Living Islam – Marriage, Making and Living it #07

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from my brother my brothers and sisters in our lesson on living Islam we are looking at how to make a marriage happy and how to keep it happy throughout our married lives.

We looked at all the issues relating to choosing a spouse, what is the basis and what do we do

and

also what not to do.

I want to reiterate something which I have already mentioned in the last class. But I think it's important to reiterate it and that is

a word of caution to those intrepid souls

who think that they are believe that they can change others.

A lot of animals that are guilty that in his hand, he did not give it to

maybe you can change people, and if so all power to you. But more than likely you are like 99.999% of the world, which includes me for that matter. We only believe that it can change people.

Anyone who looks at a person before they marry them, and say that I will change him or her. And then they will be just fine. is literally taking their life into their own hands.

Is the person you want to marry needs changing. Let someone else do it. You leave them alone, and go find someone who you can admire and look up to and want to be like, not someone who you want to change.

Marrying somebody by looking at a profile on the internet is like Russian roulette.

One of the chambers will have a bullet in it.

It's a gamble that I seriously

advise you not to take, I have seen too many ruins lives. Thanks to marrying somebody straight out of the internet.

I'm not saying don't use the marriage portals or don't use the internet at all,

to you know, at least sort of shortlist or find somebody. But once you do that, once you find somebody, go through the mail with regard to checking everything to your own satisfaction.

Do not be in a hurry. Because if you are in a hurry, believe me,

you are going to destroy yourself.

If you do not know enough about your spouse, don't marry them.

Islam permits you to make inquiries and to meet the spouse before marriage and talk to them face to face. Now please do that.

Don't waste your time by just marrying somebody because you are in such a big hurry to get married

because the price to pay will be lifelong.

And that is not something that I recommend that you should put yourself into that situation.

Now, also remember that as far as all the things that I mentioned to you in the last

five or whatever the number of sessions that we have done on this seven sessions probably

all the stuff which I asked you to check you can find out and you can ascertain to the best of your ability in two or three meetings maximum.

If something is still a mystery, let them go.

Live them do not do not get married.

So take your marriage seriously. Because happy marriages are made by serious people.

take it seriously because it is your life

that we are talking about.

Now that you are married, let us look at how to make your marriage happy.

And before we go there also let me backtrack a little bit.

Having decided to marry How will you marry

because this is another

big open area for all kinds of

stuff that

happens which will not have, right. And I'm talking about the ostentation and all the customs and practices that we have decided to import into our marriages, which have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.

Right We call it culture we call it this we call it that

and there are practices from all over the place.

All of these are

are private and they are not permissible and they are highly, highly avoidable.

Please understand that Islam creates a system for marriage and for anything else, but for marriage we are talking about here, Islam great system, which is easy, which is clean, which is dignified, which is cheap, if not free.

Now, why would you want to leave that

and put yourself in a situation where you are going to be spending a lot of money and you are going to indulge in things which can be harder,

and you're going to become a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Why would you do that? Right? I mean that would be the dumbest and most stupid thing imaginable if you did that with yourself, but it's amazing how many people do it. So that's why I'm advising you don't be one of those people who chooses to begin

their

married life in a way that displeases Allah subhanaw taala and which is against the Quran and the Sunnah of our Beloved Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa he was abusing

Once you have decided on the marriage, and you have to decide among other things to decide is also the amount of

yes rasuna Sara Sara married somebody and told him teach your wife Karen that is your mother. These are exceptions. These are exceptions.

My advice to you is follow the general rule

and the general rule is pay my hair which is in keeping with your own status and what you are what you can afford to pay

that is the

that is the correct thing to do that is the Islamic thing. So pay my hair which is sufficient and which is in appropriate to you and your status. Now once you've decided that then

do the marriage as far as possible in a budget have the nikka done in a budget

followed by a walima which you the bridegroom will pay for either in the masjid or in some other place in your home or something else right.

In the walima it is permissible for you to share expenses

with the bride's family if they insist it is not for you to tell them but if they insist sometimes it happens by the bride's family to say that we have you know, so many guests from our side who we would like to invite and we don't want to we would like to pay for that. So we would like to share in the expenses of the wedding. This is permissible. They can do that. But you don't ask the bride groom side and the bride room Do not ask them to share that would be disgusting.

That would be highly highly undignified if they offer if they want to do that if they insist, then you can allow them and you can participate with them them and share the expenses there is no problem nikka in the masjid that's it. Don't have a party on the day of the nigga and then one more walima and in between that is a Jyoti and before that is Amanda before that is a soundcheck and before that is a Mandy's Yeah, the bride is not cucumber to be smeared with spices,

Mandy and Holly and whatnot, right?

