How to Make Your Marriage a Sign of God

haven't become so the verse that that really stands out to be higher in the Quran that stands out for me for this day that I wish to share this morning but Elijah Allah is in surah a rule

in the Quran Allah Allah subhanaw taala says by the an Akula oh the bIllahi min ash shaytani R rajim Bismillah R Rahman Rahim warming it up and holler, Polycom min and fusi come as Raja Lita schooner ILAHA wa Jalla Bina come my way detto Rama

in a fee that he can certainly call me at effect karoun. So the cola will Alvim

from among His Signs, and this part of the verse we usually brush over because you want to get to the juicy but in the middle.

But this part of the verse is quite significant, because the verse is speaking about the bond between male and female, the bond between men and women, and more specifically, the bond between husband and wife. And Allah says, will mean it from among His Signs from among the signs of Allah and the word use the is also higher. And if you were listening attentively, a moment ago, I just said, There's a verse in the Quran, then I said, there is an ayah in the Quran, because Muslims refer to verses of the Quran in its original language as idea. And the word idea doesn't actually mean verse. It means verse, technically, because we generally refer to it as an idea. But the

literal translation of the word Isaiah is a sign, a sign or miracle.

So when we say

that in Nephi, Halti, Santa, it will, indeed in the creation of the heavens in the earth, work the laffy Layli wanna her and the interchanging of the night and the day, while full Killa theta God filled, you find that throughout the Quran, Allah, God Almighty, it draws our attention to certain phenomena that happen, that happens in the cosmos, and other phenomenon that take place within ourselves. Like he sees Wi Fi and fusuma Fela to see rune and within yourself, don't you see? So, all of these phenomenon that take place, they are described as AI, yeah, signs miracles also, because by witnessing and by observing that phenomenon, one's heart is drawn to one conclusion. And

that is, there is a Creator who created us, because these phenomenon, they are, they are impossible to manifest themselves. They require a planner, they require an architect, they require a designer, and that designer is Allah God Almighty, the only the only creator is only one Creator.

And this creator calls these things, yet, he calls these things miracles, because they remind us of him

with ease, the sun coming up in the morning, or the bird that is suspended in the sky.

But what is interesting to note is that he also says in the area that we've quoted, that from among these many signs is an Haleakala comb is that he created for you mean unfussy come from yourselves. So that the this goes back to the origin story, the story of Adam and Eve, and be Adam and say, the Hawa and so that was salam. And in the Islamic narrative of the story, Allah created Adam from clay from the earth. And then from the rib of Nabi Adam, Allah extracted the essence of his wife, so he the Hawa answer that was salam. So, he created from you, your spouse, Lita school, new la ha, so that you may find tranquility, so that you may find Sakeena tranquility.

You can feel as though you are at peace, as though you are fulfilled

that hole that is prevalent within our heart

of the person not in Sakeena that hole will be there and it will be a gaping hole to feel as though there's something missing.

But then one gets married, and you find Lita schooner ILAHA, that you are able to achieve that tranquility.

So this is the first, the first lesson in the verse is that

our marriages in Islam are supposed to be signs of Allah.

And my first prayer for you today, the married couple, or the soon to be married couple is that Allah makes your marriage one of the signs that when people look upon you, they are amazed at how beautiful matrimony can be between two people.

And they are reminded of God through that marriage. And this is what we should strive for in all of our marriages. And then there's a funny side of it as well. It's so miraculous that this man and this woman who are strangers to one another, can get along and not kill each other, that it is a sign of God.

It's a sign of God.

But the sign is not only in the fact that they can, that they can live together.

The sign is that they live together in tranquility, that the husband brings peace to the heart of his wife, and the wife brings peace to the heart of her husband. This is not the default. This is not like anyone who gets married will automatically attain this No, us those who are married.

If they got their inshallah they do.

But this is something that we must strive for.

We must strive for it.

