Naima B. Robert – Live Show The Muslim Marriage Crisis, Finding a Spouse, Apps and Forgiveness
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Salam. Salam aleikum. Everyone welcome welcome welcome. Lovely to
see so many of you on live Ma sha Allah. Let me know. Can you hear
me? Can you see me? Are we all good?
Looking forward to a good show tonight in sha Allah is our
Wednesday night live streams well it's only our second live stream
so far our second Wednesday together but the last one was
really really good Masha Allah so I'm really looking forward to a
positive and productive discussion today in sha Allah yay people in
the room Alhamdulillah honorable Alameen Excellent. Okay, so I've
got my Hello on the sheets in the background. I think I can take
those off now. I think we're good. And we've got some mashallah
special guests popping coming in. But today, the live show guys, so
you can be part of the show as well. What are we talking about
today? Well, we are going to be talking about the Muslim marriage
crisis. From the vantage point of finding someone right, I want to
talk about
the ways in which we are finding people the ways in which we are
failing to find people, the types of relationships that we are
building, right the types of relationships that we're signing
up for. And some of the things that have been in the atmosphere
in the air right one of them is a new app I'm sure you know it we
shall not mention it until it's time in sha Allah because I know
people have some very strong views on it. But I really wanted to
share my my take it's not a very long take, but I also want to hear
what the word on the street is what you guys think and like I
said, mashallah, I've got some guests I've got system wide here I
see uses and there's going to do my lesson will Kadima Inshallah,
and I'm going to bring you on. So, okay, so let's, let's firstly,
Bismillah let's get our intention straight. Okay.
I I'm not on this live to stir up trouble. I'm also not in this live
to bash anyone or create more controversy, right? You guys know
that as much as I possibly can. I try to keep it real, I try to be
honest. And I try to address the things that I see. Do I address
everything out there? No. But when I address things that I do see
that I feel I have something of value to say, then yes, I will
address those. Okay, so I know, before we had this stream, there
were people saying, you know, this is beneath you, you shouldn't be
getting involved in this YouTube drama, etc. But at the end of the
day, you know, this this development, shall we say, is part
of how our culture as Muslims is evolving, right? Not to say that
it's, it's, it's something new. It could just be you know, how you
find things within the community or within society that are there
in the culture, but then somebody doesn't has a new spin on it,
right? They make it into a radio show, they make it into a podcast,
they make it into an app, and all of a sudden, it's like, whoa, hey,
what's happening? So, my intention for today is hopefully to
open up the space for discussion. I have some things that I that I
believe that I'd like to share and I want to invite other people as
well to kind of chime in on and so like I said, it will be an open
stream, we will open the the lines in Sharla people be able to come
on to express their view. So let me start by saying
In this and this is my preface to this whole conversation.
We as believers have been created for a purpose. And we know what
that purpose is. Our purpose is to worship Allah subhanaw taala. Now,
as human beings, we have been built in a certain way. And Allah
subhanaw taala has allowed us to worship Him in a wide variety of
ways. So Islam sees worship as holistic, right? We all know that
when we eat with our right hand, and we have the intention, this is
worship, right? We know that when we lay with our spouses, we have
the intention, it's worship, when we smile, and we have intention is
worship. So the whole of the Muslims life is, is intentional,
right. With that being said, we've been given a blueprint for how
society should run, and how men and women and children, elders,
and everybody plays their role within that society. So there is
the idea of an ideal, right? There is an ideal, there is a standard
that Allah subhanaw taala has set. So no one is disagreeing with
that. Well, these conversations that we're having now come in is
where we as human beings fall short of the ideal. Okay, you
cannot bring an ideal or an idealized solution to a real or
practical problem all the time. Because people if they're if they
are operating within the field, I mean, if you just look at Muslims,
our levels of iman, our levels of Ayurveda, our levels of a Hassan
vary so much from person to person, from family to family,
from community to community, from from, you know, from country to
country. So, while we have this ideal, and we have this standard,
we also have a very, a very real, practical, tangible reality, real
problems that we're facing a lot of the time because we're not
operating on the level of the ideal. We're operating several
levels below that several levels below the ideal standard. That's
where we start having our problems, right. So a lot of the
solutions that you'll find that Muslims come up with today, people
argue and say, that shouldn't be happening. That should not be an
issue because as Muslims X, Y and Zed, so again, a real problem. And
the solution that's being proposed is, if we were ideal, this
wouldn't even be needed. Right? Guys, give me a yes in the chat if
the if that makes any sense. Because I don't know whether I'm
actually able to convey what I'm trying to say here. I think the
first thing that I want to say is that there is an ideal situation.
I think we all know what our ideal scenario is, is the one that Allah
subhanaw taala has has given us in practically everything. And then
there are practical solutions to very real issues. So that's what I
want to say on this issue. And then we're going to get into it in
sha Allah. So I'm going to invite sister wired here on with me
salaam aleikum says, Riley goon was Salam wa rahmatullahi wa
barakatuh Can you hear me? Well, I can hear you perfectly Masha.
Allah love the new niqab. Very beautiful. May Allah accept it
from you. I mean, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Just like a
lot of hair for having me on. No, no, you're more than welcome.
You're more than welcome. So okay.
Are we in the Muslim marriage crisis? What's your take on it?
Absolutely. Absolutely happened. There's so many
words to express within this topic, because there are so many
different factors that is affecting the Muslim marriage. I
think it's so obvious not only when finding a spouse, or things
that are stopping marriage, but also within marriage. Many
marriages end up in divorces so much discontent, so much problem,
so much tension. And so with everything to do with marriage,
this certainly
there's certainly a crisis support Subhan Allah did anything that I
said about sort of the ideal scenario and sort of the reality
on the ground, and maybe the mismatch between those two, do any
of that resonate? Or did you think I was just talking nonsense? I
could have been guys. I would like to step back.
No, I think you definitely mentioned a very good point. And I
think it's very important that we understand that a lot of problems
that we're facing right now.
We could bring up the ideal solution, but in order to get to
that situation where we can actually implement the ideal
solution with a lot of things that we need to look at, and that needs
actual practical solutions. When we look at it. We need to go deep
in
into it. And there's so much that
we need to look at that is not given to us in the ideal solution,
we can step by step implement these practical solutions in order
to get to a place where we can actually implement the ideal
solutions. But there's so many things that we need to look at
deep into the society that will lead us to a situation where we
can apply those ideal solutions, but we cannot just apply it,
there's so much things that we need to incorporate into our
society. So many solutions, so many things we need to look at and
discuss in order to get to that place where now we can, you know,
I mean, a lot of people are like, we need to establish a reaction,
we have a lot of will, or the financial state will solve all of
our problems. And I am a huge lover, enthusiast, right, and I
understand that it will, it will solve our problems. But there's so
many problems in society, we cannot just wake up one day and be
like, you know, what we're going to implement you react, there's so
many things that we need to look at re educating the youth, we need
to look at the education, we need to look at the parenting the way
that we are bringing up our children, most importantly,
therapy, right? Our tarbiyah has been so greatly destroyed. We
cannot we do not raise our children in the right way. We
cannot foresee a Muslim community that will actually implement
Sharia law. There's so many loopholes that we just completely
ignore it. And I think it's important that, especially in the
times that we're living with so many problems, we actually assess
the small, small things and build on that, to create a community, a
situation where we can actually implement those ideal solutions
that has been given to us. I think that Islam sets for us principles,
and we can build on that everything that we do, we have to
go back to the plan and to the Sunnah, right. But that doesn't
mean that we don't take into consideration contemporary events
and things that are happening in our society, we go back to seek
the wisdom, right, but we can use that wisdom that we get, in order
to swap find practical solutions to the problems that we are
facing. There are problems we are facing today. That wasn't being
faced 100 years ago, 200 years, 300 years ago, right? In every
with every era with every civilization, with every
innovation, everything that comes new, we have to now look at we
will use our essence, our base as the wisdom that we get from the
Quran and the Sunnah, but we have to look at practical solutions.
100%. And the thing is, the scholars have always done this
right? The scholars, scholars have always had to look at the current
context, and interpret the Quran and Sunnah to make sense of new
things that have come up, as you've said, you know, I like to
just give an example, right of this kind of ideal, ideal world
versus real world kind of
friction. Yeah. So for example,
the ideal scenario, is that average alicona Lanessa, right,
the men are the Predict protectors and providers of the women, the
man goes out to work, and he provides for his family's needs.
And that's what he does, that the ideal scenario, the woman is able
to stay at home, make a home, and raise the children and be
responsible for the children. ideal scenario. Now we know how
many people struggle with even maintaining that, right? Because
of economics. It's a real thing. Right? It's a real situation. And
I think that one of the things we do in the West that we that we
make a mistake with, right, is that we think that the rest of the
world is like the West, right? And we think that, you know, women in
India or Pakistan, for example, right, who have to go out and, you
know, get clothes to sew or have to go out and sell things in the
market, right? In our heads, we're thinking, Oh, she should be at
home with our kids. And it's like, well, no, this is survival. We're
talking about here back in Africa. When women work, it's survival.