Please, these are these are custom which have nothing whatsoever to do with his labs. They have nothing to do with labs stay out of them. don't contaminate your marriage from day one with all kinds of

All kinds of customs and practices instead of following the beautiful sunnah of Rasulullah Salah which is the nigga in the masjid followed by a volley mass and that is that the right go home to us today There seems to be a another trend which is of long so called engagement first of all there is no engagement in Islam, right so having an engagement giving a ring all of this is not from Islam. Secondly, what people do is they perform they do the nigga, but they say we are not doing the Rossetti. The bride will not go to the bridegroom's house for two years. And only after two years, she will go to the bridegroom's house. This is not from Islam, please understand.

This is from your lufs don't distort the Sharia. Once the Nika has been done, that man and that woman are legally married. Right? You can send or not send makes no difference. If they want to live together, they can live together from five minutes after the kneecap.

So don't play games. Don't play games, a large amount of that, if you don't want to get married for two years, don't get married for two years.

But if you get married, then let them go and live life together as husband and wife because that is what the marriage is supposed to be. Right? So I'm not saying that having some time between the Nika and the rocks or the the bride going to the husband's house. I'm not saying that this is to have some time with her or something. But it is definitely not dishonor when Russell Russell married his daughter, Fatima to Zara or the olana to it will be valuable, the Alon immediately is entered to Ali's house, this house, right? So is that that is a sort of so nice not to keep your daughter with you for two years or one year or whatever it is,

before you send her to the bridegroom's house, so follow the sooner because in that there is higher and Baraka now,

now that you are married, and

let's see how you can keep your make your marriage happy, and how you can keep it happy. Now, somebody asked me 20 questions about this.

And I hope the answers which I gave will cover all aspects of the matter. So the first question was, what are the characteristics of a happy marriage?

What are the characteristics of a happy marriage?

I say, truth, caring, and mutual respect.

I call these my three Cardinal principles of happy marriages, truth, caring, and mutual respect. My three Cardinal principles of happy marriages. Please notice that I'm not using the word love. Love comes out of these three things. What is called Love is usually physical desire.

The shape or size of somebody's body, is not the inspiration.

It's got is not the inspiration for love. And it can it can be if that is inspiration, then really it is infatuation. And last, but not love, for love to happen. The lasting kind that is the love which will remain, and the love which grows

with age. And the longer the time you spend together, the more you love each other. For that you need truthfulness, you need caring, and you read concern for one another. It needs putting the needs of the other before your own. And doing that joyfully. Not like a servant or something not like a slave, doing a joyful you would love to do that. Having to do that, and mutual respect. This is very, very important. without respect, there cannot be any love. Now one needs to respect one spouse, appreciate their strengths. Make them your role model. Make them your icon and be proud of them and be proud that they are your spouse that Kindles love in the heart, which grows with time

because the reasons for respect also grow with time. physical attraction reduces with age. It is programmed to do that. Nobody grows more beautiful with age, your maturity date, you grow wiser, you grow more mellow, more patient and forbearing and more worthy of respect. The love that comes out of that also grows with age.

Truth is to express feelings as they are and not to have any pretensions caring is to treat the other with concern. Because you know that with you, he or she has no barriers, no safety nets and respect is to acknowledge the value of the trust that is placed in you in allowing you into that inner most of

places in the heart in which nobody else has been allowed before, to treat that privilege with the respect it deserves, and never to abuse it for any reason. So the first question, what are the ingredients, or characteristics of a happy marriage? And I'm saying truth, caring, and mutual respect.

Number two, is there a formula to be happy in a marriage?

Yes, there is. marry someone who you believe is worthy of emulation.

Someone you can look up to, and learn to forgive them.

The formula of this may look at this may look a little paradoxical. I'm saying someone you can look up to, but learn to forgive them. The reason being, because sometimes when you look up to somebody, you find that they're not meeting your expectations. So learn to forgive them. also learn to look at your own expectations and say, these expectations that I have, are probably not even human, that I have expectations, which are, by definition, impossible to meet. So I need to do something about myself.

The formula of an unhappy marriage is to marry someone you believe you can change. I've said this before, I'm saying it again.

Don't fall into this trap. It's a sure recipe for disaster. When you marry someone who you think needs to be changed, you are accepting that they are not good enough as it is. Also in most cases, you will not you will not have asked them if they want to change and that to to your preferred model.

