Living Islam – Marriage, Making and Living it #01

He's 111 Bill alamy salat wa salam O Allah, MBA well masa de Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sahbihi wa sallam said, even Kathir Cassia from Nevada,

my dear sisters, in our

classes of living Islam, I decided from today I will start a series on marriage.

And when we finish this inshallah, then we will do a series on raising children, I think these are two extremely important things, I can't possibly overemphasize the importance of these two topics, and I do hope you will

find them to be beneficial. For those of you who may be new,

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the topics of course, very different, the video series, right now we are doing

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then we have lessons from the MBA mussalam lives are the stories of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in the Quran, and the lessons that we learn from them. And then we have recently we started a series on the skills enough so that

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Today, we begin this

series on,

on learning from on,

on marriage.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, marriage is one of the most important

decisions in life

and one of the one of the thresholds

in life, that we that we cross and we choose to cross, the amazing thing is that there are two things in a human beings life in terms of his of what he or she does, which can be considered to be an absolutely critical importance. These two would be marriage and raising children.

Because not only do they have

momentary importance, as in when you decide, but they have lifelong importance as far as marriage is concerned. It's a it's a usually a lifelong

decision that's there for the rest of your life. And

as far as raising children is concerned, it's even longer. The the implications are even bigger, because it's a question of creating members of society who are going to be living in their society, and they are going to be doing whatever they do good or evil. And to a great extent, that depends on how they are raised.

I say great extent because

everything is not dependent on the parents. I have seen both I've seen children coming from extremely horrible

backgrounds.

Literally toxic homes,

where parents have not only do they have no clue

How to raise children but they are actually stuck in toxic habits and in, in, in a very horrible atmosphere. Yet children come out from there who are absolutely epidemics of goodness, historically speaking, we have the case of Musashi, Salah was raised in the, in the in the family and in the home and the house and that is of the Pharaoh of Egypt. I mean, the two can't be that can't be contrast can cannot possibly be a bigger contrast and that no one is the epitome of disobedience and evil and, and everything that is bad. And the other one is one of the greatest prophets of Allah subhanho wa Taala. So, that is possible. At the same time, it is possible that

parents may bring up children, they may do everything that they could possibly have done,

to raise in good children. But later on those children fall into bad company. And usually that is what happens, they fall into bad company, and then they go astray. And it goes on.

Very, very straight. I mean completely. In many cases, they will leave Islam and and even if they remain Muslim than they do, they are engaged in all kinds of

activities which have nothing to do with Islam, and which are completely anti

anti Islam and anti the principles of Islam. So this is possible. But then these are, again, exceptions, the vast majority of people, the rule is that your children will be as you raise them.

So it's very important to raise them well. In any case, irrespective of how they turn out. What you are questionable on and what you are answerable for, is what you did. So therefore, if Still, if parents have raised or did their best, to raise their children, well, then insha Allah, Allah and Allah Subhana, Allah knows what happened in any case, and therefore, even if those children went astray, even if they left Islam, even if they whatever they did, as long as the parents discharged their responsibility to the best of their ability, as long as they did their best to raise good children who know about Islam who know Allah Subhana, Allah, who knows all those who know the

boundaries of our faith, who know what is right, what is wrong, who know morality, who have good manners, good o'clock, then inshallah those parents are safe before Allah subhanaw taala they will not be punished, and inshallah they will not be questioned because Allah, Allah knows what they did.

And whatever the child does, after the child grows up, and falls into bad company, and so on, so forth, is the responsibility of that child. And that doesn't fall on the fence. So it is very important that these two things marriage and raising children are done very consciously, very thoughtfully, and with knowledge. Now, having said that,

I'm sure you will agree with me that very paradoxical, and very,

and very unfortunately, so

the two things, these two things which are so critically important, are the two things which are almost completely free from thoughtfulness, they are free from knowledge, and they are free from

from any conscious effort.

Both marriage and raising children seem to be almost reflex actions, right?

You get married for all the wrong reasons. And then you worry and then you wonder what went wrong.

And you wonder why this variant?

You know, broke down? Well, you should be wondering why it even lasted for you know, whatever time it did last, instead of saying why didn't break down because it was something that you you literally wrote the breaking down into it when you got married. And we talk about all this in detail in today and in the coming classes. But the point i'm saying is that both marriage and raising children are things which are completely taken for granted. It's almost as if this is a it will just happen somehow. Well, you know, bad news, it will not happen somehow. What will happen I mean child will will will grow I mean as long as it's being ready to grow, but it will grow like a weed grows in the

in the garden.