It's literally because, you know, the money is not enough to keep a
roof over our heads or my husband is a drunkard doesn't you know
whatever the case may be. So so the ideal solution, the ideal
scenario is these roles, but the reality on the ground is often
different. And so when we only speak in terms of the ideal, we
basically pretend that there isn't a real issue happening between
husbands and wives when it comes to finances between the power
imbalance in the home when one is earning more than the other. You
know, the issues with childcare, the issues with you know, who is
actually in charge of the home who is setting the direction of the
children
These are the things that we like to talk about on this, on this
panel much alive on this channel, because it's real stuff that's
happening. And if we're talking about marriage, let's look at
let's look at the facts. We've got younger Muslims who are having
difficulty holding on to their purity facts. We've got young and
old Muslims who are engaging in Zina facts, we've also got very
lonely men, and very lonely women. We've got women who have been
through a divorce or two or three and have children from one husband
or two husband or whatever. We've got husbands have men who also may
have children of their own right? We have men married to women who
will not accept a second wife, but they are in a situation where if
they don't take a second wife, they're divorcing this one and
they don't want to break up their family. All of this stuff is less
than ideal. Right? All of this stuff is complicated. It's messy.
Right? So the solutions, guys, we've got some people who've come
on Ma sha Allah says, Do you mind if I bring on the name on the the
account is no strings? Nikka? No idea who that could be? So we'll
let him come on in sha Allah, salaam alaikum. Brother.
Indeed, how are you, brother? Alhamdulillah Kealoha. Okay, how
we doing? Al hamdu, Lillahi Rabbil Alameen Hamdulillah? What are your
thoughts on what we've been saying so far?
I am impressed. This is the name I have to say, your openness,
masala, you have a high degree of openness, trait openness. And it
sounds to me that I'm not going to have to do much talking today to
be quite honest. So I'm more interested to know, you've
mentioned that there's a number of problems. And from a marriage
marriage situation. And I agree with you there are that are less
than ideal. What are the solutions to those problems?
Instead, I want to come sister wide, by the way.
I requested that,
my honor, because I could I could talk all out on this. But yeah,
you know, where do we start? Okay, let me start here. Let me let me
let me anchor this a bit more accurately.
Who in the Muslim community from a perspective of marriage is
suffering the most right now? Which which? Which? Not
necessarily demographic, but which, which people which type of
people in your view
I don't know if English, I the thing that comes to my mind
immediately is, you know, sisters that I know, who were in a long
term marriage had children, and the marriage broke down. And now
they have three, four children, a lot of responsibility. And they're
lonely, right? So they are in they are in that situation, right?
Of course, there are a lot of young people as well who are in
you know, cannot get themselves together to find a wife. But I
mean, I think you can tell us better because you're in this
field. So in your opinion, who's the demographic that's, that's
struggling?
I mean, look, one thing that I found very interesting, when Kevin
Samuels was around, you know, he, he made his name basically,
tearing tearing down women who are past their prime, particularly
those in the middle starting from late 20s, really, but 30s 40s and
so on, even had names for them. And whilst I agree in principle
that you are of course past your prime, once you're past those
ages, what I found have found to be very interesting, especially
with my experience of building the no strings, app and actually
running it is that women of all ages, since then Imma have an
abundance of choice. And in this has been my firsthand experience.
And I, I hate to admit it, I hate to say it. But here's the truth.
Before we before we launched the app, I was running things manually
on a telegram group. And each time a sister would contact me, she
would give me her profile. And I would simply put the profile on
the group. And these sisters are typically in the age range of 35
to 49 in and around that age range. They've usually been
married before, once or twice, sometimes more. They've got
children from multiple baby fathers and they don't want a man
around full time. So they are looking for some type of
negotiated agreement of some sort. And on average, Allaha kid you
know, on average, this type of system I have described with I
would get at least 10 emails for each profile out to up in response
to her profile. One sister, I got 36 emails for her. This is not
know what she was doing. We need to know what she put on that on
that profile.
profile. It was she has four children 36 years old, mixed
ethnicity. You don't know what she looks like because she hasn't
described herself and there's no photos. This is an important point
that I didn't use photos 36 email responses
Now, this is where women will suffer from the paradox of choice,
which is you given too many options? How do I know which one
to choose, you don't get 36 options, when you go to a car, a
car retailer, they don't give you 36 different options to choose
from, they'll give you three or four. And you pick from that. And
that's the paradox of choice. And interestingly, this sister who had
36 options, she's still not married. And she, you know, she
didn't pursue any of them.
So, in my opinion, Willow Anna, I believe that the demographic of
individuals who are struggling the most from our perspective of
marriage, and not tasting the sweetness that you can get from a
marriage, that beautiful sweetness, I believe it is men,
the average man, and more specifically, younger men, to be
honest with you, but the average man in general, and the stats
attest to this as well. 30, nearly 30% of all men between the ages of
18 and 30. Are virgin, thus worrying. That's deeply worrying
as someone who has been married since the age of 16. Myself, and I
cannot even fathom what these men are going through.
Yeah, yeah. And I think you were somebody has mentioned, you know,
in the chat studies show that the average man the average man is a
* less than Yeah, I know, the studies a lot of which you speak.
And, you know, it's, it's a, it's such a messy situation we found
ourselves in because I guess, again, we must come down from the
ideal scenario, the ideal scenario is that these these young men,
that their mother would have found them a woman, right, the family
would have found them a woman, and it would be done 25, you're done
you there with your family hollers. But things are broken
down for a lot of different reasons, which, of course, we've
discussed before. My my issue, or my concern isn't an issue, but my
concern with the arrangements that anyone makes, because let's be
frank, everybody, right? No strings. Nikka, you have to know
from what I know, brother, you know, Marty, he's a marketer. And
he's a very good copywriter, and you guys should know that, okay.
But you know, he's come up with a marketing, a marketing tool that
is going to be controversial, everyone's going to talk about it,
they're gonna, they're gonna love it or hate it, but people talking
about it, which is what marketers do. But this idea of a negotiated
settlement is not new, right? It's not a new idea. People do it all
the time, you know, and when you get to a certain stage of life,
and your situation is no longer ideal, man or woman, you have to
start making deals, you have to start negotiating, you have to
make a settlement, because you're not the ideal anymore. As a man,
if you can't provide for your family, you're gonna have to have
some conversations, you know, with the woman that you're courting,
and make a deal, right? And she may say, Okay, well, that's fine.
I don't mind contributing, but then I need you to do that. And
you can't get on your high horse and say, I'm the manager, because
you're not the you're not in that space to do that. Similarly, for a
woman who has been married a few times, or let's, let's forget
about a loss, forget about it. But I believe that it's really
important for every one out there who's looking to be clear on what
they want, and what they're prepared to give in exchange for
that. Right. So if, for example, a sister is not prepared to play a
traditional role, right? She's not into the cooking and the cleaning
and staying at home. And like that's not her thing, right? She's
she's not down for that. Fine, because you can want what you
want. But then don't think that you can get a man who's going to
play the traditional role, and that he's just has to accept that
because that's who you are. You sis have to strike a deal. You
have to get the best deal you're able to get, right. Similarly, if
you have children, and you know that my kids take up a lot of my
time they need a lot of my time. I can't do justice to a full time
husband, proper justice here, not just like, yeah, he's in the
house. No, but proper justice, you're actually looking after him,
you know, your key making sure his needs are fulfilled, and all of
that, and look after my three, four children and do justice
between them, you have to be honest about that. And you may
have to make a deal, right. So you may be that sister who is like,
I'll go into polygamy, because I can have a husband three days a
week, I can manage that, that I can do, right. But anyway, my
point is, these negotiations is all well and good. My concern is
for those who opt for the zero strings option, meaning all I want
is companionship and maybe physical intimacy, and I don't
want anything else. I think that the drawbacks down there.
line. What do I mean? Emotional entanglement,
potential pregnancy, the secrecy of it,
the body count, let's be real, okay, because those marriages,
they're not built on something solid. They're built on a desire.
And that's their argument communities, and I won't name
them, but there are subsets of communities in the Muslim
community that have a notorious reputation for this. Right, right.
And so my concern is, I just, I just see, again, you know,
obviously, I'm a sister, so I put myself in the sisters shoes, and I
think she's in that space where she's lonely. She would love to
have a man around that, you know, it's not happening for her. Maybe
she fears for herself, she fears for her chastity, etc. And then
she says, You know what, as long as I get that thing, I can forget
everything else. I don't mind, I just need that thing, right? I
just need the companionship, a teen adult. But the problem is
when that need is fulfilled, right, and it could take a week,
it could take two weeks, it could take three months, she is going to
want more. But the problem is, she's already agreed to not ask
for more. So now she's,
she's in a situation where, oh, man, I settled, I took a move
almost out of desperation. And now I actually really liked this guy,
or how come like, he doesn't help me with anything, how come he
doesn't feel like I'm, you know, someone that he should that he
doesn't even like, bring groceries when he comes home, you know, all
of those thoughts start to come because that short term, or that
that that desire you had initially has been fulfilled. Now you want
more. And my man's like, Yo, you knew what it was at the beginning.
So while you continue with this now, and she either has to
basically shut up and put up or say, you know, it's not worth it
to me anymore. And then that ends, and now she's less addressed. And
touched on a few very important points. So as I mentioned on this
podcast on the blood brothers podcast, for those of you who saw
it, in my estimation, in fact, let me go back a bit farther than
that. My father once said to me, he said to me, Maddie,
if you get into any type of Miss yard marriage, which is what it
is, yeah, no, shooting, the cat is just another frame as missing out.
He said, just know that women changed their minds. These were
his words, there's so many images, this is nearly 10 years ago, he
said this to me, so just know that women change their minds. And he's
absolutely right. And as I mentioned, on the blood brothers
podcast, in my estimation, I believe Allah Allah, that the
majority of these types of marriages will eventually fail,
for a number of reasons. Okay. And I'll explain also, why this is not
a this is this, this is the lesser of the two evils and trying to
choose my words very carefully. Okay. I sat down with one with one
student of knowledge, a few months back. And we were discussing, you
know, the types of things I talked about on YouTube. And he was
advising me what's good, what needs refining, and so on? And he
asked me a question, and he said to me, do you know what the
overarching concern of the religion is with regards to
marriage? I'm sorry, with regards to relationships, or marriage,
specifically, I said preservation of the nuclear home, is it not? He
said, No, the overarching concern of the Sharia with regard to
marriage is or relationships, protection of the private parts.
This is number one concern, everything is second to that,
including preservation of the nuclear home. Preservation of the
nuclear home is very important, extremely important. But above
that, is protection of the private parts. I had one sister, she's a
she actually, she fits the description perfectly. She's been
married twice before, she has a number of children from two
different fathers. Her words were very interesting, Sister NEMA, she
said to me, I don't have enough love to give him mine. After I'm
done loving my children. I found that to be very, a very
interesting articulation of words. And her point was, look, I don't
want to commit haram. And I do want to plan around not just for
the physical aspect, but you know, you know, to go out, we'll have
some food, or we'll have a nice time, basically. But I've got,
I've got kids, and they are my priority. And furthermore, I don't
even know how their fathers will react if I bring another man into
the home. And on top of all of that, I, I am, I can't bring
myself to try for a fourth time in another conventional marriage,
because failed marriages start to wear down on a woman they wear
down and anyone to be honest with you, particularly on women, it
really starts to take its toll. And that's what I mean. I'm sure
you could speak more to this with your
experience with the sisters in the Muslim community.
Yeah, no. 100% I think, you know, if the choice is between
Zina
and a halal arrangement. I think we can all say that, uh, you
choose the halal arrangement, right? If it's come to that stage,
but you choose the halal arrangement also.
I think, okay, so there's you, it's messy. That's what it is.
It's messy. It's not even I feel that it's one of those things that
it's easy to come out with a really strong statement, oh, this
is awful. This is what I find very interesting. I have my
reservations, and I've shared them with you. I've shared them on this
platform. But what I find to be slightly disingenuous, is when
people are saying that this is anti women, or this is going to
lead to women being used, or women being degraded, etc, I find this
very interesting, because,
ya know, this is something one of the things that I have, you know,
the whole messianic thing is seen as men using women. Yeah. And I
find that really interesting, because for women who agree to
this, they see this as a viable option, right? Now, they could be
right or wrong in saying, This is all I have, or this is the best I
can get that Allah knows best. But if a woman goes into this kind of
arrangement, because she has needs, and she wants those needs
to be satisfied and halala, emotional, physical, whatever they
are, why is it framed that she's a victim of this? Why is it framed
that she is, you know, basically being used by the man is from that
space of only men have physical desires only men marry for the
sake of the physical and women obviously must be married for
something loftier than that. And I think that that's, well, it's I
don't think it's true. Basically, I don't think it's true. And I
think that, you know, the the
Yeah, it's messy. It's messy. May Allah help us because we're in a
situation now where these are the types of choices people are
making, you know, and I know coming from my background, I don't
know sisters who are close to Zina, right. I don't know sisters
who are so close to Zina that they might as well just do and they can
make it * out. Right. But I will also say, I don't know.
I don't know what people are going through even my friends, my
sisters, sisters that you see in hijab and niqab and jilbab. I
don't know what they're going through. I don't know what
temptation is in their path. I do not know who they're speaking to.
I don't know who's in their WhatsApp. I don't know what's on
their history, I don't know.
So here's the thing with a conventional marriage just to
name.
It's very easy for a sister who's never been married before, to list
her requirements, demands and so on. And more often than not,
she'll probably get what she wants, even if she's being
unrealistic. And it's just the way it goes, I'm afraid. It's just the
way the carousel goes round and round. But when a woman has been
married a number of times before, and she's got children and so on,
and then she brings those same demands to the table. That's when
negotiating negotiations break down completely. And then she's
just stuck in this perpetual cycle of, you know, nobody wants to take
me seriously, I'm into I deserve and so on. Whether you deserve or
not, it's a whole different question. But this is a bad
solution to a worse problem, as I said, on the blood brothers
podcast, and it's interesting, because I've had some Arabs reach
out to me from the Middle East. And I said to me, Oh, by the way,
this whole notion of the Catholic This is old news over here. And
they sent me a whole bunch of links. The word Miss era.com.
Misha, I was like, How was this so common, and one of them said to
me, since the the College of women in the Middle East, the women have
entered the workforce. A lot of them, though, actually want a full
time marriage. So their reasons are slightly different. But the
end result is the same. My career, my so on and so forth.
In my spare time, precedes my own interest. Yeah, exactly. I went
onto these websites just to have a look, it's all in Arabic. And I
was like, Whoa, is this like, so it's not even a new thing. And
it's big in the Middle East, it's very common in the Middle East.
I'm seeing my reasons for for bringing it or may not want to say
bringing it, it's been going on in the UK for since forever, and the
West, for that matter, just underground. But my reasons for
bringing it to the surface is because I genuinely believe it's
the solution to a bad solution to a worse problem, which is still a
solution, right?
But this has been gone on forever. It's not something that is new.
And there are certain subsets in the Muslim community who are more
notorious for it than others and it can be abused. And my advice to
the sisters is this if you if you do fit this description, you have
been married before, you are tentative about
integrating a man full time into your life again, maybe you've got
daughters and you're concerned and so on. Just one thing you have to
remember at every step of the way. Please have your family with you.
And I know this is going to be a difficult question. I know it will
be a difficult discussion. It's tough because the moment the
moment
When the family is out the picture that's when now things can go out.
Now, yes and go left big time. Okay. He made me feel a certain
type of way and so on. And some sometimes the brothers they think
they tried to call me Matthew, would you like it if your daughter
was on no strings?
Here we go with the emotional arguments. My response to that is
firstly and foremost, Brother, do you like the idea that a man is
going to do to your daughter what you do to her mother? No, you
don't like the idea? Right? So now, are you not going to help
your daughter get married? No, of course, you're still going to help
your daughter get married. So let's not stop let's not use these
emotional arguments to try and prove a point that is, this is
emotional. Okay. Second thing is let me answer quite candidly and
honestly, no, I don't like the idea of my daughter being on an
app like this. Absolutely not. I will say that. I say that quite
candidly and openly. When I get in the way, from what Allah has
permitted her No, I will not. Because Zina for her is worse if
she so happens to find herself in this type of situation. Well, you
know what? And as for me, personally, I will be like, Look,
I'm going to be honest with you. I believe. It's too emotional for
me. I really, I can't do this. But you know what, this brother, let's
appoint him as God, I trust him, maybe some of the Imam of the
masjid or something, and just just deal with it with him. Because it
hurts me too much to know that this is what my daughter is doing.
And that's the honest truth. But am I gonna get in the way? Am I
going to pretend like there isn't a problem? And this is very common
in the Arab community. If you get divorced once in, in some in the
Arab community college, Charlotte, you're written off, you're
finished. Hollis. Okay, well, bro, do you know what your daughter's
getting up to them? Or do you know any what's going on? If you're
gonna get in the way like this? Xena is the worst problem. It is
the Oh, yeah. And I think I agree with you. To the extent that
again, our families want the ideal scenario. Families also operate on
the level of the ideal. The ideal is that you married, you had
children with your your husband, and you stay together. That's the
ideal. If that breaks down for some reason, it's very difficult
for even families to come to terms with the fact that we are no
longer operating in an ideal situation. Therefore, we have to
start becoming a bit more realistic. We have to start. I
don't know what to say, like settling or think it's just being
realistic. It's literally just being realistic. I mean, you know,
there's this thing about
polygamy, for example, meaning that the high the high value men,
meaning the established men, the men who have resources, right, end
up collecting even more of the women than they already do. Would
you say that that is that that is the case? Would you agree with
that?
Money is not enough. And that's usually what high value is
referring to, but I will say this, okay. And then
I'm not tooting my own horn, own horn. But once you have social
proof with women, it's just an endless line of women coming your
way. That's ridiculous. You're batting them out of the park at
this point, you know, so because women have, they respond well, to
social proof, they're all like, go in that direction of that one guy.
So you'd have 50 women or 100 women or trying to vie for this
one, dude. And then you've got the other 49 guys who are out there
struggling. So when we say high value, money helps. Even if you
don't have very good dealings with women, it does help for sure. But
it's not enough. And women in the West in today's day and age can
afford to be fussy, because they're comfortable. And this is
something that's real time. The necessity for a woman to marry has
been taken away before, let's say 100 years ago, her life quite
literally depended on her finding a man who has got a sheep and a
cow, and you know, a nice little mud hut and can take care of her
life, literally things happen. And her father wanted to quickly sell
quickly marry off all nine of his daughters or however many get
them, get them because he couldn't afford to take care of all of
them. So he wants to quit. Now that need has been taken away.