And then you will lo and behold, that they have other ideas about changing and your marriage will be the casualties. The second part of the formula is to be forgiving. We need to forgive one another. We what tends to happen in many marriages is that we expect the other person to forgive us, but we hold them to standards that we ourselves are unable to live up to.

And we become curiously blind to this very unreasonable stance. That doesn't work. It's good to remember the saying, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Share in each other's lives.

That means don't sit with your iPad, when you were having breakfast, or lunch or dinner. Keep your phones and iPads and your your screens, make it a rule. No screens on the dining table. No screens in the bedroom.

Right? Leave them aside, the world will not come to a heart and the way the world is going. If it comes to art, it says it will take

so

share in each other's lives. You cannot share in somebody's life. When your nose is in in your own screen.

Take interest in what the other person does. Don't be nosy, but learn and learn to add value. conversation is both the key to a happy marriage and a meter to judge it's helped marriages that are getting sick, start to lose conversation,

when there's nothing left to talk about after 10 minutes. And then when your idea of spending time with your spouse is to sit in front of the TV, or to read the newspaper in the same room, then you can simply say that your marriage is in the ICU.

In happy marriages, there is a desire for the company of the other.

Not for the company of others.

You hurry home, because your spouse is there. You don't hit home and bounce off to the club towards it with your cronies or to some other place to be with other with other friends. You want to spend time with your spouse, not because otherwise, he or she will complain. But because you genuinely want to do it.

Right? So ask yourself this question

number three, how do you make a marriage work?

By working at it.

We use this term make a marriage work. But we forget that a lot of it is actually work. It takes effort. It takes time and energy. It's measurable and it produces results. making breakfast for your wife is work. offering to do her errands is work. Taking the trouble to look nice when your husband comes home. Instead of like animated laundry, his work,

going to the airport to meet his flight, his work. You get the drift, doing what does not come naturally, or doing something that is important for the other. Even if you don't like doing his work and all of it produces results

in time in terms of

appreciation and loves.

never complain if your spouse is not spending time with you. Firstly, it is pathetic and undignified to do that. Secondly, I have a rule. Never tell someone to do for duty, what they won't do for love. And thirdly, that they seek someone else's company is a message for you. So act and examine yourself and see why this is happening and correct yourselves and things will come back and things will change, change and go back to how they used to be.

People see what is enjoyable. So if your company is more a pain, rather than enjoyment, naturally, they will go somewhere else.

As I say, if I wanted to marry an act, I would have married a horse. At least it would have guided me from place to place. nag is a gender neutral term, that I'm male and female legs and both are equally painful. As I have said earlier, conversation is a good indicator about what is happening

to the marriage, giving instructions, complaining, informing, gossiping, is not conversation,

sharing of thoughts, hopes, aspirations, fears, good listening, compassion, understanding, laughing and crying together about issues that are shared. That is conversation. That is what I mean. Finally, companionable silence compared to a companionable silence is also an indicator of a good marriage. You don't have to talk all the time. It's the quality of the companionship, the quality of the silence, you will know it without anyone having to explain let me show you. But pay attention to it. If there is a TED and see if there is tension, or boredom in it. The key is to want to share time and thoughts and aspirations and fears and to want to listen to each other with caring and

respect.

Do senseless acts of kindness, give gifts and flowers and sweets, not on birthdays or anniversaries that's mechanical. And with Outlook and

smartphones, you don't even need to remember the machine reminds you

give gifts all through the it doesn't have to be big. Always though sometimes it must be but it is the thought that counts. rustlers are seldom said that gifts increase affection for one another and indeed they do. So give gifts to give gift to each other. Remember to do this especially if you have been traveling or are away mentally with work for a while. gifts are the adhesive of a good marriage. The key to remember in all this is that it must be something that you are sharing with your spouse alone. gift wrap the article tie or even put perfume on it and house it with flowers. Usually imagination begins special. Remember, it's not about the article, it's about creating

memories. Her gift is not one you will have a sack of gift for the whole family.

How it is something that only she gets. It is something she gets when there is no reason for it. It is something that she got when nobody else did. It is something that she got, which is special. This is what makes it exclusive. And it gives that message to say that you are special for me. And that applies to the man as well.

Remember, men also like gifts, even more than women. So give it to him with an open heart

playing another secret of a happy marriage. couples that play together, stay together. couples that pray together, stay together. The games and entertainment sightseeing holidays picnics, and prayer Salah.

You think what play means to you and do it and do it regularly. If you play a competitive sport together, say golf, remember to lose regularly. It's not for the competition that you are playing or to make it a competition.

