa taqwa, right? That
Allah commands
that have mutual assistance render mutual assistance to
one another
in matters of righteousness and God fearingness.
And don't don't render a mutual assistance to
one another in matters of of sin and
in matters of enmity with one another. And
so basically, the end of it is, like,
look. If you're a parent, after saying all
this stuff, what the rights of the parents
are, if you're a parent, forgive your kids.
Or if they're having trouble fulfilling your right
to assist them somehow,
forgive them, you know, don't don't bear don't
burden them with things. It's one of the
Ullamas mentioned that for, like, several decades, 20
years, 30 years, something like that. I never
asked my son for anything out of fear
that he would not he would not fulfill
it or not be able to fulfill it,
and then he would go to the fire
because of that. That's a parent who truly
loves their child.
Right? That in and of itself is like
a reason Allah will forgive people's sins on
the day of judgment.
In that sense, don't take the don't take
the, you know, the you
know,
understand what you understand, under the the
you know, understand what you understand, under the
the model of what
we mentioned in the morning session, which is
what? The sunnah of the Prophet
that he taught the Sahaba was what? Render
unto others all of their rights, but don't
force your rights from them,
rather ask for your rights to be fulfilled
by Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
And that's the secret to keeping units together
from breaking up, whether they be families, whether
they be nations, whether they be neighbors, whether
it be whatever, that you render other people
their rights, and whatever their rights are to
you, as much as you're able to, don't
ask ask for them rather from the people
that
they're due from, rather ask from Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
So obviously, okay, if someone owes you $50,
you know they have the $50 and you
need the money to pay rent, otherwise you'll
be out on the street,
then go ahead it's your right to ask,
go ahead and ask. But in general, whatever
your rights are, you shouldn't be hard pressed
hard up on people to, to render that
to to render them to you. Why? Because
it will cause relationships to break.
Right? The Sahaba
taught them this, and they took this to
painful extents.
There's a hadith that said, Nah
Khattada
who was a tough guy from the Ansar,
he was like a hero, like a jihadfi
sabi lillahi, he was like one of the
champions of the of the muslims.
That during the reign of Sayyidna Muawiyah alaihahu,
during his caliphate,
he went to visit him in Damascus.
And it's known that the Ansar alaihahu, almost
to a man, they all supported Sayyidina Ali
Ali in
his
in the political
disagreements between him and Sayna Muawiyah.
So he goes to he goes to Damascus
and visits Sayyidina Muawiya during his reign as
Khalifa.
Sayyidina Muawiya says to me, how come none
of the Ansar
ever come to visit me? None of you
come to visit me? You guys like all
it's all like you've all boycotted me. And
he says that we don't have any camels.'
Sayyidina Khadada says we don't have any camels
to ride to visit you.' And so he
thought that was a strange answer. He says
what do you mean? What do you mean?
What happened to your camels?' He said all
of
the camels of the Ansar are tired.
They're tired, they can't ride them anymore because
they're tired. He says: What are they tired
from?
He said, they were tired of they're tired
of chasing your father, and then they're tired
of chasing you. Meaning, we fought against your
father Abu Sufyan,
before he became a Muslim at the end
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's life,
right? So we fought so many battles with
them, so we our camels were first tired
chasing your father, then afterward they got tired
chasing you. Meaning what? That we fought with
Sayna Ali against you in your political disagreements,
right?
And this is the magnanimity of Sayidina Mu'awiya
radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu that look, he wasn't like
a dictator, right? Nowadays, if the dictators of
this this of the age that we live
in, if you talk like that to them,
they'll have you killed, or jailed, or beaten,
or something like that. You know? They'll they'll
hook you up to a car battery or
something crazy like that. In the Muawiyah, this
is magnanimity that he he didn't,
he didn't he didn't, say anything or he
didn't punish him for that. Rather, he still
received him graciously as a host.
And then he says that our camels are
tired from chasing after you and chasing after
your father. And he said, I'll tell you
another thing.
He said, I'll tell you another thing. He
says, the Messenger of Allah
told us that one day,
this affair, the affair of Islam will be
placed in the hands of people who are
not worthy of it.
What is he trying to say?
You're one of them, right? He says, it
will be placed in the people that are
not worthy of it, meaning there are other
people who have more right to it
than the ones whose hands it'll be in.
And Sayyidina Muawiyah asked him, he said then
what did he say for you to do
when that happens?
And Sayyidina Khattada radiahu ta'ala, who said he
said to us to be patient.
And so Sayyidina Muawiya said to him, then
be patient.
Right?
This is not just a political
precept.
This is a precept when it comes to
rights.
This is a precept precept that comes to
us. So don't use the
the the the you know, what we said
today, as a husband, as a bludgeon against
a wife, or as a wife to be
like, you told me to do this, you
told me to do that, you did it
completely for for selfish reasons, you didn't carry
the amount of of
of of this, marriage properly, etcetera, etcetera.
If one of the two parties had a
right to say one of those two things,
the wife would have more right to say
to her husband than the husband had to
say it to her. But neither of you
say it. Why? Because once you push the
direction the conversation in that direction, what do
you do? You're making a conscious step in
the direction
of divorce.
You mean and that's not what you want.
Illam Insha'Allah. I mean, if there if a
woman, her husband is physically, mentally, psychologically
abusing
her, then she should then that's grounds that's
a grounds for separation, right? But if it's
just a thing like you know, you have
3 children,
you're together, but things are not perfect. Guess
what? That's the duniya, nothing in the duniya
is perfect. And it's what you make out
of it.