Women make their money. They're established in their own careers,
which is another factor. The higher up the career ladder she
goes, the higher up the career ladder she wants her husband to
be, which means is that ever vanishing pool of men. And then we
find ourselves in this situation where everyone's just drawing a
blank. And as the great trust Grandmaster Boris Spassky said he
who is willing to commit suicide has has the initiative, and women
in general are willing to commit relationship suicide the like, if
I can't get why everything I want. Well, I'm fine. I just won't get
married. And there's a number of reasons for that. I'm totally so
I'm trying to think of your if you're telling sisters who are
negotiating settlements, right, let's not even say on your app per
se anywhere, but they're negotiating settlements and there
is a conversation about what level of commitment we're talking about
financially. timewise physical, and you said that one of the
precautions that cities can take you
To make sure that they will do their work healers involved, which
I think is, is maybe also idealistic, but also important,
right? Because it does, it closes the door to so much fitna because
of some sort, if it's not your father, if it's not your brother,
there needs to be someone appointed in his place. And I say
to the brothers, you go to the dad and the brothers first. I don't
care if you don't know, you can't go to my dad. No, you go in there
first. And
then fine, you know, but there needs to be a man
that can like do this vetting process for her. Yeah. And I think
that this, I mean, the vetting, okay. Now, you see, this is
interesting, right? Because,
again, going back to this ideal scenario, a father, I'm sure does
not want to think of his daughter, needing a man physically, he
doesn't want to think about that. Right? And in his mind, like most
fathers, he's thinking, she's busy with the kids. She's got her
friends, mashallah, she has the family, she doesn't need a man
like, why should you be hands off? Right? You know, my own father, my
own father never asked me You never asked me about, you know,
are you thinking of getting married to get nothing? Right,
these things that you you're busy, you'll be fine. So
in a situation where, again, so advice, bring your colleague
getting involved, for the brothers understand that there should be a
rally involved. I'm wondering whether it's also a good idea for
the sisters to be open to the idea of being married to somebody who
is mature and married, right, as a safer option than I don't know.
And I hate to say it, because I know that the brothers that are
suffering are the younger ones, the ones who've been trying and
have nothing to show for themselves, but who we see them as
a risk. Right. And I think that the biggest the biggest fear,
certainly when you're kind of hearing about these arrangements
in the streets is it's Hello hookups. It's basically I like the
way he looks, I like the way she looks. Let's get in the car. And
let's get it on, you know, and these are typically young hot
guys, because the hot guys are the ones we're gonna get snapped up at
the end of the day, the ones who are not that don't you know, they
don't have game. They don't have the looks. They don't have the
body that the sisters like? I'm sure they're struggling on your
app to I don't know, what have you found to be the case? I mean,
yeah, let's, let's address that first point first, and we will get
to the app in a second has been very interesting experience so
far. Very interesting. But I'm with I'm sorry, what was the first
point that you made just the name because I wanted to respond to it
slipped my mind about Mary? Who is if you're going to go in with
me, let me ask you that. I fear more for a young man, getting into
this type of arrangement with a sister who has been married before
than I do for the system? And I'll tell you why. Wow. Yeah. And I'll
tell you why. Because if you're a young man, and you don't have much
or any experience of dealing with women, you're about to fall in
love and you're going to fall in love hard. Okay? Now you're
dealing with a sister who has been married before allow them how many
times and women naturally are more
they stand they stand back a little bit she wants she wants to
really see Are you really like for real or not? So men are like
they're pursuing heart. And women are like, I need to see why
because the consequences of a relationship are greater for her.
She's the one who falls pregnant, has children and so on. So she has
to be like that. I feel more for a young man getting into this than I
do for this system. Because I think if a young man does try to
go down this route, he's gonna fall in love really hard and get
heartbroken.
And because a sister has been married before, once, twice, she
gets the IQ real quick. You know, for those of you know what the IQ
is, and she's like, I've got my kids and you're on my case all the
time. I've got three children, why do you keep calling me and then
you fall into a passion trap dynamic, you know, is calling her
even more and so on. So I feel less for the young men. Sorry for
the for the sisters or more for the young men to be honest with
you to answer your question, would it be more wise for them to get
with a married man? You see, the problem here is I'm still not
resolving the problem of the young men who are unmarried. Now I find
the answer you honestly, honestly, I would say yes. A man who has
experience with women will be able to deal with it better. For sure.
You know, and if you just want me to be frank with you as well,
people ask me how many wives do I have? I have more than one in less
than five. Okay, that's my answer. More than one in less than five.
And in this type of arrangement, you need to have emotional
control. You need to have emotional control. Where does that
come from? Experience? I'm 20 years experience of dealing with
women. And it's not easy it's not easy.
Faden thank you for the saudi riyal mashallah show this is a
show somebody the channel supporting my salah every time we
have a live we see the Super Chat come through does that call our
favorite topic and the autumn? Yes. All right. I think I've got
no eyesight without my glasses.
Wired I put you behind the scenes and bring
you out again, because I want to hear your take on some of the
stuff that we've said today in sha Allah.
Thank you for having me back. I think you guys mentioned some
really very good points with regards to the current situation,
I think I don't need to reiterate that. But what I will say what I
do want to bring to the table is
we need to look at because like brother mighty said that this is a
bad solution to a worse problem. And it's true. Look, we know that
Xena itself, that's like the worst case scenario. And if we find
something to solve that problem, then you know we can I think no
strings ticket does play a huge role in solving that problem. Not
only with you know, divorce woman or you know, the elder
demographic, but also you know, sometimes you know, you have these
a lot of fitna coming in from university students, college
students, hyper sexualized societies. And this is fighting
that lust and desire. And one of the conversations that I got into
with a group of sisters was that, okay, so if we can open no strings
Nica to these youth where it's like, she stays with her parents,
he stays with his parents until he is financially able to provide.
And I'm like, Yeah, you know what, that's going to solve the problem.
Because either way, you're going to have people who are going to
have a lot of lust, and they're going to go and commit sin. Well,
this is exactly what I did. Danny, what you're describing now, I
wouldn't even describe it as a no strings. I would say this is a
conventional marriage. It's just we recognize and understand that
they're young kids. I got married at 16. We're not the way I
approached my father, I met this girl in college, I really liked
her. And, and for the sisters watching what impressed me the
most about her after her beauty was the fact that she was wearing
hijab. And that's what made me take her seriously. I wasn't
practicing at the time. But I was like, Oh, she's one of those. We
can't mess around with that. So I respected her for that. I went
straight to my father said Baba does this go I'm at school, I want
to marry her. Her dad's gonna meet you today in the masjid was eight
Salah as well. And the rest is history. But my point is this, it
was my parents who facilitated that my mother have it on Lutzer
locker, she moved out of her room so that me and my new bride could
move into her room. And she moved into my tiny little box room. You
know, my dad took care of the he paid for the little wedding we had
at the restaurant and so on. I couldn't have done that without my
parents. They facilitated that for me. And then slowly, slowly, you
know, I continued my studies, college union, so on, and then we
got on our feet, and we left, you know, we flew the nest, so to
speak, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even want to frame this as a no string,
sort of Nick, I would want to frame this as a conventional
marriage. But we just simply understand that they're unable to
take care of themselves right now because they're so young by virtue
of their young age. But at the same time, if we don't help them,
and my dad recognizes this straightaway, he knew he knew his
son. He knew if you didn't help me get married, things were gonna go
down.
Because not because he helped me and facilitated that and took the
lead on that nothing happened. I got married as a virginal
Hamdulillah. I didn't commit haram desert,
on the land. I agree with both of you. Because that is in Sharla.
What I'm doing with my kids already, they already know we've
already had this conversation. But I do think that one of the ways
that we need to move in order to try to rectify some of this
situation for the next generation is discussing early marriage with
our kids and being open to it. I don't know what you guys think of
that.
Because of this,
right, exactly, exactly. Because there's a lot of parents who have
gone through a lot of generational trauma. And because of that,
they're like, No, you can't get married, you have to study only
until you know you're studying and you don't. And what happens is
they're not understanding the society these days. And I've
spoken with a lot, even sisters, right. I'm not spoken with men. I
spoke with a lot of sisters, they have a lot of blogs and their
sisters. Right. Many people don't understand that. Many people think
it's only men. And they think it's only men who commit Zina.
Absolutely, absolutely. So if we're not, we're neither
discussing it, parents or they don't want to discuss it, and they
don't want to facilitate it. And then what happened? Well, they're
going to go and they're going to commit sooner. And they're not
making it any easier. And they tend to shame you and it not only
does it you know, make you commit such a huge sin, it actually
pushes you out of the slump. Many times it actually pushes you out
of stuff, because these things are not being communicated. And like I
said, they're always, you know, you mentioned quite a lot in the
stream that we're giving the ideal situation. We're not looking at
what is practical. What is what's really happening on the ground.
Exactly. Thank you Emmanuel Spurlock chakra and for the $2
does that.
I agree with you and I think that
Uh, no one talking about it and sort of having the conversation
while the kids are still young, preteens, teenagers, normalizing
getting married in your late teens early 20s. Right or thinking about
marriage and being marriage minded. I think it's very, very
important if we're going to save our children, you know, it's just
a nightmare. It's funny you say that because the only reason I had
the courage to approach my dad at the age of 16 and say, Baba,
there's this girl that I met I want to marry her is only because
my whole life, it'd be like, yella mad when we get in your mind ever
since I can remember when we're getting in my head when we get
married. What do you think? How many wives you're gonna have just
like constantly joking. But it was a serious type of joke, you know.
So I felt comfortable taking this to my father, I've spoken to
brothers and sisters dilemma, there's no way on God's green
earth, I can take this conversation to my dad, not a
chance, especially the girls, you know that there are a lot more
like, don't want to have this discussion with their girls as
opposed to their boys. So yeah, for sure. And in this conversation
needs to be in the open. These girls that I have here right now
one of them 16. The reason why these girls after the heyday of
Allah subhanaw taala, I'm not trying to look for men themselves
of their own accord is because we've made the conversation open
with them, you want to go back, no problem, we'll start looking now
not a problem. Let's have a look. And that's what they trust us to
find someone suitable for them. It helps that they've been exposed to
this type of content as well. But the point is, if your daughter
trust that you want the best for her, you want to help her get
married, you're not shying away from this conversation, regardless
of how it makes you feel inside, feel a certain type of way I get
it, I'm a dad, I understand. But doesn't matter. Put those emotions
to the side. Once she trusts you that yes, you're on my side that's
on my side, then she's much less likely to try and take affairs
into her own hands, and then fall in love with some next guy and run
away. As just happened. Someone that I know just recently 17 year
old girl just run away from home with some next guy. It's just all
a mess, Muslim family.
I think you know, it's important that we also win. Because we're
not bringing no strings in the car as a practical solution to a real
problem. I think it's also important that we see you
mentioned a very good, great thing early on is why do these women
settle? Right? So I think it's important that we actually go to
the root of the problem, because the problem I had, he said, It is
a best solution to a worse problem. So we have a problem. I
think it's important that we go back to the root of the problem.
And when we are speaking, for example, about young marriage,
there is we are living in a hyper sexualized society. But we are we
have a whole lot of young people who are not ready for marriage.
Number one, it's wrong Serbia, right? Wrong tibia, right. Even if
we get them married, even if we use this no strings to go I don't
Okay, like rather than, like I said, we're not going to be we
call it no strings, where you know, the parents are helping them
right later on, it's going to be hard for them to stand on their
own feet, because they've been used to the easy side, the easy
type and the marriage without commitment to number one, the
tarbiyah. Number two, if we look at the the industrialization, and
this is going a little bit into the socio economic history of
particularly America, but it's kind of like spread back a plague
view. But we see that the there was an deindustrialization of men,
particularly.
This has affected men because
the education system today is dragged in a way where it's like,
until a very late stage, you're independent, right? Until you're
in your 20s Long ago, you can graduate from high school as a
carpenter, as a mechanic, you know, you're 1618 and you can go
on it.
So, so men, or boys, right, by the time they were 16, they were 18.
They were actually out there working, they're having an income,
they can actually take care of them today. You're 18 you're a
man, you're you're living in a very hyper sexualized society. But
you can't go out and get married because you can't take care. You
can't start a family you're immature because you were raised
to be immature, that telopea was wrong. And you're still not
financially independent because the education system is shaped in
a way you're finished your dependents.
Yeah.
And you don't yet know that we're speaking about the economic system
as well. It also drives women and men both into the workforce to the
one that's that's a realistic I mean, that's that's a realistic
thing that we need to get today because we are we speak about you
know, the
truth traditional structure of a family the woman stays at home the
man takes cares about we have to take into concentration. A lot of
women in the West are actually pushed into the work
What? Yeah, especially after getting children because, you
know, children are expensive, right? And after getting children,
it kind of pushes both women and men into the workforce, they don't
really have a choice. And I think it's important that we bring all
these into the, onto the table. But when it comes again, going
back to, for example, the grossest, one of the people who
get one of the, let's say, the people that no strings Nica
attract the most is divorced women who have children, right, or
whether women who have children, right.
Let's leave the widowed woman aside. Right. But we having a very
huge rise in divorce
lots Danny, it's never been like this, you know, no one says Can I
just jump in here? Firstly, I need to acknowledge the Super Chat ke s
500. Thank you so much. Anonymous. Dacula Fado, navigating toxic
marriages is not our topic today. But we can definitely touch on it
in sha Allah, please don't miss candid conversations on Thursdays.
That's where we are Thursday nights, we do a live stream where
we talk all about emotions, and marriage and abuse and all of that
good stuff. So please make sure that you join us tomorrow in sha
Allah. But what I want to say is, you know, you're talking about
divorcees, and you know, these are the issue of there being this kind
of surplus of women who are divorces and who can't find
someone. The problem that we're in now, today, is that.
And again, sometimes when we have conversations in these circles,
other people from outside of this circle, hear our conversation, and
they think like, what are you guys on about what? So even the
conversation about women being at home and men working? For many
Muslims, this is not even a conversation. Of course, I work,
of course, I have to work, my husband's family expects me to
work, my parents raised me to work, my husband wants me to work,
you know, we couldn't survive without my work, you know, without
my income. So you guys are on Cloud cuckoo land right now
talking about women staying at home and when men providing so we
have to remember as well, that again, the gap between the ideal
and the real scenario, somebody in the in the chat is talking about
lowering the gaze, again, ideal solution, ideal solution is that
you keep your levels of arousal low, right? That's the ideal
solution, if every one of us could keep our arousal levels low by
lowering our gaze, not allowing us to in situations where we will be
tempted, etc, right? And fasting and focusing on a bladder and
productive activities and the gym and all of that good stuff, right?
Potentially, we wouldn't have people ready to sign up for an
agreement where they're just going to get physical intimacy, because
that's the one thing that they want, right? But we're not in an
ideal scenario. And most of us cannot
live up to that to that standard, right. I'll give you a different
take on as the name on this is just based upon my personal
anecdotal experience. When I lived in Saudi for a year in Medina, I
noticed a very interesting thing or phenomenon happened to me. The
first I spent the first four months in Medina and then I had a
one week break to come back to the UK to see my family. And I'll
never forget, when I landed in Egypt, in Cairo airport for
transit, it was a transit flight. And I saw a picture of just like a
woman in a dress modeling a perfume bottle. I will never
forget the impact it had on me, it was like a shock to my system. And
then when I came to the UK, and I see all of this light nakedness
everywhere, it was a shock to my system.
And what I found was that
Subhanallah when you lower your gaze, brother Gabriel just did a
video recently, I didn't watch it, but I saw the title lowering your
gaze raises your testosterone, that was the title of the video to
that effect. When you're in the habit of lowering your gaze and
you're not looking at fascia and so on. Over the last six to nine
months.
She must have compute muscle that Oh, there she is, you know how it
goes guys, you know, already did divide into that follows me, from
city to city from town to town from country to country, continent
to continent, let me let Illallah okay. It's obviously a sign that
was talking too much. My apologies. Let me give the floor
to our brother alguma and Ella freaky. So before you do that, I
just want to finish my point for the audience. So the point I was
making was, what I found was when I was in Saudi, my arousal levels
were far more sensitive than when I was done back in the UK. Again,
when I'm back in the UK, you become a bit numbed. You see women
not dressed appropriately, wherever you go, you become a bit
numb in Saudi.
It's like that, because you don't see anything. Well, that's how it
was 10 years ago anyway. So it's an interesting moment. You're in
the habit of lowering your gaze and you don't see things and so
on. Yeah.
Maybe it's more maybe that's the whole point. Yeah, we're supposed
to be married right and we're married right? Corner
It numbs the brain, it causes erectile dysfunction. It has all
sorts of sedating effects on your mind and on your body. So an
excessive consumption of this type of stuff doesn't actually it just
turns you into a robot. You know, when you're in the habit of just
doing what Allah has commanded from you, you need to watch that
but this is the thing is that we are supposed to be married. And
the marriage is supposed to be easy, right? It's not supposed to
be this Jihad that it is right now. Right? And of course, we can
go into the reasons why it as hard as it is, I will argue that one of
the biggest reasons is that our expectations are just way way
higher than any generation that we've ever had before when it
comes to what a fulfilling relationship is what a marriage
should look like, how you want your husband to be etc I think
we've got a massive issue there. But just like Lafayette and
brother for bringing that up, so I think it makes a lot of sense and
I would like to bring brother is my eland as well I think I'm
allowed to bring more people in guys hit the like button as
brothers and you've said please do hit the like button and if you're
not a subscriber, you know you need to be here. Mashallah,
brother Baba Ali, has video went live yesterday, a great session on
how to meet people how to vet people. And he left a very kind
comment after the video where he said, you know, everybody support
this channel, etc. This is what did he call it? One of the fastest
growing Muslim women's podcasts on YouTube or something like that,
which I thought was very kind. I don't think it's true, but it's
very kind mashallah, but wherever we are, it's because of you guys.
Mashallah. So please do hit the like button and subscribe
inshallah. Yes, brother.