And to make it a competition is to defeat his very purpose. So don't do that. Remember that sometimes, you may not be enjoying it equally, but that it is worth the pleasure of seeing the smile on the face of your spouse. It's all about the spouse anyway. Think about that. What is a happy marriage. a happy marriage is one in which your spouse is happy. Because that that's the only way you will be happy you cannot be happy when you is positive.

It's all about that smile. be genuine. A cosmetics while is detectable a mile away. Performance is not the key to everything and everywhere. And one place where it is not is in a marriage. The Bahamas appraisal for a marriage is a joint statement that spells the success of the marriage. Not

Your personal performance. Otherwise it will be like saying operations successful patient is dead.

In our fast paced world lives today, we don't seem to have the supply the time, to simply be, we are conditioned look for results for everything. This is highly stressful and detrimental to a marriage, a marriage is for so called for tranquility, for harmony for peace. And many times that translates to just being together without any results

without any measurable results. Finally, before we go to point number four, out of my 20 points, I want to mention a very important thing I said already, that couples that pray together, stay together, let me share with you the beautiful Hadees.

He said, Allah Subhana, Allah loves that man who wakes up for the huddle and wakes his wife up. And he said, Allah loves that woman who wakes up and wakes up her husband, and said that if he or she has difficulty waking up, then sprinkle a little cold water on their face. No smoke, from his perspective, I don't advise you to spray great cold water on their face. Or at least if you're going to do that, and be prepared to have your running shoes on before you do that. So you can take off. But the point I'm saying here is that,

think about this, that how Allah subhanaw taala loves people who worship Him, and who encouraged each other to worship Him. So pray together, stay together, help each other to obey Allah subhanho wa Taala help each other in the work of Islam help each other to learn Islam together, help each other? When I saying help each other? I don't mean point fingers at each other. I don't mean find fault with each other. I don't mean make that make learning in Islam into a painful competition, where now you are you are you are shooting values at each other like this. Have you said this data, they said that there are some people who have the capacity to make anything miserable? Right?

Whatever it is, it can be the most beautiful thing in the world, everybody would this person will make it miserable. Please don't make yourself that way. Right? Even if you are that way. Maybe you are, but admit it, acknowledge it. And get out of that. Point number four, how can you try and make an unhappy marriage into a happy one? That's a tough one. Because there is a pre clause to it.

Once you solve that, or satisfy that pre class, then it's very easy. And the break losses Do you really wanted to have?

Do you really want to make an unhappy marriage into a happy marriage? I always ask people this when they come to me with marriage problems. And they say oh, this is happening and so on so on, help us as a really serious Do you want to remain together? Right? If you if this is some game you're playing, in order to justify to yourself, the fact that you already decided for divorce, then don't buy them go get yourself divorced.

So pre clauses Do you really want it to happen? Now that may sound like a strange thing to say or ask. But I've seen in many years of counseling that all the failures that I saw, were because the partners did not really want to make it work.

Both of them were really not serious about that they didn't they did not want that marriage to work. So there's nothing surprising there. It didn't work.

They were not sincere, and they were merely going to the movies with the idea of satisfying themselves or others that they had made the effort. Now that is a lie. Because they never made an effort. They acted a drama with a free concluded. And once you are sincere

about turning things around, then you need to sit down and write down all that you like about your spouse. After all, there were things about them that you liked enough to marry them. What are they? Then when you have that list, you write down the problem areas. Usually that works like magic. Marriages go bad most often because we don't appreciate the good enough. And we are not thankful for what they have. I often ask couples how many times a day you thank your wife or husband, how many times a day do you hug or kiss them? How many times a day you tell them that you love them. It's amazing how much we take appreciation for granted. For most people, not criticizing is equal to

appreciate. It is not. It is not expressing genuine appreciation is all about being thankful to the other person for all that they have done for you. Russell has said the one who has not tagged a person has not thanked ally said he has not thanked Allah, the One who has not thanked the people.

Thankfully, thankfulness clearly expressed

And after expressed is a lifeblood of a good marriage. And remember, do that often. That is the key. After all, when things were not going badly, we don't hesitate to make it known. So why not when they are going well. So think about that. appreciation is very, very important

for us to

treat our marriages with respect and respect begins with appreciating the good that we get from our spouses.

more in the next episode,

sound like a closure.

And may Allah Allah bless you and give you beautiful marriage was Allah Allah Allah Allah, Allah Karim Allah Allah he was.

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah.