Ibrahim Hindy – 4 Ways to Avoid Marriage Conflicts
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AI: Transcript ©
The prophet
mentioned to us
an example of the hatred
and enmity
that
has towards mankind.
He describes in a hadith,
Iblis sitting on a throne
which is upon water,
and he is surrounded by his followers
all from the jinn.
And at least we'll order his followers to
disperse
amongst the people,
and to cause corruption amongst them.
And when they return back
to his throne,
he begins to ask them,
what did you do?
So one of them will
say, I whispered
to so and so, to such and such
a person, and I tempted him until he
stole.
And another will say, I whispered to so
and so, and I tempted him
until he abused someone or hardened someone.
Until one of them will come forward
and will say to Iblis,
I did not leave this person alone
until I caused him
to leave his wife,
to divorce his wife.
And so Iblis will tell him, come closer
to me,
and he will honor him,
and he will say,
nam, and you are the one.
Meaning, you are the one who succeeded. You
got the big prize.
The meaning of this hadith,
there is many meanings
that we can take from it.
Amongst this is that the most beloved
acts of corruption
in the sight of shayfan
is when the husband and wife are separated,
when they're divorced,
when he causes
friction,
and distress, and hardship between them.
And through this separation,
Shaiban is able to cause even more corruption
and evil.
This is something we should not take lightly.
There's a reason our prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam
told us this hadith.
Statistically,
we can see this reality.
Places
where families are more likely to be intact
have higher levels of education,
higher levels of income.
They have higher lower levels of depression,
lower levels of anxiety,
lower levels of crime.
Societal
ills grow
when the homes become broken.
And Shayfa knows this, and this is why
he is honoring
the one who's able to cause this corruption.
And through this hadith, we also realize that
marriage is one of the greatest blessings that
Allah
has given us.
From the signs of Allah
from his miracles.
Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala says that from all things we created,
2 spouses, the male and the female, that
you may think
male and female. Because Allah
could have created us on our own.
He has created
like the amibah, and things like this that
can reproduce on their own, but he created
us, zawjayin,
the 2 halves,
the male and the female,
that you may think and ponder,
that you realize that in this is a
miracle from
Allah
Allah Allah says, He created man out of
water.
And He made him into 2 things,
and sihra.
Nesad is your lineage,
your blood,
your blood relations.
And sihra is your
extended family, your in laws, literally means your
in laws.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying, we created
mankind out of water and we gave him
family.
We gave him family, your blood relations and
your relations through marriage.
This is from the blessings of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
So marriage has this incredibly powerful
capacity
to be a blessing.
And because of this, shaytan is most pleased
when he destroys this blessing,
when he removes this blessing.
Allah
when he talks to us about the prophets,
he tells us,
We gave the prophets
wives and children,
spouses and offspring.
This is on purpose. Allah gives us the
prophets, and the prophets have families.
In fact, the only prophet the scholars say
did not have a wife and children is
Risa alaihi salaam, and of the prophecy of
his return is that he marries and he
has children.
Why did Allah give us these prophets who
have wives and children? So that we understand
how to build our homes,
how to arrange our relationships,
how to build our communities because the community
is built home by home by home by
home.
How we can build it in the right
way.
Allah tells you there is an excellent example
in the Messenger of Allah.
And so we should be looking to the
prophets
to understand how to arrange our marriages, how
to build the healthy home.
The first point that I want to mention
for us to consider,
because we're entering into these days of weddings,
and we get invited to officiate the weddings,
or you get invited to attend the weddings,
or things like that. And so people are
getting married. This is the time
throughout this summer where people are getting married,
but it's a time for us to really
think about the importance of marriage.
And it's a time for those who are
already married to think about how they are
structuring their relationship,
and what they can do to avoid or
to manage conflicts that happen in their relationship.
The first point is for us to realize
that no marriage is perfect.
No couple is perfect.
If you're upset with the flaws
of your spouse,
sometimes it's important to remind yourself you have
your own flaws.
You have your own shortcomings.