What are your thoughts on what you've heard so far?
barkcloth you can follow me on and, you know, I don't know, if
it's been properly translated to sister masala, you do some
exceptional work in the Muslim community, in terms of helping to
raise these kind of questions, because as you can see on the
Islamic environment on YouTube, there's not really anybody
bringing these topics to the forefront and like, it's affecting
everybody. And as you said, in terms of the ideas of things,
ideally, would have Muslim community. Everybody knows
everybody in the masjid, you know, each Masjid is everybody's
connected to the masjid fathers knows of a father mother was not
for mothers and, you know, how is how it is in back home. But in UK,
on the other hand, is completely different. You've got like, Muslim
families who are isolated from the Muslim community and isolated from
their own communities. So then it's like, where do you go in
terms of trying to even get married in the first place, let
alone being married and establishing good marriages and
stuff like that. So that, like, is not it's not just one sided
questions, even in terms of law strings and accounts, stuff like
that. It's, there's a lot more. It's a lot. It's fully loaded, I
would say in terms of how far we can go in terms of discussion. But
for me, it's like, just the practical aspect of things, you
know, and mashallah, mela said the product must be, you know, like,
hamdulillah there's a lot of controversy going on. You know,
that's, that's how that's how it is in this day and age. But in
general, I think as a Muslim community, we should just be
thinking, as you said, in terms of practical realities, you know, and
having realistic expectations about what do we want to achieve
because you know, people people, it's like, we sometimes as
Muslims, we live in this bubble that mashallah people are
practicing and this and that, but the children are gone to public
school, but a lot of them unfortunately, they listen to
music, you know, and they like, especially the boys, but even the
girls, like you see it on the streets, the girls, you might have
friends that are not Muslims, and you're thinking, what's going on
there? Her friends are getting active, you know, they don't have
boundaries, like the way she does. Never, never does that happen with
the boys. So it's like, yeah, we you know, their Muslim children,
but then in terms of what they're getting up to what they you know,
the source then the source was like, yeah, when when you when we
ask these questions, okay, what solutions are we honestly offering
up? Okay, yeah, now, we want them to go to university want them to
have a job and then, you know, you end up with this crisis, you know,
that obviously, I didn't see a freaky black proverb
that some of the black brothers David's they like, especially from
certain African communities like Nigeria, you know, mashallah got
these sisters, that the high achieving high level
qualifications?
High level jobs, sometimes even a lot of times better than brothers
Subhanallah but then it's like, systems around
The back foot of things because maybe there's certain cultures
that don't want to marry them, that they're not gonna get married
to. And even in, even in their own cultures, it's like they can't
find that many brothers who are practicing who are at their level.
And then the parents are like, what the *'s going on kind of
thing, Agent pushing, and they're looking like, what do you want me
to? Do? You wanted me to get a job. You wanted me to do this? You
want me to do that? So, again, that's another avenue, we can go
into, you know, and then it's the avenue where it's like, there's
there's so many different avenues that we can venture into. And, you
know, for me, I'm just thinking, Where do we even start? You know,
obviously Hamdulillah, it's important to talk about reluctance
issues, like, as Melody said, and also the sister word, you know, if
I didn't say salaam already, slowly come to everybody, but I
just think slack is obviously for us. I don't know me personally,
I'm a layman. You know, I'm a layman in this and I don't, I
don't have knowledge. But at the same time, I think especially I've
gotten in, but it's like, we don't have no central organization that
Muslims can look to in terms of, okay, where do we go for this?
Where do we go for that? Like, you know, in Muslim countries, I think
there's a lot more central unity in terms of like, I don't know,
this is me talking of just what I've seen, and Allah knows best,
but there's a lot more central unity in terms of okay, you know,
this is how the country's going to do things. We all follow this. You
know,
Shafi, like, enjoy, but if I can just jump in and just give an
example of what you're talking about. I think it's in Indonesia
and Malaysia, for example. It's law for couples to take premarital
training and premarital courses with the massage before they can
do in a car, something like that. You can institute right if that's
your country. You can you can do that type of thing. Yeah, I agree
with you.
That's another thing as well, because it's like, even Sheikh Abu
Toba said, yeah, one of the things that he recommends from clothes
from people before they get married, but married, but I think
it's specific for men as well.
Along alongside like, knowing basic fear, and a man having a
craft, he said, like, the Christian lack, knowledge is the
not wisdom is the lost treasure of the believer. On the Hadith, the
Prophet salallahu Salam. So it's like, the Christians before they
get married, they make sure that even if you're not even practicing
Christian Subhan, Allah, they make sure that the people come to the
church, and they have this kind of pre seminal
program, where they get a pastor, they get divorced, divorced
people, married people, they give you some type of rundown how it's
meant to be, and then boom, you know, at least even if you're not
even a practicing Christian, even if you're a Christian by name,
you've got that type of understanding beforehand, but then
it's like, for us, on the other hand, subhanAllah, you can find
the sister next month, the month after that you're going to get
married, maybe the Imam won't even give, you know, see her, give her
101 50 And that's it, you're married. And it's like, you're
just jumping into this. Without, you know, and especially if it's
like, you've come from a background where maybe you haven't
seen good marriages yourself? Because exactly right.
Good marriages are hard to come by these days, you know, the older
generation in terms of how they used to do things and how they
used to sift through things through thick and thin dine out
Subhanallah, you know, and even get oldest data that are from
tourists. And so all the provinces that from that generation, even
they adopted, like, the new school kind of thing. So it's like, what
blueprint of people really, what blueprint? Are people really
jumping on, you know, in terms of just getting married because it's
like, it's like a Junghwa marriage can be Anyways, if you don't have
no guidance. You don't have the correct blueprint of things. You
know, and then, you know, prophets that Swami Pisano prophet that
I've been married for five days, and no problems that I've been
married for, like brothers and sisters, of course, I know
brothers and sisters. I've been married for like three months, you
know, and it's like, obviously, that can happen for a number of
reasons. But in general, like Subhanallah Christian and they got
vows you know, till difficult spot, you know, can I jump in
here?
In here guys, because Bismillah what I want to say is that,
although we have the ID and again, please correct me if I'm wrong any
ago and anytime I say something that is you know, factually wrong
Islamically please tell me, but what I understand is that the
Sharia provides for the ideal scenario, but also gives solutions
for less than ideal scenarios, right for scenarios where they
need them.
harm reduction. Right? So it's interesting that you mentioned
about people being married for three months being married for a
year being married for two weeks. The difference between us and non
Muslims is that we do Nikka. Now,
the reality is that the Nicca is makes the private parts of lawful,
right, that's what Nick does. Okay. Now, in the ideal scenario,
like we talked about, there are all these other rights and
responsibilities that come together. And you know, Allah has
made provision for that. But essentially, it is something that
makes the man and woman hello for each other. So non Muslims would
have a relationship for three months, right? No, no sense would
be dating for a year, it doesn't work out, they move on. Right?
They wouldn't get married until maybe five, even 10 years into
their dating life, right? Marriage is something that lasts, you know,
for whatever they take their vows and stuff like that. So even as
Muslims, it's hard because we use the word marriage, right? We use
the word marriage when we're talking about Nikka. And of
course, in our minds, marriage means something, it means
something. And this is one of the things that I've heard in a lot of
the pushback to the whole idea of a negotiated settlement, which is
that that's not what marriage is supposed to be. Marriage is
supposed to be X, Y, Zed all this ideal scenario, right? But it's
not always that it's not always that the stepfather becomes lower
than the new husband becomes a stepfather to the children. It's
not always that he moves them into his house. It's not always that
the man provides fully for his new wife. It's not always that they
have their own place. You know, it's not always they even live in
the same country. We know so many I've lived in Egypt for over a
decade. How many families do I know have strong families
committed families, where they see each other a few times a year
abroad? Because the husband's working in London, and he's
providing for his family to live here and learn Quran and Arabic
etc?
Is that an ideal scenario? No. But are people making the best
decisions they can with what's available to them? I think they
are. And I don't think that we, when we kind of bang on about
well, it's not supposed to be like that. So okay, well get with the
program. This is dunya. Right? This is doing you're waiting right
now, you know, and we need to
move in a more practical and realistic way and take into
account you know, our individual circumstances. But brother, thank
you so much. I can hear so much frustration in your voice. Are you
married brother?
Married
those of you it's time for the judo shocker, because no issues
Alhamdulillah. But I do think that one of the things that we can do
that is proactive, is start having the conversation with our
children. And not just preparing not just having the conversation
but as what you said, Sister, what, preparing them to be
husbands and wives, because I remember you mentioned about the
over sexualization of society. And I completely agree with you. But
what's happening is, our girls are becoming women. And our boys are
becoming men in the sexual sense, but nothing else. Nothing else.
They have no manly skills, they have no woman. Exactly. They have
no womanly, you know, I'm saying like none of them. The attributes
of a real woman are found in these.
None of the attributes of a real man are found in these boys out
here, even though they could be so sexually forward and advanced and
experience. But in terms of character, and skills and
abilities, they're not men, they're so boys, and the girls or
the girls, were not even now, I think that's one of the excuse me
to interrupt, but I think one of the active steps that we can take
in now to Okay, so we have now a surplus of divorces, you know,
hyper sexualization, a lot of children, new who are struggling?
Well, we can use now, because it's already done.
Innocent, no strings thicker, but for the future, because this
problem is only going to keep on growing and growing and growing.
We need to look at what is the causes of that the root of the
problem, because the way I see it, no strings. nicaya is like a band
aid. You know, it's going to stop the bleeding, but it's just that
it is not going to the root of the problem. And one of the things
that we just mentioned now tarbiyah, right, one of the active
steps that we can take is the way that we bring up our children.
Another thing is
we to a certain extent, right, but because this might sound like an
idealistic solution, but I think to as better extent, protect our
children from the fitna.
We eat as much as possible that so
are incredibly important because when the children when they youth
grow up in an environment that is filled with fitna, even if they
get married, young commitment issues, influences. You know the
word that starts with P that has a lot of influences on actual
conventional marriages. It's one of the main causes of divorce as
in many differences in many different ways. But so get
protecting our children than future generation because now the
damage is done. There's already a surplus of divorces, a lot of
broken marriages. There's already a lot of youth who are struggling,
but for the future, for the coming generation, we focus on the
tarbiyah because that is something that we can actively do,
protecting our children
from the fitna as well. Agreed, agreed. I have a question actually
for brother Matthew, because
it's related to this issue of divorces. Now, brother Mattie, you
were very very vocal last year and maybe before that, about the
unsuitability on divorcees and single mothers for marriage right.
Now you've made an app that allows them to find someone and allows
people to find them. Are we too, are we to assume that you've had a
change of heart or that you've seen the situation from a
different angle? What's going on here? So firstly, for mostly,
it's very few, because if you become stagnant in your way of
thinking, you're going to become a relic, you're going to become a
dinosaur. So you can't always presume to have all the answers
all the time. And what expanded my horizons was when this student of
knowledge this brother said to me, asked me that question and said to
me, do you know what the overarching concern of the
religion is with regards to marriage.
And when he told me that it is protected, protecting of the
private pause, then I realized this dance that I have, although I
still, I still believe in the stats and the, you know how, for
example, the pair bonding is affected, how her priority or her
children and you will be second, and so on. All of that still
stands. However, we can't simply just dismiss these these women
because the Sharia still needs to find a solution for them. And I'm
not even saying that all women who are divorced and have children,
someone should consider this. I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying
that they are the the first type of candidate who would have the
greatest proclivity towards entertaining this idea. That's it.
If protection of the private pause is the overarching concern of the
religion with regards to relationships that hurt us, who am
I to say otherwise, what we're going to do, just leave them and
then have dinner running rampant left and right, which is, by the
way, you know, some of the stories that I am told on DM will make you
lose faith in the Muslim community. I'm not going to repeat
them, but like sometimes like, it's like, I start not trusting
random lists that I meet on the street or stuff, or you guys that
you want to be sisters. So practical solutions to like you
said, you know, it's not ideal, but we don't live in an idealistic
world. And yeah, it's a bit of an irony, but it is what it is you
need to be constantly.
Your mind must be constantly open to expanding his horizons,
otherwise you just become a dinosaur. And you know, on that
note, actually system I'm up because I have to have to make off
right now.
For your audience. First of all, I want to thank you Dr. Lohan for
bringing me on. If any one of your audience wants to trial the app
for free, they are welcome to they just simply have to write your
name and I am a 14 and a I am a one four and they will be able to
trial it completely free of charges all the time.
Just type that at checkout. Once again, please sisters, I will say
to you please make sure that your Wi Fi is involved as best as
possible. If you don't have a Wi Fi if your father is not down for
it, you need to find somebody who can be acting when he if you like
because if you don't, this is when problems happen. This is when we
have issues this is when mistakes happen.
BarakAllahu li Alright guys, I'll put it here first as I can I'll
pay them for coming on and
you know, may Allah allow us to can continue to continue to grow
and learn and you know, course correct when we need to and accept
our efforts really to be of use insha Allah. Yeah, just like
Lafave. Thank you, Zack alaafin Salam Alikum Vika Salama Tabata
cada brother it's my you've been on here the stream I'm so so
sorry. Please Insha Allah, what are your thoughts on what we've
been saying so far this evening.
So I'm gonna lay but I
really appreciate you.
For context, I'm the brother who wrote the
The infamous I guess you could say list last week, if you remember,
top guy, everybody appreciated that, Mashallah. Everybody's
really, really appreciated that that you taking the time to write
that list. So does that say? Yes. So I'm a bit frustrated with the
fact that the conversation that you guys had so far was not around
the main problem, which is single people, people, women and men.
It's not just single men.
Because we, we are in the community where
it's not that
people cannot get married.
I want to make that very clear, especially for men.
A lot of sisters think that men cannot get married.
I could get married tomorrow if I wanted to.
And I'm not even seeing it in
as a as an expression. Last week,
I had a girl calling me when I was, you know, in the J. Lea, I
used to talk to this girl and she called me and she was crying,
asking me to ask her for help.
Yesterday, and another one who wanted me she wanted to know if I
was married.
But I don't want to marry these women.
So I already stay single. And with all my hormones, and everything,
and dealing with the fitna, then marry these women.
And a lot of sisters are in a situation where they read this,
they're single, they're married, the men they think, are available,
or
they have made available
in their mind, meaning that
they look for certain guys physically. And then amongst those
guys, they hope to find the right man. And like a lot of brothers do
the same mistake as well. Looking for the best looking girls and
trying to find the right woman.
So if I may, if I may ask, sorry, just to jump in when you say you
don't want to marry these women? Is this a particular type of woman
that you're referring to? I think it would help us for context is
there? Is it a specific type of woman that you don't want to be
married to?
Non wifey material? Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Let me be actually precise that
for cost, I live in France, and I'm Algeria.
This is important for the context, because in France, the Muslim
community is made of North Africans much majority. And
we have developed a lot of issues.
And amongst those issues is you have a lot of our sisters, I'm not
gonna do tech feed on them. They're sisters. But they're
committing Zina.
And the bigger issue is that now to get married,
they're putting on the new kind of dishes.
They're putting on the hijab. They're acting like, you know, oh,
I'm good sister. I've never done any of those things. And they're
still into those things.
So, as brothers, we have become kind of paranoid, we want the good
women, we want a good wife, and we want a good mother for our kids,
which is natural, and which is a right of our children upon us.
According to a mother of Mahatama dulang He said it.
So
it's very hard for us to find good wives in good future mothers, when
we have sisters who,
in their majority, and I'm not afraid to say that in their
majority
are committing Zina in their majority, don't fear Allah in
their majority have no higher
have no respect.
And
that goes away.
Yeah, absolutely. But But that'd be is done in two ways. The first
way is in the home with the parents, but the second way is
outside in the environment. Yeah, especially and that's why um, two
things that I mentioned earlier, was number one, the teddy bear the
way you upbringing your children and number two, the environment,
the environment, don't expose them to the environment, because they
can come from a good family, but they're spending most of the time
outside, you know, and and that's why I mentioned that as the root
of the problem, we're going back to the root, we can give no
strings Nica as like the band aid, right? But if we want to actually
heal the wound, right, we need to go to the root of the problem. Let
me let me throw a spanner in the works here, right? I've got a
question for you guys. Okay, so, for this man is talking about
women who belong to this great, okay, but they're in the streets,
or they've been in the streets and they've come from the streets.
Do you believe that those sisters have now disqualified themselves
from pure good men?
Like on a real if you ask yourself, whether it's you or your
friend or your sister, right? If she's had that kind of past if
she's got those kinds, that kind of history, right? Even mashallah,
she made Toba and she's she's trying to practice and everything.
Has she disqualified herself from the pure good man but good
brothers. What is your opinion? Should she still deserve the
brother like that? Or to She say, You know what? That's not me. I
can't I can't get that kind of man because I'm I'm not that caliber
and you know, I'm not that I missed my chance to get that
before and Mr. Ashby for now I wouldn't.
Let me go with Sister word then brother, I boomerang and then back
to brother is my end. Go ahead says what do you think? Has she
disqualified herself? I don't think she's disqualified herself.
But I think a lot, a part of her Tober should be self reflection.
Because it's going to be hard. If you've been on the streets, it's
going to be really hard to commit. And you have to ask yourself,
If a man comes with a good guy, he needs a woman that's going to
commit to him if you cannot commit to that because of your past
actions. Don't put a person through that. And I'll say the
same thing for a man. Right? The women find it harder to commit
after a lot of promiscuity. Right. And that's why if a woman is
holding, I'm not saying for minutes, like dangerous or not
bad. For both men and women, dinner is bad. But the more
promiscuous a woman is, the more she's been on the streets, the
harder it is for her to stay at home. And it's going to affect
her. Oh, and that's why that's why I say a part of the Tober. Allah
who will forgive you, and how well your Toba is sincere but a part of
that you need to now look when you are looking for a spouse. You need
to know that you have a lot of self reflection, will you be able
to commit will you be able to trust? Will you be able to put
your Have you healed? There's a lot of heartbreak, a lot of trauma
that comes with the streetlight Are you able to so are you have
you healed? You know, are you going to break somebody else's
heart because you felt that you deserved it? Or have you put on
the niqab and the JimBob as a bandaid, right, and now you don't
go inside to heal yourself from inside you're gonna end up causing
a lot of problems. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Oh, my God, what say you?
She disqualified? Is he disqualified was the story. So
lifeless? So
it's a tough one, because it's like, you know, allowances for men
or for poor women and that, you know, like, that's how it goes.
But at the same time, it's like, if somebody's made tobot Are you
are you really going to be judged during execution? Say I yeah, this
person, that they're now disqualified. It's, it's a tough
one, but Allah knows best in it, you know, my personal opinion,
which doesn't count for anything, but it's just my personal opinion
that I'm sharing. Is that the end of the day?