You know, if your husband doesn't, you know,
treat you nicely, like there's something,
subhanAllah, I feel like I'm silly mentioning it,
because the reason I was asked here is
to talk about
the what Allah and His Rasool Allah SWAMI
said, right? But there was a,
a special on NPR.
On what? On NPR, which is hardly a
bastion of Islamic knowledge,
and,
they did a special on a game show.
There's
something called the game show network.
When I heard about that, I said, Alhamdulillah,
I don't have a television,
but there's something called the the game show
network, and so they just have game shows
all the time, and they play reruns of
game shows, and whatever, there's a game show
on it, and the game show was like
for,
married couples,
whose marriage is not like what it used
to be or what it should be. And
so what happens, one spouse complains about the
other one, unbeknownst to the other spouse, and
they'll say something like like oh, my husband
used to kiss me all the time and
he doesn't kiss me anymore.
And so that's the premise of that week's
game show,
Okay? So they'll they'll they'll set up the
whole house with cameras, secret cameras.
The wife will sign a waiver,
right? And they'll set the whole house up
with cameras, and then they'll say good, you
have 24 hours every time you can get
your husband to kiss you, you, we'll give
you $500.
So it's like it's
obviously, there's many things wrong with watching something
like that, but
the premise is what? Is that is to
teach the spouse that the thing that they
wanted from their spouse,
it's in their control to get it, but
they have to give something to get it
to get that thing in return,
Right? In that sense, marriage is very much
like politics.
Right? It's like a it's a good politics,
right? Not everything that's politics is bad. So
So it's like it's like politics in the
sense that like, so the you know, that
woman,
you know, that week will be will do
ridiculous things. She'll cook the the the food
that her husband likes, she she'll say the
things that she knows that will make him
happy, she'll she'll do all of this stuff
in order to get to get him to
kiss her, and get $500 for it, and
then afterward hopefully she learns that okay, like
if I want my husband to kiss me,
then I should do certain things for him
also, and we can together make a choice
to
make our life better.
And really this
is like
they were interviewing the woman who's a producer
of this show,
and they asked her what have you learned
from all of this?
And she says: You know what? I can
sum it up in one sentence.
Ladies, it doesn't take much to make a
man happy. All you have to do is
feed him and then she said another word
that starts with the same letter afterward that
was bleeped out from the NPR interview.
Okay?
And you know what, I was like dang
it, if I said wearing a turban and
a beard, if I said this in a
public forum, I would probably be stoned,
okay?
But SubhanAllah
put the truth on the tongue of this
this catheter woman game show host on NPR,
that she said it, and I'll go one
step further, you don't even have to feed
him.
You know what I mean? And this is
not just to say, oh look, ladies, you
have to like do No. It's both ways,
right? If your wife is not, you know,
it's like my wife doesn't respect me, my
wife is always asking for stuff, my wife
is this, my wife is that, you know,
so what do you mean she's asking you
for stuff? She always asked for all this
stuff, and like I can't afford afford it.
Really? You can't afford any of it? Let
me tell you something, I understand,
I understand, okay? I was always a cheap
person, I was always very frugal, perhaps.
Might as well be a little bit.
The joy I received from being cheap,
it matured when I got married.
And it reached its
like, Platonian
The Platonic like perfection when I had children.
Do you understand what I mean? I'm like
really cheap, like and I don't know for
some reason, I enjoy it now,
right? So I'm the first guy who's gonna
like who's gonna
sympathize with you when you say I can't
afford it.
At the same time,
at the same time,
you cannot say that everything your wife wants
you can't afford.
You know what I mean? And
if she has a list of 10 things,
and you can't afford 9 of them, that's
not an excuse to not buy her the
10th thing to make her happy.
If your wife is pleased with you, I
mean so much is the a'athr that if
a husband and a wife are pleased with
one another, Allah is the third one pleased
with them,
Right? So what am I gonna tell you
how to have a better relationship? You guys
know each other, you live with each other,
I mean, you literally,
you know, like
you literally share
a body with one another. Right? You know
each other better than anybody else does.
You'll know what will make the other person
happy,
right? So many times weird stuff happens, right?
I hope my wife is not watching this.
Weird stuff happens like I'll, you know, I'll
buy,
you know, I'll buy an expensive gift for
my for my wife,
like, something like $150.
I'll go on a trip, you know, like
to give talks, or I'll buy something very
expensive for my wife, and I'll buy, you
know, something like for like 10, $15 for
each of my sisters.
And then my wife will be like, how
come you didn't buy me what you got
your sisters?
And I just realized that, like, you know
what? It's not even about how much money,
because you're thinking like a man,
you know, you're thinking or you're thinking like
you're thinking, and your wife's not you. And
that's where a lot of misunderstanding occurs, because
you think that your wife is you, and
so then you treat her as if you
would want to be treated, and she doesn't
care how you want to be treated. She
wants to be treated how she wants to
be treated, and vice versa, right?
And people are like, oh, you know, like
a lot of men, they complain, oh, women
are so irrational. Alhamdulillah,
man, thank Allah, they're so irrational. If they
knew the power they had over us, they
would have been like out a long time
ago, you understand what I'm saying?
You're not the one who wakes up in
the night to feed the child, you're not
the one who sacrifices someone physically sacrifice from
yourself in order to do all these things
for the family. If they knew how much
that was worth to us they would so
have the upper hand in the relationships. Stop
complaining about oh my you know my wife
I can't reason with her, I can't just
that. And if she thought like you, you
think
you would have been in a world of
hurt a long time ago. The fortunate part
is that, hopefully, you have something she needs,
she has something that you need, you can
reconcile with each other and be happy, right?
So try to think try to put yourself
in in your wife's shoes, right? Try to
put yourself in your wife's shoes, what what
does she want, right? If you know that
getting her that, like, $15
thing is gonna make her happy,
right?