And I've seen this in the past decade
or so
in different people.
People who have a problem with their spouse,
and they decide
the grass is greener,
and then they find out it's not.
They get divorced, they realize
after years years of hardship, they would have
been better off just making things work.
And this extends this reality extends beyond marriage
relationships.
It influences many relationships.
People dispose of their friends very quickly these
days.
We live in a society where
we're told everything is about you.
Just do you.
Everything needs to revolve you. And if things
are not serving you
immediately,
then get rid of
them.
This is not the healthy way to build
long lasting relationships.
Long lasting relationships take time and effort.
Takes work.
Sometimes it doesn't serve you immediately, but over
the long term it will serve you.
But when we have this kind of disposable
relationship idea, if things are not serving me
right now the way that I want them
to, I'm gonna get rid of them,
we're actually damaging our long term health.
And so
this is one of the diseases we have
to talk about. The idea that we feel
entitled to a certain kind of life.
Entitled to a certain kind of marriage.
And if it's not as perfect as I
think it's going to be, then I need
to get rid of him.
The prophets are our examples.
It's from the wisdom of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala that the greatest of all men, the
Messenger of Allah salallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And the greatest of the women,
the mothers of the believers,
they had conflict in their marriage.
Their marriage was not perfect a 100% of
the time, all the time.
There were difficulties.
There were conflicts.
To allow us to realize,
we're gonna have conflicts in our marriage. We're
gonna have difficulties in our marriage. We should
expect that. We should expect hardship and difficulty
in life, at times,
and to work through managing
those difficulties and hardships. Not to immediately think
if things are not the way I believe
I'm entitled for it to being, then I
need to chuck it out the window, throw
it out the window.
The second point
is that comparison is the thief of joy,
and this is especially true when it comes
to marriage.
We don't value things
until we don't have it.
We don't value not having a headache
until we have a headache.
We don't value not having the ability to
walk until you don't have the ability to
walk. This is the way that we are.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam guided
us in our in our marriage relationships with
a very powerful hadith. He
said,
That do not let the believing men
dislike the believing women. So he's speaking to
husbands, don't dislike your wives. He's saying, if
there's one thing you dislike about them, there's
something you will like about them.
Meaning the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam is
teaching us not to
be the kind of person who obsesses over
the thing you don't have.
Because when you do that, you become blind
to all the things you do have.
So he's saying, if you're looking to your
spouse, and there's one thing you don't like
about them,
look to the things that you do like
about them,
because most likely you're going to find a
lot of things you do like about them.
And this is something common. A person will
go to his friend's house,
and mashaAllah, his wife is an amazing cook.
She cooks a beautiful dinner,
huge spread, and he tells he asks his
friend, did someone help your wife cook all
this food? She says, no. She stayed up
and she cooked all of it by herself.
And then he thinks my wife's cooking is
terrible, and she never cooks. And he goes
home, he's ready for a fight.
Someone else goes to his friend's house, he
sees the house is clean, and perfect, and
in order.
Did you hire a cleaner? No, my wife
did all of this. He goes home, khalas,
he's ready for a fight.
Why is his wife like this and my
wife like that?
But he doesn't realize maybe the other wife
yes, she's an amazing cook, but maybe she
spends
all of his money. Maybe the other wife,
she's she cleans the house, but maybe she's
a very tough personality.
Very difficult to get along.
We focus on the things we don't have,
become blind to the things that we do
have.
We do this in our life all the
time, and it becomes very very destructive
when it happens in our marriages. So the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is telling you,
if there's one characteristic you don't like, look
to what you do like.
Right? Look to the characteristic you do like.
Because women do this too with their husbands.
Why is it that such and such husband
is earning more money?
Why does he have a better job? Why
is he better dressed? Why is he better
this? Why is he better that?
This kind of comparison steals
the blessings that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, has
given us and made us blind to it.
The third point
is we have to control our anger.
The prophet
many different ahadith
tells us that when we are angry to
be quiet,
to be silent.
And this hadith is in the context of
your friends,
your acquaintances, the people that you know.
When you're angry, be quiet. Why?
Because anger is not the time to resolve
a conflict.
Anger is the time to accelerate the conflict.
If you're angry with your friends and you
speak,
you're probably gonna be more angry, and cause
even more of a problem.
It doesn't solve the problem.
If this is true, and the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam is telling us this in
the context of friends, because he doesn't want
you to ruin your relationship
with your friends.
We are even more in need of that
when it comes to husband and wife,
to our relationships in our homes,
to be quiet
when we're angry,
solve the problem when both of you have
calmed down. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
tells different hadith.
If you're angry and you're standing, to sit
down. If you're sitting down, to lie down.
To say,
to make wudu. All of these different ahadith,
to be quiet
when we are angry.
Instead,
sometimes when we're angry,
we speak.
Some people think they're smart. They'd be quiet,
and then they write a message, text message,
and they send it. They write an email.
Don't do that. Calm down, sleep on it.
Think about it. And this is something I
will say is much more important with the
husbands than it is with the wives.
Why?
First of all, in our sharia.
No matter what the wife says to her
husband,
will her words cause a divorce? No.
But the husband's words can cause the divorce
with the wife.
So the husband has to be more careful
about what he says.
The second thing is we know men sometimes
words don't hurt us as much as it
hurts women.
We can get over words more easily. Of
course, all of us have feelings, and our
feelings can be hurt. But we can get
over those feelings more easily than women can.
So when we're not careful with our tongues,
we can really harm the relationship in a
way
that can be very difficult to fix.
And so anger can destroy the marriage
and cause a lot of regret.
And the scholars have a beautiful saying.
They say, you are the master
of the words
you haven't spoken.
The words you didn't say, you're the master
of it. You're in control of it.
You can edit it, you can change it,
you can rearrange it, you can reword it.
You haven't spoken it, you're in charge of
it.
But the moment you speak those words, you're
a slave to the words.
Now you said it, you can't take it
back.
You can't re edit it.
Once you've said it, you've said it.
And what's interesting is that when Aisha radiAllahu
anha describes the anger of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam,
She doesn't say, when he was angry, he
was yelling,
he was screaming,
he was saying this or this or this
or that.
When she describes the anger of the prophet,
what does she describe?
She describes his face.
She describes
his facial expressions.
Because when he was angry, he was quiet.
He wasn't speaking, he wasn't saying anything.
So she says, I know he was angry
because
I could tell from his facial expressions.
And this is a sunnah all of us
should be following, especially when it comes to
our family.
And we see this even in Aisha
Like the prophet tells,
oh, Aisha,
I know when you are happy with me,
and I know when you are angry with
me.
And Aisha asked the prophet, how do you
know
when I'm angry with you?
He says, I know that when you are
happy with me,
you say,
Muhammad,
by the Lord of Muhammad.
And when you are angry with me, you
say, Ibrahim, by the Lord of
Ibrahim. She's angry with the prophet. She doesn't
want to mention his name. She says the
Lord of Ibrahim rather than the Lord of
Muhammad.
So Aisha tells the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
She says, this is true, O Messenger of
Allah. Wallahi, I'm not capable of abandoning except
your name.
Like she doesn't leave the house, she doesn't
go away from everything. The worst that she
does when she's angry, she doesn't mention the
name of the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam.
She says, the most I can abandon is
your name.
And this is because of the excellent treatment
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam had with
her, she had with the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
The 4th point
I wanna mention here is that
if both sides are sincere,
if both sides are sincere,
they'll find a way to reconcile.
And of course, there are exceptions to every
rule.
But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
If they both want reconciliation,
Allah will give them tawfeeq.
Allah will facilitate it for them.
If
they both want it,
if the goal
is to please Allah
If the goal is not to win the
argument,
if the goal is to please Allah and
therefore preserve the marriage,
Allah will give them a way to reconcile.
But if it becomes about ego,
if it becomes about winning,
if it becomes about proving you are
stronger
or smarter than the other person,
then
you're not gonna find the way to reconciliation.
But when it's about Allah
and both sides, not one side, but both
sides are willing to compromise,
then Allah
will give them the way of reconciliation.
Imam Ahmed
he said,
after his wife had passed away,
people saw him mourning over her, and
he said,
He said, Me and my wife, we lived
together for 20 years.
We never disagreed about anything.
Now how is this possible? Because, of course,
every married couple is gonna have disagreements. What
does he mean by this?
He says,
He said, we were in a relationship where
if I was upset, if I was angry,
she would please me.
And if she was angry, I would please
her.
Meaning,
their relationship was one where they could tell
if the other person is really upset,
they compromised.
If they could see the other person is
really upset by this, they did whatever they
could to please the other person.
Because the reality, it's like a rope between
2 people. If both people are pulling as
hard as they can on the same rope,
the rope is gonna snap eventually.
Marriage can't work like that.
But if both parties
are willing to compromise at times,
they see something that's really important to the
other person, so they're willing to compromise,
Then you will find a way to reconcile.
You'll find a way to make the marriage
work.
And it can't be just one person. Sometimes
there's relationships where one person is doing all
the compromising,
and the other person is doing all the
taking.
That's not gonna last either.
When both sides are willing to compromise for
the other person, both sides are willing to
sacrifice
for the other person.
Both sides are willing to put the other
person first
at times, then Allah
will make things easy for them.
The 5th point, and I'll end inshallah on
this one,
is not to assume.
Allah
tells us,
O you who believe,
avoid most
assumptions
or avoid assumptions.
For indeed most assumptions are sinful.
I mentioned this in another.
Is mentioned only
in 3 contexts in the Quran.
One context, Allah mentions it when he talks
about
Avoid the filth of idolatry and the false
words, meaning the worship of idols.
And he mentions it when he talks about
gambling
and alcohol.
Oh, you who believe indeed alcohol and gambling
and the divinity that they would play, these
are filled from the deeds of shaitan, so
avoid it. Is to get away from that
thing.
Get far away from it. Allah is saying,
avoid this thing.
Get far away from it.
Now, the scholars say something very interesting. Look
at these three contexts.
They say worship of the idol,
idolatry. Allah tells you get away from it.
Why? It destroys your iman.
Your belief that Allah is destroyed once you
worship an idol.
And he tells you, get away from alcohol
and gambling.
Gambling destroys your money, your wealth.
Alcohol destroys your sanity, your mind, your ability
to think.
And then he tells you, get away from
assumptions,
assuming
things about other people.
Why?
Because it destroys relationships.
When we assume about other people, we destroy
relationships.
And this is in the context
of other random Muslims,
other people that you know, your friends, your
acquaintances. Don't assume the worst about them.
If that's true about random people, it is
far more true when it comes to
our husband or wife, our spouse.
How often
when I hear from couples and I talk
to them
do I hear people saying,
they know what they did.
Right? They know what they did. They assume
the other person did this thing on purpose
with intention.
They assume it completely.
When we start building these assumptions,
of course we're going to ruin the relationship.
Instead of assuming,
we have to communicate.
So we communicate our expectations clearly. We communicate
when something really annoys us or upsets us.
The communication
needs to be clear
so that we're not making assumptions about the
other person.
Instead it's like, oh, they said this, and
they must have meant
x, y, and zed.
He knew what he meant. She knew what
she meant. We're building assumptions.
How do you have a relationship when we're
assuming the worst about one another? It's impossible.
We can't have an ummah
if we're always assuming the worst about each
other. How are we gonna have a home
or a relationship when we're assuming the worst
about each other?
So instead of assuming, we have to communicate.
We have to communicate, when you said this,
it made me think this, this, this, this,
and it made me feel this way.
Right? Now we're not assuming, we're speaking about
facts.
We're communicating our expectations, we're communicating our feelings,
we're communicating things that have actually happened.
If we live in the world of assumptions,
then we're not living in the world of
communication, and that's something that's going to destroy
our marriages.