Often allah God Almighty teaches us praise in the Quran, right? And often we use those praise as litanies for ourselves. So we will pray and then we will we will ask, right. But we overlook the fact that those praise, they are also they are also fooled with lessons. Because when God tells you ask me this, then that's tantamount to God saying, do you aspire to this?

Because if I'm telling you to say this, that means I want you to want this. And the pray that he that he teaches us in relation to our family and our marriages specifically, is Robina. Habla Anna mean as Virgina was Yuri attina Kurata Yan, or Jalna, little Muda, Tina Imam, oh our Lord, grant us from our spouses and our offspring, the coolness of our eyes, and make us the leaders of the righteous. So we can reduce the prey to simply something that we should say. And we should ask God after the praise and special occasion, occasions, we could do that. Or we could look at the lesson contain the in and the lesson contain the in His Word, that when we seek the coolness of our eyes,

when we seek that tranquility in life, when we seek to be in our comfort zone, our safe space, the space that we can within it, let our hair down and be ourselves and relax and find tranquility, let that space be manifest within my relationship with my spouse, and, and with my children, and not elsewhere.

That lesson is contained within that pray.

But what we really want to know, for the married couple to be, and for us, some of us who are married already, and others who perhaps intend to get married one day, we want to know so how exactly do we get there?

And again, in this verse of Surah, a room that we initially quoted, we find the recipe they're beautifully laid out.

Of course, we can say easier said than done. But if the recipe is simple enough, that means that any of us could put that together.

So Allah says what Jaya Anabaena comb my wife data Rama and He, Allah, God Almighty, He places between you love and mercy,

love and mercy.

And this verse is very special. For many reasons, but to me, personally, my own reflections of this verse, it's special, because it is unexpected.

Had it been up to any human being to come up with the recipe for success in a marriage? We would have come up with all you need is love. In fact, we made a song about it, and we made it famous. All You Need Is Love.

But that's not true. Because you will love some things. And for other things, you will not love them at all.

You will notice within your spouse because this is a different human being with a different background, and a different upbringing, and different nurturing and different values and different qualities, you will notice it and things that will make you fall, head over heels, masha Allah. and expressing love in those moments is the required response. You see something you love, you respond by expressing love. And that's easy. Anyone can do that, because it comes naturally.

But the surprising part about the verse is that it does not limit the recipe upon love. Because when you get the rows right, when you when you get the rows, the rows consists of the petals, but it also consists of the stem, some leaves, and even thorns, and you have to take the whole package, you have to take the whole package, you got us through those three, you know, just give me the petals, I don't want your thorns. But when it comes to those thorns, when you start noticing within your spouse, but I don't really like that quality, that's new, didn't notice that six months ago. Who is this from now? Right? When you start noticing the things that are not quite to your taste, or your

desire or your liking

are we going to say then all you need is love.

Because that's not realistic.

What you're either buying a Kuma what data Rama, and this is why it's divine, because the divine knows that love is part of the recipe, but you also need mercy.

And this mercy, this quality of forbearance, this quality of I can tolerate, I can I can, I can bear this, and to express that mercy, that you are human, I am human, you accept me with my mistakes, with my flaws. So I accept you with your mistakes and with your flaws as well. Because if I expect that my Creator should overlook my flaws and my mistakes and my weaknesses, and he's given us each other as responsibility, then we do need to manifest that mercy with one another. So for the good times, the love is sufficient. And when times are not so good, when qualities are not so to our liking, then it is it requires of us to show mercy. And this delicate balance between these

qualities is essentially the recipe for a successful marriage.

And then at the tail end of this of the ayah. Allah says in Nephi Valley, can I Yeah, indeed, in that, in this exchange, they are signs plural, because this won't only manifest itself in one way, or within the next month or so, for the honeymoon period, or for the year after that, or for special occasions. This manifests itself every day, all day in various ways. And it is always up to us to look within and ask what is the recipe for success in this moment? Am I to demonstrate love, who am I to reach within and find that mercy and express that?