A truck

thing which has no beauty which is, which is, you know, really, if it was a video, just upload it and throw it away.

Suddenly, you cannot do that with a human being. So the point is that the two most critical things in our lives, we spend the least amount of thought behind it. We don't have any knowledge about it. And we don't even acquire any knowledge about it. And we somehow seem to believe that things will just be just be okay. Because that's what you wish. And of course, everybody wishes. And I'm sure nobody wishes, nobody getting married wishes that it will break up in six months. They do they do wish that it will last and we Yes, also goodness, but just wishing

wishes were horses, then beggars would ride wishes are not horses and wishes are not your marriages either.

So it's very important for us to understand and that's why I want to take some time and try to emphasize the importance of

of a marriage. And inshallah we'll try and see what are the ways of ensuring that you at least give it a fighting chance of

being successful. Now, having said this, let me also say to very, very

strongly and emphatically that a good marriage is as close as you will get to heaven on the chance. Without a doubt. A good marriage is as close as you can get to Jenna in this life.

A good spouse, a good wife, a good husband is literally a neuroma from Allah subhanho wa Taala. And this is something that we need to appreciate, it is something that we need to,

to reinforce and we need to thank Allah subhanaw taala for the order the opposite the alternative, but the opposite of this, a bad wife or a bad husband is also as close to jahannam as you can get. It is like it's like a curse. And we always want to protect everybody from bad spouses, and give us and give you good spouses. And if you if you weren't given it, then me I didn't make God that mindless.

Change that situation, make your spouse into a good spouse. So this is the this is the reality, this is the fact that you know, it will realize a completely blight and ruin your life or it will make your life absolutely you know,

john on Earth, right, it can be a living hand living heaven or living hell.

The good news is that to a great extent, or I would even say to a complete extent, this depends on you. It depends on the choices you make, it depends on your own behavior and our class, what you choose to do, it depends on what you choose to focus on, it depends on what you choose to ignore. So it's entirely

in your hands.

Whatever we choose to do, that is how things will turn out. And again, as I do as I do, I mean, I keep saying this, but

one must understand that any general statement like this is generally true. But there will be exceptions. So if there is an exception, there's an exception, usually, in today's world, we are seeing this more and more. And that is mental illness.

There are

I suppose, you know, there is some level of mental instability and mental illness in many people, if not most people,

but usually that is hidden, because the circumstances of life are not so stressful as to bring it out. It's like for example, if there is a weakness in your,

in your computer, for example, like if there is a weakness in the hardware or

in the oil as you're running, usually it won't show up. But supposing you do some serious programming work or you're doing some heavy work, where the machine now has to

you know, work very hard, then it breaks down and you might say well, you know, this was this looks fine, this was working, working absolutely fine all this while while I was doing spreadsheets and and word processing, but what happened now when you put it to a strain, where the weakness showed up.

This was this is what happens also in a marriage, where things on as long as things are going fine.

You don't see it but the when there is stress, you find that weakness shows up. So talking about mental illnesses.

What also happens in the case of mental illness in many cases, and today, especially in the in COVID world, because we are not post COVID we are post the introduction of COVID. In this in COVID world, thanks to some of the restrictions on travel and meeting people and wearing masks and so on so forth.

We are seeing signs of mental illness that are showing up in people.

One of the problems of mental illnesses and mental illness almost by default is taken and seen as a stigma is they can see it as something which is which is it is negative, or it's seen as something negative in the sense of negative character trait or something like that. So people are ashamed. For example, I will not be ashamed of saying that I have a cold, but I would be ashamed of saying that I'm suffering from depression, or I'm suffering from paranoia, or I'm suffering from bipolar, bipolar illness or something like that. But the The important thing to understand is that this any lessons or illness, whether it's Korea influenza, whether it's, you know, a headache, or whether it

is,

is a mental illness, you know, some of them like like some of the ones I've described,

it is an illness, it is treatable, it is something which would be, which would be accepted, number one, it should be faced, it's not something to be ashamed of, it's not something to be hidden, you need to go to just like you would go to a doctor, you need to go to a psychiatrist and

have your subject out, and then follow the advice that the the these gratis gives you. So that inshallah you can be cured. And in cases where it may be a mental illness, which is incurable, because there are such things as mental illnesses, which cannot be cured, but they can be mitigated, they can be controlled, so that you can still live a perfectly good

and happy life without any problems for yourself and others. But provided you follow the advice of the psychologists provided, you take the medication that is prescribed for you, and you do what they tell you to do. Now, therefore, that will lose it. And the reason I mentioned in mental is also is because one of the problems, especially in our culture, in the culture of the Indian subcontinent,

this is I don't know if this is true of other people also, but definitely in our culture, South Asian culture,

marriage is seen and treated almost like a cure for mental illness. And I've seen I've known several cases, where

especially with regard to men, this is what happens, the young man has for example, the young man is bipolar or he has a serious

you know, issue with depression or he has a serious issue with controlling of anger or things like this, and people the parents say, you know, sciatica rather than getting married and he will be fine and they get him married. Now, you this is a crime, believe me, if anybody tells you that strongly, strongly, strongly.

prohibit that, you know, tell them you should not you should never do that. And if you know the, the parents of the bride, the girl Oh, they are planning to marry this young man to do go and inform them that this man whose proposal and scam is is not fit for your girl to marry. So, they need to take this this guy to a psychiatrist and getting treated first before he can he can marry say this is not a diva, this is a responsibility that you have to ensure that this poor girl

her life is not converted into a living hell, I have seen not one but several cases where they did not do that. And as a result of which, those poor girls their lives were completely ruined.

In some cases, those girls they had to suffer physical abuse and so on and so on. And the parents of these have such boys are responsible and they are answerable to allow us to handle that. Marriage is not a cure for materials. So if there is an issue of mental illness, get it get it checked out, get it checked out, get it treated, as I told you, and hamdulillah you can still get your your your your son married, but do that after the treatment has been

has been started and it is settled. And after your son understands that he has to make the statement. He must stick to that then inshallah

he can get better. And in that case, inform the girl

I'm the girl who's going to marry him in from our parents, that this is the actual situation, I might say, his ability

to understand that, otherwise I lost rather than I will, will punish people who say, oh, if I say that I you know, who will give their daughter in marriage, let them not give, let them not give, don't put yourself into the Hellfire because you violated so badly the rights of somebody. So this is an extremely important thing for us to understand and do.

One of the

characteristics today of the breakdown of family life,

characteristic

of modern life,

not having the one of the characteristics one of the things that's so common today in our lives, it seems to be the breakdown of family life. And the foundation of that is a happy and healthy marriage. Now, of course, one of the one of the big reasons for the breakdown of

family life, there is also social media.

There are there are cases where, you know, imagine if you are going to be sitting with your face in Facebook, or your face in your phone, then where is the time for your wife? And where is the time for your husband? Right? The whole time. As soon as your eyes open in the morning, the first thing you look at is the phone and to see what messages are there and so on what message may have come in the night? How horrible is that?

If you are in this habit, please stop that immediately. Don't be Don't be such a slave to the thing. There is no as a earthshaking message, which may have come in the night and if you miss it, seeing first thing as soon as you open your eyes that something would happen. Believe me if it was so urgent, they would have woken you up in the right to tell you what, whatever that was, right? So forget that. When you wake up in the morning.

Go wash your face make Voodoo pray two rakaat Asada,

Allah gives you the top 100 otherwise pretty simple divider, do you want to read some Quran right let the let your eyes see the caliber of Allah subhanaw taala is the first thing that they see.

And then go and look at your phone and see whatever was in

there is no problem the world will not come to an end and your life will not stop nothing will happen you inshallah you will be you will be happy you will be healthy and your marriage will be

one of the biggest reasons for the breakdown of marriages and the breakdown of of life is social media. So please stay out of it. Now, this is very important. This whole breakdown of family life has vast implications, both individually and in society. In terms of personal hardship, lack of concern for each other.

And, and lack of responsibility, and a culture that promotes selfishness, and self satisfaction at all costs.

This vicious circle propagates and promotes more destruction of marriages. And the sad story goes on and growth. One of the biggest fallacies one of the one of the worst thing anytime anybody says that makes that statement immediately challenging. One of the worst fallacies is where people say that Oh, as long as you are happy, that's all that matters. As long as you're happy, as long as that couple is happy as long as the children are happy. This is the biggest fallacy This is the absolute, complete and total nonsense. Your happiness is not a criterion for anything in this world. except perhaps

the criterion to judge whether you are you are yourself your acca is in great danger.

Because people can be happy doing some extremely horrible things. They can be happy in the gross disobedience of Anna's vannatta they can be happy committing shirk and kufr they can be happy abusing others they can be happy beating up their wives or husbands. They can be happy abusing their children.

The children can be happy abusing their parents.

