Mirza Yawar Baig – Primacy of roles in marriage
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AI: Transcript ©
My brothers and sisters,
first of all, I must
encourage all of you to ask me questions
because it gives me,
ideas to
talk about in my in my other reminders
and ideas which are probably relevant to you,
in a very topical and immediate sense,
in in any way in which I can
help you. So, Inshallah, please keep those coming.
Now one of my very dear friends asked
me a question,
and this question is it's a very common
question with, a lot of,
young people
who get married.
And,
for the the initial excitement of, of being
married and
all the dreams of of being together and
togetherness and sharing and so on and so
forth.
And then they find that,
as time passes, and I'm not talking about
decades, I'm talking about,
years,
You know, few years, 2 years, 3 years,
4 years, 5 years.
They find that the actual amount of time
that they spend together, as in physical
togetherness,
becomes
less and less.
And the reason is not because they started
hitting each other or the marriage is falling
apart, but because of the
responsibilities
that,
increase and which are of which are which
are in different,
different areas.
So usually the
husband,
you know, at that time of his life,
in his twenties
thirties,
This is
the time of hustling. This is the time
of,
of career development. This is the time of
working very hard.
So whether he's in employment
or he is in,
business,
this is the time where you
you really, really slog.
When I started my
when I launched my
company in,
in 1994 in Bangalore in Bangalore,
for 1 year,
on an average,
I would be travelling
20 to 22 days per month
on an average. So some months I travelled
over there.
For 13 years before that,
when I was
training
to become a leadership
consultant,
leadership trainer,
for 13 years,
I was doing a full time job
as,
a plantation manager.
And then for the last 2 years of
that, I was
doing a full time job,
heading a
the inbound tours of a travel company in
Delhi.
And throughout that period,
in addition to doing the full time job,
I was
studying as in books. I was studying as
in it
a a, executive MBA course at the Indian
Institute of Management IIM, and
as in
observing
and studying
and apprentice
apprenticing
myself
to,
trainers who are guided after allowing me to
come and sit in their classes.
So for 13 years, I did not take
a single day's vacation, not one single day.
Gave me good health so I wasn't sick.
I didn't take any days off.
My vacation
period, which was 35 days,
I would spend the entire vacation period in
bits and pieces, not the entire birthday that
I'm trying, but bits and pieces.
I would spend the entire vacation period
going to
training classes.
Not classes that are in class for me,
but classes which were taught by friends of
mine who were kind enough to allow me
to come and and and,
look at them, sit with them, and then
later on in the in the day, debrief
what they had done.
I would travel 3rd class
train in India,
which went a plank. That's it.
And, I would stay in,
for want of a better name, hotels,
in which today I wouldn't carol my dog.
Absolutely miserable conditions
where
my friends were unfortunate enough to have their
homes in the cities where I was going.
I would pile on,
and I would say, please, can I come
and stay and sleep on your doorstep and
on the doormat? And they would be kind
enough to open the door. And,
13 years, not 1 or 2. And today,
I talk about 13 because I know. I've
seen the end of that story. But when
I was doing that, remember, I didn't know
it was going to be 13.
In a way, it's a jollywood thing because
another friend of mine told me, I don't
think I can last for 13 years like
this. I said, neither neither would I have
lasted for 13 years if I had known
it was going to be 13.
But hamdulillah,
I love my work,
and, therefore, it didn't seem like a burden
to me. It doesn't seem even today.
And, I was very happy doing it.
But in the process
think about that. In the process, my wife
was alone in the house. For 13 years,
we did not take a vacation together.
I took no vacation, so we had no
vacation. She she would go off to her
parents' place.
Thankfully, they have, or they had both her
parents have passed away. My other grandmother,
for those without.
They have that family her family is very
close, so they,
you know, she enjoyed herself.
I like to tell myself that she also
missed me, but I also like to tell
myself that,
that,
you know,
I
that she didn't, you know,
force me,
to be with her.
So I did that. And then after that,
1994, I started my company in Bangalore,
and,
I spent
literally, as I said to you, you know,
20 to 20 to 22 days a month
traveling
for, for over a year.
Money was so tight that we would not
have
until
we we we were renting an apartment in,
in Bangalore,
very close to the Candoman station,
in that very, very nice area, Jabal Extension.
But,
the the rent of the apartment was 7,500
rupees per month.
And and there were many months
where until
the rent was due the 1st of the
month,
and until 28th
27th, 28th of the previous month, we would
not have 7,500
rupees to our name in the bank.
Obviously, if we had only 7,500,
we if we take the entire amount out,
the our bank account would have closed. So
we needed to have a little bit more
than that to keep the account open. But
there were months when literally
until 2, 3 days before the rent was
due,
we didn't have rent money. And the rent
money wasn't a fortune rate. It was just
7,500
rupees, Indian rupees.
But we worked. Now,
obviously, that also means that my wife didn't
have access to any luxuries. Amdulillah, we don't
take money from anybody. So we didn't she
didn't have access to any luxuries.
We didn't have,
you know, most of the usual stuff that
most people have, we didn't have.
But
she stuck with me. She saw me through
all that.
She is, herself an abstract
artist, so she,
was involved in the paintings and so on
and so forth.
I was involved in my work.
We would
as I said, when we were home, we
would eat together, but that's, you know, that's
about it.
Because even when I was home,
either I would come home
very late at night,
and, I always made sure that I went
to the gym. So sometimes I went to
the gym at 10 o'clock in the night,
and then I would come back home. And
by the time I showered and saw it,
it would be about 12 o'clock in the
night. So I would either be very tired
or
I would be studying.
I would be preparing for my courses,
designing courses, preparing material, and all of that.
So I would be my body would be
present in the house, but I I had
zero time for conversation. I had zero time
to, you know, hold hands and and walk
in the park. I mean,
no. It's it's not a it's not as
if
as I told you, it's not because our
marriage was.
We've been now married 40 years. So the
marriage was never on rocks.
But it went through difficult times.
But both of
us understood
why
this was happening,
and we approved of it. And we said,
yes. Good. This is this is life.
This has to happen. To expect
that
your husband,
who Allah
made
the
breadwinner
of the family,
Allah said,
Allah did not
say
Allah did not
say Allah did not say the the the,
men are,
the
caretakers.
Kawa Amun, they are the caretakers. They're the
protectors.
They are the breadwinners.
They are they have authority.
Allah Allah is over.
Over the women. Please understand. I I I'm
I'm I'm not being apologetic. I refuse to
be apologetic. This is the.
Allah did not say He didn't say with
the women. He didn't say He didn't say
under the women. He said over the women.
I don't have to, you know, to to
to, give a
a sort of,
an apology after this,
to say that, oh, but that does not
mean that the men are allowed to, you
know,
boss over the women or to, you know,
sort of,
walk all over them with
the hobbled boots and stuff. I mean, these
are these are things which are understood. You
don't have to say to any decent human
being, that your wife is your your your
your greatest friend and should be your greatest
friend in your life. And to treat her
with love and respect, you don't need a
medal for that. That is what you're supposed
to do.
The point I'm making is that Islam
gives us,
delineates,
and
gives the men and the women, we talk
about marriages, gives the wives and the husbands
separate roles
with both of them having,
joint responsibility
for both roles, but the primacy
is with one of them. For example, breadwinning
is the primary role of the husband.
It is not the job of the wife
to
earn a living for the family.
If the wife has her own business, she's
free to do that. Can she work? Yes.
She's free to work.
Can she even go out to work? Yes.
She's free to go out to work.
Can she work from the home? Obviously, she's
free to work from the home.
Can she earn money? Yes. She's free to
earn money. But
there is no compulsion on her whatsoever, no
matter what she earns,
to contribute even one single
dirham or dinar or rupee or ruble or
mark or pound sterling or
you name it.
Not even one. She has no obligation to
spend even one of those
on her own husband, her own children
who she gave birth to,
or on running the family to buy groceries
or to, you know, pay for the pay
the utility bills and or or rent or
something. She does not have any obligation. If
she does not if she refuses to contribute
to the house
and to the to the to the expense
of the family,
Islamically,
she is not committing a sin.
It is not her responsibility.
If she does it,
if she does contribute, then she is doing
a favor
to her husband, to her children, to everyone.
That is a favor. It is a sign
from the mother, from the wife to all
of them.
This is the level of primacy of the
role of breadwinner
for the family. In addition to that, for
example, the wife
is permitted to give her zakat
to the husband if the husband is eligible
for zakat.
But the husband is not eligible to write
off his zakat as money given to the
wife because it is the right of the
wife to be maintained by the husband.
The husband can't say I gave my zakat
to her. No, you cannot give your zakat
to your wife because your wife is not
eligible for zakat.
You can say, well, you know, she's not
earning anything. So, therefore,
she's eligible to for zakat, for example, from
a third party,
from somebody else. Why can't I give because
you are the husband?
You cannot give her because you are the
husband. Everything you give to her is a
gift from you to her.
What she needs for her living,
meaning her food, her clothing, her shelter,
at the same level as yourself,
all of that is her right. It is
the nafka. It is the right by which
she became your wife.
So there's no favor from you, mister husband,
to the wife when you are giving her
her nafka.
In addition to that, everything else you give
her is a gift from you to her.
If you divorce her,
she is entitled to keep every single penny
of that.
She doesn't have to return anything. That's a
gift. Gone. Finished.
Allah is pleased with you, so give more
and more.
Now, the lid for this. Abdakat from the
wife to husband.
Zaynab Radialana,
she was the wife of Abdullah ibn Masood
Radialana,
one of the greatest of the Saabah of
Rasool Allah sallam. The only Saab about whom
he said,
whatever Abdullah bin Masood conveys from me, take
it.
Zaynah Radiallahu was a businesswoman.
She used to earn money. She earned a
considerable amount of money. Abdullah bin Masood was
a scholar.
He was a Sahabi of Rasool Salam. He,
was very poor. Because of that, he didn't
have time to do business and whatnot, so
he was he was very poor. So one
day, Zaynab
when she is calculating her zakat
comes to her husband. Her husband is a
great scholar.
So comes to the husband and says, am
I entitled to pay my zakat to you
because I have to give zakat to somebody?
And since you are poor and you are
eligible for zakat from anyone else,
can I give my zakat to you?
So Abdullah ibn Mas'udalahu Wa Salam, whether he
knew it or not, he said, I don't
know. Ask Rasulullah
So she said to him, you go and
ask. He said, no. I will not go
and ask. You go and ask.
She said, come with me. He said, I
will not come with you. You
So she went to the Surah Al Salam,
knocked on the door, said that Abila opened
the door. She said, I would like to
see the Surah Al Salam. He knew her.
So he said, yeah, Surah Al Salam,
Zaynab is here to see you. We said,
which Zaynab? We said, the wife of Abdullah
ibn Masood.
He asked her to come in. He was
sitting with some other Sahaba.
She made salaam to him, and she said,
yes, sir. I have a question. My question
is, can I give my zakat to my
husband, Abdullah ibn Masood
because he is very poor and I have
wealth, I have my business, I'm earning money,
so therefore I would like to give my
zakat? I have to I am I am
liable to pay zakat
anyway,
and so I thought instead of giving it
to strangers, can I give it to my
husband? Rasul
smiled, and he said to the sahaba, she
said, see what a beautiful question she asked.
Then he said to her,
not only can you give zakats to your
husband, but if you do, Allah will give
you 2 rewards.
One reward for the zakat and second reward
for helping out.
Now this is the level of primacy of
roles.
Similarly,
the primacy of the role of
raising the children, of
of the children
is with the mother.
Now this does not mean obviously that the
father has no role there. Of course, he
has a role.
There is a reason why Allah
created 2 parents.
So it is
not to say that the father has no
responsibility. Of course the father has a responsibility.
Of course he has a role, primary role
to play. Primary role, but less primary than
his wife to play in the raising of
his children.
That is the male figure. That is the
the the symbol of,
of, you know, of of masculinity,
of manhood, of,
nobility,
of courage, of of honor,
of generosity,
and all of these wonderful things which are
not restricted only to the males. They also
are in the female.
But formed from the per from the perspective
of masculinity, this is something which is obviously
restricted to the male. You are you know,
one hopes it doesn't go into the female.
So the point is that the father provides
all of these.
But the primary role,
who teaches
the,
the child to read Quran? The mother. Who
teaches the child
manners? The mother. Who teaches the child
what to say to whom,
daily habits of discipline,
and so on and so forth, the manna.
All of
this. You look at, you know, almost
any of the great scholars
of Islam,
who was the person who made their specific
was the one that you have Malik.
Rabia Turay,
his his teacher,
you take,
you know, Abdulqadr Al Jazairi,
the great scholar
and the great,
ruler of al, of, Al Jazair,
who fought the French. And,
later on, he was he he fought the
French, but he was such an old human
being that Napoleon Bonaparte actually honored him,
even though he was at that time, he
was a prisoner of the of the French.
He he released him. He honored him. And
while he was in the prison,
all the French prison guards became Muslim.
Who taught him? His mother.
Right? The mothers, they are the,
they are the people who
who raised these wonderful children.
So the point I'm making is that that
is the primary responsibility.
To the extent that
said, it is the job of the father,
the husband,
to provide his wife with cooked hot food.
Right? So forget about getting the wife to,
to clean the house and
cook the food and, do that for you
and your and and your parents, you know,
her mother-in-law and father-in-law.
Forget that you and your husband are supposed
to provide her with not just a meal
and nafka and so on, but cooked hot
food. And her only responsibility for which she's
accountable to Allah
is to raise good children, is to raise
children who are good Muslims, children who know
Allah, who know the Rasulullah, and
who are children of good beautiful akhlaq and
mariners and so on and so forth. This
is a job. Now when when you when
you listen to this one, let me warn
the,
the the the sisters.
Please don't start imagining that from this moment
onwards,
you're going to quote me, and then you
will be disrespectful to your husband or do
you would be disrespectful,
to your parents in law? No. This is
not part of the of the Muslim. The
part of the of the Muslim is that
the husband's parents are your parents. That's the
reason why you are not, it is not
necessary for you to do a hijab before
your father-in-law because he is your father.
Right? So how do you treat your father?
How do you treat your mother-in-law? It doesn't
matter whether you like her, like her, or
not. Why why why should you not like
her?
Think about it. Why should you not like
her? Why should the this mother-in-law, daughter-in-law,
you know,
conflicts?
This is what Hollywood
is built on. I mean, this is so
ridiculous. This is so completely
stupid.
Right? So get rid of all these conflicts.
You must honor your parents in law because
they are like your parents. They are your
parents.
You must honor your husband because he's logging
his butt off to keep you in the
style that to which you are accustomed.
Thank Allah
for in sujood, and thank Allah
for having us word like that. Remember also
the hadith of the where the sahaba came
to him, the city of Surah.
The, kings of,
Rome and and Persia,
they have a system where, people who come
to greet them, they make salat to them.
They fall down flat on their faces. They
prostrate to them. If anything,
you are more entitled to that
than those people because you are an Nabi
and they are not. So please allow us
to greet you in this way by making
sajdah to you. Rasulullah
He said,
he said, no.
Sajdah is due only and only to Allah
You greet me as the
as the, and he said, Ana Abduhu wa
Rasulu. He said, I am the slave of
Allah and I am his messenger. And he
said, You greet me with salaam as Allah
has ordered you to do.
If sajdah had been jais,
meaning it is not jais, but he said,
If sajdah had been jais, if sajdah had
been permissible
to anyone other than Allah, I would have
ordered the wife to make sajdah to her
husband.
Think about that.
He said, If sajdah had been jayes,
meaning it is not jayes, so there is
no need to, you know,
imagine that it is. But he said, if
it had been, I would have asked I
would have ordered commanded the wife to do
sajdah to the husband.
What does it mean? It means appreciate
the fact that you there is a man
in your life for whom you are the
most important person.
The man in your life who's you have
no idea. You have to be a man
who is a man, who's you know, I'm
not talking about some,
person who is not fit to be called
a man because, you know, he's he has
no respect for his family. But I'm saying,
if you have a husband
who takes care of you,
who takes care of the family, then remember
that this is something to be very, very,
very grateful to Allah subhanahu alaihi wa. So,
obviously, don't make sense out to him, but
treat him treat him like gold because he
is
that he is. You have no idea. As
I as I was saying to somebody the
other day, I said you have to be
a man with a family
to know
the kind of mental pressure that that man
lives under. It doesn't mean he has no
iman. It doesn't mean he has no tawakkul.
It doesn't mean he doesn't believe in Allah
He does he does all of that. But
yet there is that
level of concern and level of sense of
responsibility
for his wife and for his children and
for, you know, in the case of the
man, his parents, his, his siblings, everybody comes
into that picture. There is that level
of responsibility
for them that quite literally, without exaggeration, he
will gladly give his life for any of
them
individually and collectively.
And
this sense of responsibility keeps him awake at
night. This sense of responsibility,
he is crying before Allah
This sense of responsibility
is a tension in his life. No matter
what he's doing, he's never relaxed to that
extent. As I told you, this doesn't mean
he has no doesn't mean he has he
has no tawak or no. He has all
of that, but the responsibility
is like that. So appreciate it. Show some
appreciation for that. Right? Don't take it for
granted. Do not take it for granted.
Allah
can take it away in one second. He
drops dead, and you are now a single
mother and a widow.
Make no mistake. This is eminently possible. It
has happened to many people. You know this.
I know this. And there's nothing to say
that that it cannot happen to you. Right?
May Allah keep your husband safe. May Allah
keep you safe for them and this them
safe for you. May Allah give them beautiful
and both of you beautiful, happy,
contented lives,
in serving Allah
and bringing up beautiful families who will be
a source of great for you, but appreciate
one another. Show that appreciation. Don't imagine that
they that they know and they no. No.
No. Show it. It's about you. It's not
about them. It's about you. Gratitude is a
matter which you should show because Allah said
this,
the one who shows his gratitude to me,
I will increase my blessing. Why do we
need to show it to Allah? Right? You
imagine people's, oh, but you know, she knows,
he knows. He may know, but it's about
you showing. Doesn't Allah know? If Allah is
saying show me, why should why is he
saying show me? Not because he doesn't know.
Allah knows more than you know.
Yet Allah is saying show me because this
is about you. Are you aware of that?
Are you
appreciative of that?
If you are, show it.
So ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to grant
all of your beautiful lives full of and
get real.
There is a primary
privacy of responsibility.
Get real. Thank each other for that. Stick
to your privacy.
Don't put additional pressure
on
each other,
to say, oh, but, you know, you were
so what you have you're always busy with
your work.
You know, I you have no time for
me. Please understand this. If he didn't do
that work, you would be living in a
hut.
Right? You will be walking on the street
instead of instead of riding in a fancy
car. Think about that. These these are some
realities. They are harsh that they are real.
They are absolutely real. And it's very easy
when you are sitting in a Rolls Royce
to say, oh, but you know, I don't
need this car.
If you take it away, then you understand
what it means. So please
respect what Allah has given. And this is
If you have a husband who loves you,
if he has a husband who's working, it's,
you know, it's it's the day and night,
to to support you and to keep you
and your children and so on and so
forth in in a in a good condition.
Alhamdulillah, this has been.
Appreciate that. Support that. Show that. Show support
for that.
A lot of time, we will have this
problem because they have no other interest.
So develop some interest
so that you are, you know, your your
time is usefully occupied, gainfully occupied, that you're
happy with your time, and show that appreciation
to the husband. And, of course, obviously, the
husband must also show his appreciation to the
wife because, believe me, it's it's it's very
nasty. If you have to come home,
in the right, and there's nobody there.
And you have to, you know, clean the
house, sweep the house,
put the put the clothes. It doesn't matter.
Even if there's a washing machine, put the
clothes clothes in the laundry, take it out,
put it in the dryer, take it out,
iron them.
You know, the whole works. Right?
Cook cook food.
All of this
is something
which must also be appreciated in the same
way, if not more. To say that I
come home in the in the evening, and
I come to a beautiful house,
beautifully maintained. I am given a beautiful meal,
which I didn't have to, you know, stand
and cook and whatnot,
and all of the rest of it. I
mean, all this is something
hugely to be appreciated. So, seriously, my brothers
and sisters, husband and wives, take a piece
of paper, write down on it all that
you appreciate about your husband and all that
you appreciate about your wife. The men do
that, the women do that, and then exchange
those sheets of paper. Right? You give it
to her. Let her give it to you,
and read that. And be genuine. Be genuine.
Be sincere
and force yourself. Think about that. And force
yourself. Some stuff you will have to write
there which you may not like to write,
but write it it because that is the
truth. That is what he or she has
been doing for you. So make the effort.
Do that Insha'Allah.
Allah
will put in your lives.