The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, he gave us the best of examples as to how to live our lives. And for Muslims. We follow in his way. Whether we understand it or not, whether we agree with it or not, we submit because we are all trying to figure out what's the best way to live life.

And we believe that his way is guided by God as is the case with all of his prophets and messengers, that if you take any of them and you were to follow them and their ways of life, you would be living a guided life.

So we ask how did he view marriage and how did he express the view of marriage for all of us?

And

to do to sort of summarize it from various lessons the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he informed us that belief and faith

has various manifestations, but the best of belief, the best faith acmella meaning Imana the believers who have the most complete faith as and whom Hulu are those who have the best character. So I started off by saying I know even to be someone with exemplary character.

But math for this me

The taste only starts now.

So that is a bit premature.

The best believers are those who have the best character, who are here who come here to community say him, but those who are really the base, or those who are based to the spouses.

You see, the trick here is that it's easy for me to meet the Mowlana, or the chef in the masjid and smile and be kind and be compassionate and be merciful, and meet them on Sundays and meet my colleagues at work, and so on and so forth. Whole day, I can put up this facade, but when I get home, the Juba comes off and the turban comes off, and the missile Afghan comes off and the hoof scum off, right, and then what manifests the real me and the character that comes out then and they is the character that your spouse is witness to

in another way of experiencing it. If you want to know which version of you will be judged by God Almighty on the day that you meet him? The answer is, it is the version of you that your spouse knows base.

So your True Metal in E WT le, the true worth your to your true strength is that which you demonstrate to your spouse. And this is the model that Islam puts out as the model of marriage. It's not just the place for fun and gains in romance and candlelight dinners and walks in the beach hand in hand and all of those things look the candlelight Denis might be necessary considering the loadshedding situation.

But

the reality is, it's it's really a journey of ups and downs of ebbs and flows. And you have to you have to ride that wave, you have to ride that wave. And in riding that wave and in showing your mettle, you are really developing who you are. And this is why today as you recite the the words that you and I'm sure you've been practicing quite frequently, what you're actually doing is you're saying to your Creator, that Oh my Lord, as you've taken me on this journey of life till this point, you now take me further on this journey. And it is now my responsibility to ride with you. And to make sure that I complete my faith. Because I believe in you. So my faith now is an opportunity to

come forth with not just me but with a family and you carry that family along with you. And with these words, we pray and we ask Allah creator, to guide this marriage, to bless this marriage to make it a means of being a sign of his of his holiness subhanho wa Taala that when people look upon this couple to be Inshallah, that they are reminded of the Creator, we ask that Allah place between the capital to be love and mercy, and that He guides them further on their journey of life. I mean, arable. And I mean, we will now ask Monisha beauty read the hot button Nikka. And I know that they are they are those among us who follow other faiths. And just to give an understanding as to what is

happening here. We started off with recitation from the Quran. And the recitation of the Quran is very sacred to us because we believe it to be the the Word of God, literally in its original form.

Through that we seek his blessings. What I've done is I've attempted to give some of the meanings of what is contained within the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him as is relevant to the occasion. What militia beat we'll be doing now is reading a sermon which is also a practice of the Prophet. And in it they are again verses of the Quran, and some teachings of the Prophet peace be upon him. It's done in Arabic, and it's basically a admonition or a homily around being conscious of God in every aspect of life. That really sums it up, right? And after we can conclude with that it may Allah I will then commence with what we call the contract of the Nika

where we speak to the Wali of the Bride by the father of the bride, who is her. He is her guardian. He's been looking after he's been taken care of. And she has as this bond with him that nobody else has an even will ask myself to be his proxy, right? His proxy in marrying his daughter of two even for the agreement that they've made between one another. And he's handing over this guardianship that he's been handling over to even will then become his son as well. And that would conclude the essence of what we are doing today. And then finally, we'll have some, some praise and some

leasings that will be read after inshallah