People got people are very happy. When they are when they are absolutely zonked. Their minds are gone and blown on drugs. People are extremely ask alcohol is why do they drink they drink to be happy.

And then they are very happy when they are when they are drunk. It's only when the hangover isn't that they start feeling the pain

being happier, not

do with anything, please understand this, being happy, it has nothing to do with energy and being happy is not a goal in life.

Today we have happiness ministries and this and that. And you know, so and so is the

know,

what is important is, in many ways, what is important is if others are happy with my life is not a matter of whether I'm happy, it's a it's a question of with my life, the way I am leading my life are others happy. Now that is a much more reliable criteria to judge whether my life is going on the right track or not. Because in with my life, if my neighbors are happy by teachers are happy, if my parents are happy by my spouse, my wife is happy if my children are happy, right, if the place where I'm working, if the if the other, Mike Miko and fellow employees are happy, my employers are happy, those who work for me if they are happy.

Now, if that is the case, then you can say that

my life is probably successful because I am living a life where anyone who has anything to do with me is happy. So it means that I must be doing something right.

But if I focus it the other way around, and I say well, as long as I'm happy,

it doesn't matter who else is unhappy.

That is completely, that is complete insanity.

But unfortunately, in our upside down world, this is what we promote. So please get out of this thing. Your personal happiness has nothing to do with anything. What is very important is if others are happy, and this applies the same thing to marriages, ask yourself is your spouse happy? If your spouse is happy, then your marriage is going well, inshallah. And again, remember, I'm not I'm not siding with the man or the woman, I'm talking about both the spouses, if the man is concerned about the happiness of his wife, and if the wife is concerned about the happiness of our of her husband, then believe that marriage is doing very well.

that marriage is doing very well. And that's why when, when people come to me, and they come to me for marriage counseling, when when they come to me, and sometimes they come to me with complaints. So you have I have the the wife or the husband, who comes to me and says, you know, tell me tell my husband, tell my wife, what are my rights?

Right? What are my rights, explain to my wife or husband, what my rights are? So I tell them, forget rights, focus on duties, because you will, you will be questioned about duties, not about rights.

Now think about is you might say, well, that's unfair, isn't it is very, very fair. And it's the and that is the way to do because the two things First of all, duties are in your control.

My duties I can fulfill or I can choose not to fulfill my rights are in somebody else's control. So first of all, I can't control whether my rights will be fulfilled or not. Second thing is that if I fulfill my duties, and my wife fulfills her duties, that automatically we are fulfilling each other's rights, because what are our duties? My duties are our rights,

what are her duties, her duties are my rights. So, if both of us are focusing on duties, and she says, am I fulfilling my husband's duties, if I fulfilling my duties meaning Am I fulfilling my husband rights? And if I say Am I fulfilling

my duties, which means am I fulfilling my wife's right, then both the rights of the husband and the wife will get fulfilled? And

both of us will be happy. So, focus on duties, not on rights, because you will be questioned about duties not about rights, Allah, Allah will question you about that which he gave in your control and what did he give in my control my duties.

So, that is what I will I will be questioned on. So think about that. Two things we looked at one is three things. One is that a marriage and I am also talking about raising children, although we are not going to be are not going to be talking about raising children just now we'll talk about that in our next series, which will happen after this one. But in this one, I mentioned that because these two obviously are linked. The first thing is to make that to take that decision thoughtfully.

consciously, thoughtfully and with knowledge. These are the three criteria consciously, thoughtfully

And with knowledge,

not a random thing.

Because I fell in love, don't fall, falling is bad. Anytime you fall, you break something, you know how to do that. Right? grow in marriage grow in love. Don't fall in love, grow in love.

Make sure you are in love with the right person. Because you can be in love with the wrong person, and it will, it will ruin you, it will completely and totally destroy you, in this world and the next world. So therefore, don't fall in love, grow in love.

So, consciously, thoughtfully and

with knowledge, you need help you need knowledge. What are the

what is Islam teach about marriage? What are the requirements, Islamic requirements of a good marriage? What must a man or woman know? before they get married?

How many people out there who are listening to this, who attended any kind of class with regard to marriage before they got married?

I'm not I'm sure there will be very few people, because this is not the norm.

This is not the norm, this should be the norm.

The moment your children are ready for marriage, the first thing you should do is to give them to teach them. What are the requirements as far as marriage is concerned? The problem is most parents don't know how is it is an umbrella. This series that I'm starting today, when this is over, you can make them sit and listen to this whole thing. However many classes this districts, right, let them sit there sit and watch this whole thing as a condition to get married.

And see, if you can't do this, then you can't you're not ready for marriage. So make sure they do that. Because I'm going to try to do my best in covering all that is required for a person to know before they get married. So first thing we love today's what is to do to

to do to get married consciously, thoughtfully, and with knowledge that you need knowledge to do that. Second thing that we learned as far as marriage is concerned

is that

to focus on the happiness of the spouse,

not focus on your own happiness.

Very important to understand this. And the reason for doing that is really not a selfless reason. It's a selfish reason. Because there are two people and they both focus on each other's happiness, then both will be happy. So focus on happiness. And in that context, what must you do? Focus on your duties, fulfill your duties, don't worry about your rights. Again, both people, the wife must focus on her duties towards her husband, the husband must focus on his duties towards the wife. The rights of each of each of them will automatically get fulfilled because the duties are the rights. My duties are my wife's rights, my wife's duties are my rights. So if I focus on my duties,

I will be fulfilling our rights. And if she focuses on her duties, she will be fulfilling my rights. And why must we do that because

a marriage in his lab is a sacred contract with Allah subhanaw taala as the witness and Allah Subhana Allah will question us about this contract. Allah will question about the choice we made. Allah will question as about how we treated each other than that in that context. And therefore, it is something where we can be sure that we will be questioned why Allah subhanaw taala on the DOJ. So let us make sure that we are fulfilling our side of the story so that when we are questioned, we will not be found wanting, we will requestion about duties on our rights.

Now brothers sisters, as I as I said, having counseled many couples, over many years, over a couple of decades, I've come to the conclusion that eventual success of a marriage literally lies in the hands and the wills of the two partners alone. Nobody's nobody can make or break a marriage. If those two partners don't want it to happen.

Nobody can do that.

Anytime you find that a marriage got broken the

end

And you'll find people who want to blame, you know, this one and that one about this.

Remember that that is these aren't excuses, the marriage will break, or not break, depending on these two people. If there is a fault within them, then others can exploit that for.

So, focus on yourself and say, how can we make our marriage stronger?

The

I just wanted to go through the my list of topics for this series.

There are 20 of them.

Now 22 actually, one is marriage, the making of it.

The second one is marriage, living it now in living it? What are the characteristics of a happy half a happy marriage? Is there a formula to be happy in a marriage? How do you make a marriage work? Is the idea of a soulmate? Just a myth? What kind of actions dictate a happy marriage? How much involvement should parents and in laws have as is one of the most critical things? How much involvement should parents and in laws have? How does one make compromises? When does one know that a marriage is not working? What are the core responsibilities of the two spouses your duties? whose responsibility is it to make a marriage happy? In today's time? times? What kind of mindset should

people have when getting into a marriage? Is the Seven Year Itch based on statistics or research? How important are children to have a happy marriage? What can couples do to keep the spark in the marriage alive? is fighting healthy? How important is money to keep a marriage happy? What are the worst things couples can do to a marriage? Should people resort to white lies little lies to keep the peace? And the last one does it help couples when they talk about their problems?

And to whom?

Is Strange stranger or someone they know? So we're looking at the issue of marriage counseling Do you need do you need counseling? Do you need to go to counseling? And if so, should it be with somebody with a with an independent counselor who does not know you more should you go to counseling with maybe one of the family elders or a friend or somebody who knows you or knows one or knows both? What should happen we hope of course that this will never be this need will never arise but you know things happen so this is in a nutshell what

I began the class as well as I'm giving you a

little taste of the classes to come going forward inshallah We ask Allah subhanaw taala to enable us to make this a means of hire and Baraka and as I told you, please listen, watch these videos and promote them send them to your friends and so on everything is completely free. I don't get any royalty from this I'm not promoting this so that you guys can make some money, absolutely nothing. There is a book of mine also called marriage the making and living of it which is on Amazon. It has been translated also to Bangla for those of you my Bengali friends who want to read and Margaret is available also in Bangla on that is on Amazon go there buy it read it

it's on Kindle and so on also so it's

it costs next to nothing hopefully a virus is what that expense and listen to these videos these are completely free there's there's no there's no cost involved

and I hope inshallah that Allah subhanaw taala will make these videos and make these classes a means of higher and Monica for you and Phil your marriages with with blessing and insha Allah May Allah grant that your marriage is literally become a heaven on earth. Jana in this life for you as a means of earning the real Jana in the akhira as well. While some other Highlander will carry while Ollie he was really made that I want to get what do I mean was that I was