Then just buy the $15 and make her
happy. If you can't, like, if you can't
buy 10 things for her, trust me. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala has put this, like, beautiful
thing in the fitra of women, and I
don't wanna be patronizing by saying this, but
he put this beautiful thing in the fitra
of women, that they'll literally give physically from
themselves, they'll
give physically from themselves,
for the happiness and the happiness and the
stability of their family, and, you know, they
just want to be appreciated, and it doesn't
really take that much to
make them happy. Obviously, every since someone was
like, shit, you don't know my life. Okay.
Fine. There may be an exception or whatever.
That's why that's why we we recognize the
fact that maybe there may be a couple
here that got together that wasn't
that couple wasn't meant to be. So, at
least be mature enough to understand that that's
the case, and separate with each other with
Krishna and Taan. But really, 99% of couples
that come together are not like that. And
people say, oh, Sheikh, what's the most what's
the thing that's like the best, you know,
like, to look for in a marriage? And
if you behave like a man and she
behaves like a woman, you guys will be
happy together. So what are you talking about?
That's like goes without saying but it's not
it seems like common sense it's not common
sense though, you know?
It's not common sense. Be a man, go
take the garbage out, go, you know, do
certain things, right? And then afterward, you know,
your wife will
reciprocate,
and you guys will be happy together. I've
seen and this this is, like, I guess,
the the the thing because I see we're
we're, over time, and
I'm a little bit afraid of what might
happen for question and answer,
and so we trust in Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala and like ask please don't
kill me, or do something that will result
in my death,
but at the end of the day, this
is one of the reasons that the Nabi
Sallallahu alaihi wasallam And I think it ties
over into the next the next talk. I
think we'll talk about it a little bit
more in detail then,
but the fact of the matter is is
at the end of the day, this is
our belief
that the hearts are as if they're in
the 2 fingers of our rahman, the most
merciful, right? Obviously, we don't have anthropomorphic beliefs,
correct meaning is with Him, we affirm
what
that meaning is
as true as
well. But the point is what? That the
hearts are between the 2 fingers of Al
Rahman.
The most merciful, he turns them in whichever
way he wishes, meaning it's easy for him
to turn somebody 2 people love each other,
for 2 people to hate each other, it's
his decision ultimately,
Right? So if the 2 two people are
sincere with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
right? Allah ta'ala blesses
their combined sincerity
with a synergy that makes them also happy
with each other as well.
So make decisions that you make not for
your financial future, not because you wanna go
vacation in Hawaii, not because you wanna buy
such and such house, not because you wanna
buy such and such car, not because you
always wanted to retire in Florida. Although, I
don't know why anyone would wanna go to
Florida, but,
California has good weather also. It doesn't have
crocodiles and bullet constrictors and fire ants and
scorpions and mosquito, you know, anyway. So the
right? Don't do don't live for these reasons.
If you live for these reasons, you're out
you're out on your own, do what you
want.
Right?
If you live for the sake of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he's the one who can
make you love each other. So I've seen
weird couples like like what were they thinking
type of couples.
That like you know one is super educated
the other super like does barely knows how
to read someone is like this an oddly
matched couple someone's
handsome or beautiful, the other one looks like,
you know,
you know, they came out of the trauma
ward, one person is like this culture, the
other person is that culture, one person's from
this kind The most mismatched couples in the
world,
they're happy, right? What is it? The husband
and wife are happy with each other, the
judge he has no place to say anything,
right?
On the flip side, we have the most
matched couples,
super
like, weird, like, caste system levels of of
pre planning and compatibility
and go to the same university, same culture,
saying this, saying that, saying the other thing.
Know, the only way that they could be
more compatible for with each other is if
they were brother and sister and that's gross
and haram and stuff and problematic is basically
the closest thing that they could be to
be super compatible,
and the marriage is over like 2 weeks
after the wedding. You understand what I'm saying?
They've even opened all the wedding gifts yet,
and there's already, like, you know, the keyword
has been fired, and there's no way of
3 shots, bam, and there's no way they're
ever gonna get back together again.
So, you know, it's difficult. It's not something
simple. There's so many moving parts and so
many factors that a person has to take
into consideration.
If you if both parties are rendering trying
their best to render the rights to the
other party, and they're both have common understanding
they're doing for the sake of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala. Allah Ta'ala puts khayd and barakah
in it, you know. And,
and it's something that we should shoot for,
and it's something that we should,
you know, think as worth our time.
Like we said, Shaytan celebrates when he breaks
up a marriage, and likewise,
Allah is pleased with the 2 people who
are married with each other, and they both
put in a good faith effort to get
along, and they're both getting along.
And and I would urge people to
if they're they have a marriage that's kind
of an Iraqi an Iraqi state, okay,
There are, marriage counselors you can go to.
I I sit on the board of the
Khalil Center, which is a practice of clinical
psychology based on Islamic values.
The director of the Khalil Center, brother Humana
Khashabarzi,
he has a master's degree. He's working on
his PhD in his clinical psychology. He's been
practicing for years, and there's a team of
people working with him, several of which are
PhDs. Sheikh Rami's wife, doctor Rani Awad, who
is a Stanford qualified
psychiatrist,
she also works with the Khalil Center as
well. They're all right now in Detroit this
weekend. They're in Detroit, Michigan for the Muslim
mental health conference,
and
this there there is, like, a large movement
for this, and there are a lot of
services. Even Khalil Central will provide their services
services remotely through certain, you know, certain certain
issues that they feel that are appropriate, that
they can deal with remotely through the Internet,
they'll provide services,
Not everything your imam is gonna be able
to figure out.
Because remember in the beginning, we said, like,
don't make your marriage, like, based on a
5th book. Guess what we've been reading for
our whole Madras education? Fick books. Okay?
And it's very overwhelming when you're, like, 30
and,
an uncle and auntie of, like, like, 60
years old who have been married, their children,
they've raised them together, they've become adults, they
come to you for, like, marital advice or
help. You know, Allah bless them for their,
you know, the few people who are left
that have confidence in the people of knowledge.
But, you know, in some ways,
not every scholar is going to be equipped
to give you what you need.
In terms of marital help, there are people
who are are competent and versed in the
shari'at. Brother Humana Kasabarzhi studied studied the the
Ulum,
with myself, with, Sheyin Bilal Ansari, with a
number of other,
another a number of other, people of knowledge
in the Chicago area.
And I would say out of our darshanit
on me, like, 8 year syllabus, he's completed
pretty near 6 years of it. He's a
really functionally very knowledgeable person, masha'Allah.
And,
you know, people like that, go get help,
don't let your marriage get trashed.
It's worth your time and effort to save
it, you'll regret it when it's done. Even
if even if that even if everybody by
consensus, all the Imams and all of the
the the the counselors and your family members,
even if they agree that, like, it had
to end, that it was it ended for
its ending is for the best, you still
regret it. So why would you why would
you do that? Why would you play like,
the the minute that the the the the
the cord the the, you know, the the
bond is cut, you know, each party will
will feel pain from it. So why why
why put yourself through that when you don't
have to?
You know, do try to do try to,
you know, save your marriage in any way,
shape, or form that you can, and know
that it's worth it, Allah will reward for
it, and if it has to break, then
do so in amicable way. So inshaAllah, are
there any questions?
I repeat the request, please don't
set me up to get assassinated by asking.
Something that will result in my death.
For the,
to obey her husband
and still to be able to please
her parents at the same time.
What is a good way that a wife
can obey her husband and please her parents
at the same time?
With with the same, like, in the same
issue.
The same Like, if if if the wife
and if if the husband and the parents
both want different things? Yeah. Like, the husband
says, I want you to drink water, and
the parents are saying it needs to be
water that's I don't know, from where. It's
a crazy one.
Okay. So
again,
if there's competing if there are competing requests
from the wife, from the husband, and from
the parents, then
obviously the the best thing to do is
to be to find some way that you
can do both at the same time. That's
not always possible. Right? So if you're saying
the husband is saying drink water, and the
wife's the parents are saying drink water from
so and so place, then find the water
of so and so place, and make both
of them happy. Okay. So
parents are saying drink water from so and
so place, then find the water of so
and so place, and make both of them
happy. Okay? What if the husband is saying
drink water, and the parents are saying drink
juice? Then you have kind of a you
have kind of an issue, right? And, again,
the legalistic
way of dealing with this, like, if if
it comes to a judge or to a
Mufti or whatever, they'll say you have to
obey your parents. They say
that it's your husband has more right to
be obeyed than than your parents have to
be obeyed.
As
a person who's trying to deal with, like,
you know, a holistic situation, a holistic human
being, right, My request to parents are parents
and everyone else. Why did I mention in
the beginning of this talk that even I
don't find where the Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
took a to intervene,
you know, in people's marriages
directly.
Why did I say that? You know?
You understand what I'm saying? They loved him
in a way that he couldn't understand, but
it's not like in the hadith they came
to him with every small thing to ask
him like he micromanage their lives, they were
competent, they were competent people that you can't
figure out what they needed to do and
stuff like that, right?
As a parent, don't
intervene
between your
daughter and her husband.
I mean, General, don't intervene between your
son and his wife, as well.
But it's a unique situation because the son,
if he gets into a fight with the
or if he if he
doesn't, is not along with his wife, it's
easier for him to extricate himself from that
situation than it is for for a daughter
to extricate herself from that situation. This is
a fact. Whatever the law is, whatever whatever
is, it's it's just a it's not as
it's a bad situation to put him in,
so don't do it, but it's not as
bad of a situation as as you do
with your with your daughter. So don't don't,
don't get it don't don't get involved in,
like,
put your put your daughter at loggerheads against
her husband, that's an act of wudu. Right?
This is one of the hikmas of having
a wali
consent to the marriage, which is what? Don't
marry your daughters to knuckleheads are gonna do
knucklehead stuff and then put you in the
situation where you gotta afterward be,
where you gotta afterward be put in an
awkward situation of, you know, setting your daughter,
you know, in a choice that should she
obey us, or should she obey
her husband, right?
Choose wisely,
okay? A man that makes a lot of
money, oh, that sounds like a good
match, that's not wisely.
Right? Or, you know, I'm going to marry
my daughter to
my brother's
son,
because I love my brother. That's good for
you and your brother, what does it have
to do, you know, if they're not gonna
get along and the brother's son is like,
you know, a knucklehead,
and don't do that type of thing. And
see, these things could work out a little
bit better in the past, because people lived
in these extended families,
so all of us know, all of us
know, like, you know, from whatever, from back
home, even people who live in America, you
know, they know a time and
an age where it was easier for a
husband and wife who didn't like each other
to get along.
You understand what I'm saying?
The women are with the women, the men
are with the men, the children you raised
them, part of it, grandma and grandpa raised
them, part of it, you know, you send
them to their uncle's house, their aunt's house,
we don't live like that anymore, we can't
dissipate the stress that we have like that
anymore.
We take all the stresses like on ourselves
as individuals now, because it's an individualistic society,
that's what we wanted, I don't want nobody
to tell me what to do, great, here,
no one's gonna tell you what to do,
also you have no one else to help
you with your life anymore.
Right? So that's what we wanted, that's what
we got, and that's the reality that we're
in right now. Now we might be like,
well, maybe I didn't want that in the
first place. Guess what? It's too late, you
can't do anything about it, or you can
move back to your village. And if you
know, I'm not saying that completely sarcastically. If
you find a way to move back to
your village and live that life and you're
happy, do what makes you happy. If you're
gonna stay here, it's not that to to,
what you call,
have nostalgia
for that life, it's not gonna solve your
problems.
So
parents, please don't A. Pick good husbands,
moral upright,
men for your daughters to marry, people of
deen, people of iman, people of ghera How
can I explain what Khaira is? There's no
word for Khaira in the English language, and
that may explain why very few people have
it.
Do you understand what I'm saying? Whereas, Masha'Allah,
our Bataan friends can understand, relate to my
lament of like, not being blind gheira in
people.
You have you marry your son to a
your daughter to a man who has gheira,
and who's going to protect
and treat his, you know, treat your daughter
honorably.
And then afterward, if what happens I mean,
sometimes you pick a good person, or what
seems like a good person, and it all
kind of blows up in your face, that
happens too. The point is, whatever it is,
don't put your daughter in this awkward position
of basically choosing between you and her husband
it's not nice, it's not the right thing
to do.
Even the deen and the shari'a also
mandate that a man not make his wife
choose between
choose between
him and his her parents,
right? And this is actually in our Maliki
school, I think it may be unique in
this respect, although I don't want to speak
about the other malahib, Insha'Allah, we have other
qalama that will be able to speak regarding
those things,
but in our school, if a man curses
his wife's parents
verbally,
just verbally says your father's like this, your
mother's like that,
happens one time if he says, I'm not
gonna do it again, that's one thing, or
I lost my temper, that's one thing, but
if he habitually curses
her parents,
that's grounds for her to go to the
qadi and get a divorce,
even if he doesn't like it.
That's grounds for her to get a divorce
from the qadi because in our maliki school,
verbal abuse is
equal to physical abuse as a form of
abuse in terms
of getting a dissolution of a marriage. So
just don't do that. Look, if you don't
like your in laws, welcome to the club,
right? The in law relationship is very magical
relationship where
2 sets of seemingly,
good and normal and reasonable people, even with
them, it's just awkward. For some reason, there's
just magical awkwardness about, like, what your in
laws do, and like most people say I
have good in laws, but I can't put
my finger on it, there's something weird about
those people, whatever, right?
So, go visit them twice a year, you
know, put up with it. Just put up
with it, right? Be quiet, don't answer
awkward comments that your mother-in-law and your father-in-law
make. Just be quiet. Do it for the
sake of your wife who love each other.
Do it for their sake. Put up with
it. Right? What if it's really weird,
like, you know, like your your in laws
upset you to the point where like you
feel you fear you might like punch someone
and then go to jail or whatever, right?
Let your wife go visit them. Don't you
don't have to go with them.
Let your wife go visit them twice a
year. You don't have to go with them.
The rest of it, they can talk on
the phone or text each other or whatever,
go visit them,
or when you're at work, go, you know,
but don't intervene. Nobody anyone who's intervening between
a husband and a wife, right? No matter
if even if you're the girl's parents or
the boy's parents, if you intervene between a
husband and a wife in order to mess
up that relationship,
whose work are you doing?
Whose work are you doing?
Shaitan's work.
Okay, so I hope you're If you do
that, I hope you're proud of yourself. Go
find Iblis, wherever his throne is, and say:
Yo, can I sit next to you? And
he'll be like: Yeah, because that's what you're
doing, right? And people don't appreciate that, they
don't think about that.
They don't appreciate that, they don't think about
that. I mean, no one in their right
mind would ever go to a person and
say: Yeah, your father is a total moron,
you shouldn't listen to him. Or your mother
is totally horrible, you should it may even
be true.
Right? It may be true that your father
is a total moron, your mother is totally
crazy, but if another man came to you
and said, yo man, your your mother's crazy,
you wouldn't be like, yeah, you're right. You
bet the guy, I mean, even the even
the Pope even the Pope, the the man
who ostensibly champions turning the other cheek, when
it came to the blasphemy of the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he said: look, even
this like, whatever, he pointed to another the
priest, he said: Even this guy standing right
here, if he said something to me about
my mother, I'd punch him.
He said that in front of like, the
whole press, the whole world, right? Affirming that
what, there's like the fitra does have some
sort of reality, right? That was his honesty
about that issue, Allah ta'ala
give Hidayah to him because of his honesty,
at least on that issue, that he could
have used it as a cheap shot against
Islam, but he didn't. He affirmed that there's
some truth to like to
the idea that someone should
have some gheira, just like that. Why is
it different between a husband and wife?
Why is it different between a husband and
wife? Why would you tolerate another person? You
2 are a couple, you're you're a unit.
Why would you tolerate someone from the outside
coming, talking about your husband, talking about your
wife like that? I certainly wouldn't. If someone
said something about my wife, I certainly wouldn't
tolerate that from anybody.
And, you know, I would urge a woman
also that that if someone talks bad about
your husband or saying things that are going
to
alienate you from your husband,
even if they're even if they're true,
even if they're true,
I would not consider that person a friend.
If it's your parents, for example, that are
talking bad about your wife or talking bad
about your husband,
I would I would I, you know, if
it's your parents, because you can't just like
tell them to like
get lost,
I would just close my ears and not
listen to that. I would just
internally say that just let them keep talking
until they're done with this, and then you
can listen to them again when they're done.
There is this discussion regarding to regarding,
Sayna Abdulabin Omar There's a hadith that he
came to the Messenger of Allah and said
that, You Rasulullah, I'm married to a wife,
I love my wife, and now my father
came to me and told me to divorce
her, what should I do? And so,
you know, the Nabi'aalai sallahu salam said, said,
obey your father.
Okay?
But,
you know, the the mashaikh that I
took from,
generally speaking
generally speaking they said that this is not
this is not a this is not to
be taken as
literally as a at face value as a
universal
principle.
Right? That this is what his father is
who? His father is not like
some dude, right? His father is
He's an exceptional person whose opinion is not
like the opinion of normal people. You understand
what I'm saying? So in that specific situation,
that was the prophet's,
advice to sayna Abdul Abin Umar that what?
That your father probably knows what he's talking
about. Okay?
And and if we were to say that,
yes, the father has the right to tell
his son to divorce his wife, this would,
like, result in, like,
a great boon for, like, area,
lawyers
and for the local court system,
because it's not, you know, people and this
this this I think the session we'll have
in the morning tomorrow,
I want to reserve for discussing
exceptions, because we're devoting all this time to
discussing rules.
What happens when these relationships go wrong, when
you're not at the lower end of a
hierarchical relationship and someone should have show responsibility
toward you, but they're being utterly reckless, and
they're probably, if you obey them, they're gonna
destroy your destroy your life. What are you
supposed to do in that situation? But I
want the rule to settle inside the heart
first, and people to appreciate it first, and
after we can talk about the exception. Because
there's some people who just talk about exception
from from from the beginning to the end,
and if that's if all you talk about
is when a husband is abusive, and if
all you talk about is when parents are
abusive, or when children are abusive, or whatever,
then then what people go away with is
they don't know how things should function when
they are right, so they have no way
to strive towards something better.
And people should keep good objectives in mind.
No one's perfect, but people can strive to
a really good place. But if you don't
know where if people don't know where they're
supposed to be going, how are they in
a corrective situation?
Yes. Go ahead.
So,
where is her children?
So there's a explicit hadith of the prophet
that if a woman dies and her husband
is pleased with her, that she'll go to
Jannah.
That being said it's not eitheror.
If, like, a woman's parents are dying, the
husband
the husband is not supposed to be like,
yo, where's my dinner?
I don't care.
My rights more than that's that's totally horrible.
That's totally or even even less chauvinistic than
that, someone will be like, well, I have
to work and how am I gonna take
care of the kids to figure something
out? Why? Because that's her parents, she should
spend time with them, you should allow her
to have that.
Legalistically, if a fight happens and it comes
down to it, then
she should obey her husband, although that husband
is probably not a very good husband. And
that's
that's something that that that that I can
say with ease, that is he's not a
very good husband, but he's forcing her with
a right that he has over her, and
that's just a really bad situation.
But,
you know, we shouldn't think of these things
as like, you know,
either or. We should try to strive to
make a society where we all come together
and,
you know, work for each other's mutual benefit.
I mean if it
if if if yeah. If it's like both
sides are hard hard headed and the husband
says one thing, the wife says, and the
the the parents say another thing, then technically,
her husband has more rights than her parents.
But,
for the husband as a husband to do
that, that's like an act of cruelty, and
it's an act of wum, and he'll be
asked about that Yom Qiyamah. You know, I
mean it's these things have like all these
shades of gray in the middle also, right?
And what if someone's like, well, what if
the husband's like, well, I don't want you
going to the house because
they drink or they,
you know this happens also that sometimes, like,
you know, people will complain to us because
we get we get practical situations, that whenever
my wife goes to goes to her parents'
house,
they literally, the whole time, will tell her
that this guy's an idiot, you should leave
him, you should this, you should that, you
should the other thing, and obviously obviously,
for me, it's very difficult for me that
like, to be happy about her going to
their house and things like that. So these
are all types of dysfunctionality.
Right? The way things should work is what
the husband should
understand that the wife serving her parents is
a way for her to go to Jannah
and should be happy about that. And the
parents should,
you know, appreciate the fact that the wife
showing respect to her husband is a vehicle
for going to Jannah, and they should be
happy about that, and they should be people
who are you know, all of us are
supposed to help each other on the way
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and then we
get selfish in the middle,
and then those that ideal system kind of
breaks down, but we should we should you
know, try to think of how to push
things in that direction,
rather than what should we do when things
break down, because
focusing on what we should do when things
break down presupposes that everything's gonna break down
all the time, which is not really how
it is, and it's not something that we
should repeat again and again until it becomes
a self imposed reality.
Yeah.
Hi, Hassan.
I guess it's a question of some
conference.
I can,
but will you forgive me if I kick
the question to the next session? Because it
most properly
fits into that, because about like what to
do when you're trying to get this is
what to do when you are married.
That session will be the last session will
be more about when you're trying to get
married, how to deal with
how to deal with that.
Mhmm.
So. In the last session, you mentioned the
rights of parents and for those of us
who have, I'm a sub parents. So for
that, I'm a cop right here. I'm with
my sister. I'm well, like, my whole family
does. Mhmm.
And stuff like that. Yeah. How do you
actually give them, like, that one? Like, they
know about it, like, kind of superficially?
How do you give dawah to your non
Muslim parents or relatives?
And they don't like they're not isolated.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it's different with everyone. Right? If
if somebody is if somebody is the basic
level of dawah that that you should do
for everybody is 2 things. 1 is you
should observe the
the the basic parts of your deen. Once
it's time to pray, you pray. 1 is
Ramadan, you fast. When it's time to go
to Hajjibay, go to Hajjibay, yuzakat, things like
that. So they should know that you're Muslim.
You know what I mean?
You don't need pork in front of them.
That that that in and of itself is
a a a great dawah.
That's greater than pamphlets and greater than a
booth out, waving signs, and things like that.
The second thing is that afterwards,
you should show them good akhlaq. They should
see that you're a better person,
not for you, but for them.
You're a better person for that, you're a
better son, you're a better brother or sister,
you're just a better person for them after
you took shahada than before.
After that basic level, and that should be
even if they are Islamophobes,
even if they are like, you know, like
Fox News, Donald Trump
type people, you know what I mean?
That's for everyone.
After that, those two basic things, what you
should do is,
if and when they ask,
then tell them about the Deen, don't avoid
it. But at the same time, don't try
to shove it down their throat either.
If They don't want to hear about it,
and you try telling them about it, that's
a almost surefire way to
habituate them to responding to you
in a way that they don't care about
Islam,
such that even the day that they are
interested to ask you about something, because it's
their habit to shoot you down every time
you bring it up, they'll just keep doing
it. Even if they inside want to know
about it, right?
So when they ask, don't
be shy,
But when they're not asking, don't. Don't try
to shove it down their throat.
And Allah to 'alaam is best. I mean,
it's different people have different dispositions.
Some people,
that there's not a a creature
that moves on the earth
nor is there a bird that flies in
the air,
except for that all of them are
are like different nations like you.
So one tafsir of this ayah is that,
different animals
have different traits that resemble the traits of
humans.
And one tafsir in this eye is that
different human beings, whatever you see in nature
around you, they're human beings that are that
inside
Johanna, their spiritual,
you know, stuff they're made of, is as
varied as the different animals
are. Some people are like snakes, some people
are crocodiles, some people like eagles, some people
like bears, some people like lions, some people
like rabbits, some people are like all these
different things, you know, and it's important to
appreciate
that, and appreciate that another person, whatever, whoever
it is, whatever context it is that you're
dealing with them, that they're gonna be like
different than you, and you don't have to
agree with what the person you're looking at
does or says with the way they think,
but there is a value always in understanding
why they think that way.
Right? You don't have to agree with it,
but there's a value always in understanding why.
And
that will give you insights on how to
make doubt to that person, that will give
you insights how to be a good husband
to that woman. That will give you insights
how to be good son to that that
that that father and mother. That will give
you insight on how to be a good
parent to that child. It'll give you insight
how to be a good student to the
teacher, etcetera, etcetera.
So
the question I have is in regards to
the
site. So
So
the
the question the question of what does it
mean for a husband to take care of
his wife?
Again, legalistically,
I can define it as like food, clothing,
shelter.
Right, fulfilling her physical needs, etcetera.
But,
that that will mean different things for different
couples.
The legal bare minimum is one thing, but
then as a human being, it may mean
very different things for different people.
So I don't know if I can give,
like, a kind of one size fits all
answer to that,
but what I will say is this is
that
look, everybody needs to learn what they need,
you know, everyone needs to learn what rights
other people have over
them and what rights they need to render
to other people,
and there's no one that's an exception to
this rule.
But I feel that there is a type
of pandering that that many
many speakers and scholars do,
there's a type of pandering that they do,
which I don't I don't I don't
appreciate. And my point is not like many
of the brothers have like a smile on
their face, it's not try to understand what
I'm saying, okay? The pandering that they do
is what? There is a,
a set of philosophies
called modernism,
that are not modern at all, like they
originated in like, whatever, post enlightenment Europe, which
was like 300 years ago. Right?
Even in the Quran, the mushrikeen, there's that
there are such people that when
the verses of Quran read to them, they
say oh, these are just the tales of
the ancients, and these are not people with
iPhones and Android, these are people who live
like in the stone age civilization,
right? They're the ones who say, oh, this
is all the tales of the ancients, right?
So modernism is not as modern as one
would think it is, right? French Revolution was
a long time ago, secularism, all these things,
these are these are all very old ideas
that masquerade around as, like, new cutting edge
types of things.
One of the one of the kind of
weird
weird weirdnesses of
of modernism and postmodernism
is this idea of
gender being
not really, not affirming gender, right? And there's
a type of feminism
that people,
you know, that people kind of hold up
as an ideal,
which I think is really harmful,
philosophically.
If feminism means,
the belief that women should be treated with
dignity and with honor, and that they shouldn't
be oppressed, then I'm the biggest feminist and
every Muslim has to be a feminist, otherwise
that person's iman is not correct.
If feminism is the belief that women are
not
respected until they do everything that a man
does,
there's like a lot that's wrong there. Okay?
One of those things is a presupposition that
the male is like the benchmark, the standard,
and a woman is inherently inferior until she
acts like a male,
which
is is is a, it's a paradox.
Right? You say we want to elevate women,
but the
the the initial
the initial supposition that you have is that
women are inherently inferior until they are men.
Do you understand what I'm saying? This is
problematic,
this is
an issue,
and so what happens is like for example,
you will not have a
you'll never have or almost never have a
speaker
get up and
tell a joke,
where people
tell a joke about children and parents,
where people laugh at the expense of the
parents,
right? But almost every Muslim wedding for some
reason or another, they tell a joke about
the husband that the, you know,
the husband somehow being incompetent or being whatever,
and everyone laughs at it. They joke about
a husband and a wife that people laugh
at the expense of the husband, and I'm
definitely not a person who doesn't have a
sense of humor and like says we can't
laugh about stuff, but there's a time and
place for everything,
and even though even though laughing a woman
laughing at her husband is perfectly okay in
certain situations, generally speaking, just like if, you
you know, like your father did something funny
and you laugh, it doesn't mean you don't
respect him, but,
you know, life happens and life is funny
sometimes, I appreciate that, but for it to
be the set pattern,
the khos, the default assumption is that that
that that,
you know, talking about the rights of husbands
is empowering abuse, or like, you know, we
kind of tell a joke about men being,
you know, husbands being incompetent and the wife
laughing, you know, like
laughing at their expense, and like, just belittling
the maqam of what a husband is. I
feel like
expense and like just belittling the maqam of
what a husband is. I feel that it's
like turning up the people turning their back
on a teaching of the Sharia,
and this type of behavior
is something that is very,
we're very used to in the Western context.
And because of that, we kind of islamicize
it, you know,
and I'm uncomfortable, I'll be very frank with
you, I'm uncomfortable with that.
It doesn't mean that everything a husband does
is perfect, and that a wife, you know,
doesn't know what she's talking about, or that
she's a child, or that we're patronizing her,
or whatever. It just means what? That one
of the values we have as Muslims
is that wives respect their husbands.
Right? Husbands also honor their wives,
but it's a the relationship is not the
relationship is not like one of, like, 2
equals that are having some sort of mutual
exchange with one another. Rather, there's there's there's
a set of expectations that a husband has
over the wife, and a set of expectations
that the wife can have from her husband,
and they're hierarchical, it doesn't mean that one
has more value with Allah than the other
does, but what it does mean is that
just like, you know, a younger brother should
respect the older brother, and
just like parents should respect, you know, children
should respect parents, it doesn't mean that we
can consider children as second class citizens, and
we're a parentist
religion.
Right? Just like that, we don't believe that
women are second class citizens, and it's a
misogynistic
religion, right? Just like we don't believe that
respecting elders is that, like, Islam has an
agenda to suppress
people who are younger, it doesn't.
These are just the norms of our civilization,
that are established by Wahi, And so, I,
you know, I have I have kind of
a problem with that, like the lopsidedness of
that, and I know that it kind of
panders to a certain
popular sensibility
that may not that in my opinion doesn't
reflect the the values of waihi.
On the flip side of it, you know,
doesn't mean that I I I don't think
that that that, you know,
women have rights or that those rights shouldn't
be mentioned. I think they should, but everything
should just be done in context with balance.
You know, I think you mentioned briefly before,
and I think it's a good thing to
behind matter in the first place is
sound. So if you could maybe
expand a little bit on
what are what are the motives and intentions
that people should have before going to marriage
instead of just going into it because it's
a normal of life without thinking twice and
not making it.
A lot of people have to say, it's
like part of life and just going through
it like anyone else without thinking twice about
what is my motive and purpose in doing
what I'm about to do? What are the
motives and the intentions that a person should
have for marriage? It should be Taqarupil Allah
Hitabarqa Ta'ala. You should do it as an
act of piety that that's
there in order to bring you closer to
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to protect yourself from zina, protect yourself from
sin, and to fulfill
your life as a human
being to
live in the normal relationship that Allah relationships
that Allah Ta'ala has created, the fitra that
a person, you know, would like to have
in order to fulfill themselves as a human
being, as an act of piety.
There are certain hadith that are read at
the time of the nikah that are, you
know, from the Muslim Khutbaat of the messenger
of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And so one of them is that, Tunkal
maraatuli arba'in.
Right? That a woman should be chosen for
marriage because of 4 qualities that she has
because of her her beauty and because of
her wealth and because of her status and
because of her deen.
So choose the one that has deen.
Nabi salawahu alayhi wa sallam said, 'Ephatically choose
the one who has deen.' And the Prophet
says, 'Nikahum sunnati' that the nikahhs that to
get married
sunnah, and that the Prophet
said: from Nan Ghahiba
and sunati falaysamini,
the one who turns his back on, on
my sunnah, that person has nothing to do
with me.
And,
you know, the fact that
these hadith are mentioned, it's a sunnah, and
the fact that the ayaat, there's also ayaat
that are mentioned, yayul ladinaamanuttaqatilahaqati walata mutunnaillawantunmuslimoon. Right?
It's a masoon that the prophet would mention
the aya, oh, oh you who believe, fear
Allah as he should be feared and die
not as except in a state of submission
to him.
That this is also an act of submission
to Allah
that, oh you who believe fear Allah Ta'ala
and say in a firm word,
so that he may,
he may rectify for you
your your actions, and he may forgive for
you your sins, and whoever has obeyed Allah
and his messenger, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
that person has indeed,
won a great, great winning.
And the 3rd ayah, the first ayah of
Suratul Nisa'a, you
O mankind,
fear your Lord who created you from one
soul and made from it its mate and
then created from them many, men men and
women.
Fear your lord,
with, you know, by whose name you ask
of one another, inferior lord with relation to
your kinship bonds,
verily Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was ever vigilantly
watching over you. So there's 3 ayaat and
there's 3 ahadith
that are are a sunnah to mention at
the time of marriage, and all of them
indicate what
the objective of marriage is what is that
it's a vehicle, it's a great vehicle, right?
The the
the the the that
it's a very great vehicle for
operationalizing
and implementing the commandments of
Allah, right?
The zalaj is half of the deen, right?
Getting married is half of the deen, and
for the rest of the deen, fear Allah,
Ta'ala. For the rest of the deen, fear
Allah
These are all indications that your intention when
you get married is what? Is that it
should be an
act of you and another person helping one
another
to draw closer to Allah
by this institution,
And if a person doesn't marry for that
reason,
then a lot of what we're talking about
now, you know, in this session may not
make a whole lot of sense.
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