If somebody's looking to accept because I know brothers, that
mashallah the reverse. They had a pass, but Alhamdulillah
they sincerely continuously just try and strive, you know, to
perfect the character to reform themselves. And likewise with
sisters as well, because anybody any sister can switch up, make
Toba start wearing the niqab within a month and their brothers
are going to be looking at mashallah, this system quite
ABCDEFG without knowing her past and she doesn't necessarily have
has to go into a pass like that you understand that? No one's
really going to know. Because one of the problems we have in this
society that I believe is that contributes towards the merger, no
one really knows no one. You don't really know who you're marrying.
You know, I'm saying like, you could go to the family, and and
say to them, okay, who's this person and they're gonna say, You
know what they're not they're never gonna say, oh, yeah, my
daughter can't lie. She's got a bit of anger problems and she
can't cook. They're not gonna say that they're gonna say she's a
good girl. She
Scott slack was with Prophet was. So it's like, you know what I
think about this, I think at the end of the day, the man who killed
99 men, and he killed 100
The person of knowledge told them, like, you need to get out the
error and you need to get out the place that is yeah, you know,
that's contributing towards your you being like this murderer, you
understand. So, for me it's like, are people trying to reform
themselves and create environments to them for themselves or get out
of environments that are contributing towards them being a
certain way because I know some brothers for darker don't speak
for brothers that I know because I don't really know slider,
obviously, I've told my wife and it but only know sister like, and
their stories, but that brothers in London, you know, maybe they're
in South London and they're getting up to stuff and they
couldn't practice properly, they moved to North London, they moved
to Birmingham, they moved to Egypt, you know, in order to
get like, distance themselves from what they used to keep up with
before, you know, and, and that's the biggest thing is a period of
reform, you know, like a period of reform of change, that can be
vouched for, would be the measure in which I'd say I, you know,
what, that is somebody that, you know, that I can I can listen to,
that I can vouch for but the thing is especially not not trying to
single out systems, but especially when systems I've been through,
like, toxic relationships, or they've had bad past that Kevin,
someone said, Yeah, and I'm not saying Kevin sometimes with like,
imam or, or leaders. And one thing he did say, is, and he said it to
so many women as well. And when I saw it, I said, you know, it's
probably the right therapy, you know, a lot of a lot of systems, I
believe a lot of women, they need therapy, you know, I'm saying when
people look at and say our mental health and, you know, therapy, you
don't even have to tell people but you need therapy, you need
somebody that is is like a is like an anonymous person, you know, who
you can speak to who can go through your thoughts, like, you
know, they've got a psychological background where they can break
things down to you can actually help you actually help, they can
help.
A lot of the stuff that especially women go through in this day and
age, from like, previous life, maybe
river reverse, but even non Muslim, not even practicing women,
that maybe they weren't raised like that. It's extremely
traumatic. And when you get into a marriage now, you know, like
Subhanallah, the husband maybe wasn't even prepared for it. The
husbands not only the husband, but he has to be the dad he has to be
the Praveen taken up all these different roles. And he's been
killed Rolla, I wasn't ready for this, how was
brave was
when, when I married you, and I said no, I'm like, accept the
condition. I did not see this coming. But that's what it was,
you know, so it's like, enough makes it that makes the marriage
situation even more harder. So it's like, at least as the sister
said, why why xServer back to the matter is there needs to be some
type of serious re formation within the sister within the
brother, you know, that, you know, they actually make an effort to
change that acknowledgement. That needs to be transparency as well.
Because at the end of the day, like if I'm marrying you and you
got a pass, like it often is absolutely imperative. You don't
have to tell them what you done but you say you know what, ABCD
just just give just give give the individual a heads up that you
know what, this is what's happened and you know, this how can be this
that because, you know, you've got to prepare somebody before they
get married in it, you know, there has to be some kind of preparation
so I'm not going to focus on a lot but I'm
not gonna know they love you in the chat rather than
speaking fire, Baraka lovey,
we've mentioned on the show before with Brother Nasir who is actually
in the studio, masha Allah, about carry on baggage and checking
baggage, right. And I do agree with you, I think that if a sister
has has got this baggage, sisters and brothers, please guys, let's
not let's not fool ourselves into thinking that women are the only
ones with emotional damage. Okay, emotional damage. So many people
are walking with pain and walking with some baggage from the past
right? So it's on all of us really to just try to be in the most
healed space we can so that we don't end up bleeding all over our
spouse because that's what and you know, Sister why'd you know when
sister say like, my husband is not emotionally available. You know
that that talk is usually when the sister is trying to lean on her
husband like, like he's her therapist. And oh, like a deer in
the headlights. He's won.
Bob doesn't know what to say he doesn't know how to support her.
Men don't even understand women that Well,
I don't understand. So it's like you're trying to treat him like
your therapist, like your friend I try. But he doesn't. He doesn't
really understand the way he doesn't have. He doesn't have, he
doesn't have it to give. Right. And the thing is, it's not it's
not even necessarily a male thing. It's just that many of us have
grown up in environments that are emotionally stunted, right? We
grew up in homes where our parents didn't speak to us openly and
honestly, you know, a lot of our parents maybe didn't express love
to us, right? Some of us grew up in families where, you know, it
was it was a tough environment, a rough environment, there was a lot
of pain, anger, maybe even violence or just coldness. Right,
maybe
they've experienced before as well. So they don't know how to
button you know. Exactly. So so here we are. And this is this is
the this is the thing that gets lost. I think, by the way, DECO,
thank you so much for the 1999 Super Chat. I'm so bad with these
Super Chat shout outs. But just like a fan, we lose sight of the
fact that most of us are carrying something. Right. None of us is
perfect. None of us is always going to be on 10 All the time.
Eman wise, physically, emotionally, mentally. It's not
that's just not we're human right? Human beings. Exactly. Organic.
Yes, brother. So I think that we lose, we lose sight of that. And
so there's a personal responsibility that we need to
take each one of us to make sure that we're not bleeding all over
our partners. But then there's also a sense of realism to say,
I'm not going to marry a woman who's perfect, right that she
doesn't exist this woman who's perfect, she doesn't exist, that
man is perfect. He doesn't exist. I'm just going to find the most
human being that I can tolerate. Okay, I like them enough. I may
even love them enough to tolerate their flaws then we were doing
something but listen let me go to brother is my ear because we want
to come around to you and then we're going to add brother Nassif
to the chat inshallah to the string. So what say you
disqualified or now
I cannot say she is disqualified. Because at the end of the day,
Allah is It is Allah we give her the husband that he will give her.
That's not for me to decide. But
I think that most men, if given the choice, they're not going to
take such a woman.
Also, I want to say this too.
There's a lot more virgins than they are repent women.
Except for the converts because conversion is the biggest form of
repentance. But except for those people,
there are more virgins than repent. And I'll give you an
example of actual redemption. Actual repentance is a man who
came to amado, Nakata, bruh dulang. And he said, I have a
daughter and somebody's somebody came to ask for her hand in
marriage should I tell him about her past
and then a matter of Nakata figured out it was dinner. And
then the men came on to explain that
she committed once with one guy.
Then she cut her veins from her wrist.
She wanted to kill herself.
Then the saved her.
And then she came up she she went on to become a pious, virtuous
woman.
And then I might have Nakata told him don't expose what Allah has
kept secret secret.
If you bring me a woman like this,
I would marry
because that's true repentance. She's sincere towards Allah.
Nowadays, you got sisters
doing it? Ha, I don't know how many times with I don't know how
many men and telling you that in
the past is the past. If Allah forgives, who are you?
Okay, and now I'm supposed to just accept whatever comes my way. Just
because no woman is perfect. I get that I'm not perfect.
But I think that a brother is entitled to saying I want a woman
who is not going to disgust me with the fact that she has passed
because this is going to come up at some point in some way shape or
form. Her past is going to come up.
So
I think people should should, like you said
state would
You cannot tolerate
and go for the people they, they can live with and tolerate.
Me personally, I cannot tolerate a woman would have passed because
I've tried it, not couldn't.
Allah has protected me from myself back then,
when I could have done a lot of damage to myself, and a lot of
damage to other other women who handled their lives, protect me
from myself for many years, before repenting, and now I can, I could
handle that or don't talk to women. So I've moved away like the
brothers say, I've moved away from that space.
And lot of sisters, they tell you, they've repented.
But you don't really you don't really know like, you don't really
have some type of proof the silver, she's really, really she
really has repented. And I don't want to make the conversation
about virginity. What I'm what I'm wanting to make the conversation
about
is that we have to understand that as men, we have expectations. And
as women, they have expectation, and that we should all acknowledge
those.
But those that are truly useful, or good marriage,
we don't want to like women saying he has to be taller, he has to be
six foot five, he has to be making six figures he has to be, she's
saying that, because she thinks these are going to be the factors
of her happiness with him.
She doesn't really know what's going to make her happy in their
marriage. You have women who are married to guys who are making six
figures who are tall, or handsome, who get status together at all,
and they're unhappy. And they can't figure it they can't figure
out why. And they are sisters who are married to guys who are short.
Not that great looking
broke.
And somehow it feels like they're married to the king of some
country.
So
what I'm saying to the community is we have to
stop looking at each other as almost enemies
and start looking at each other as broken people on both sides
who have been fed the lies of the enemies of Islam, which I'm not
going to name but we know who they are, who have been lied to us for
many years on TV
on the big screen feeding as the lies of Hollywood and how a couple
should be like how love should be like how we should find love how
we should behave. They've they were the ones educating us they
were the ones raising us
to what we are now and now we face all these problems
so we have to know where we are
we have to know where we need to go
so that we can get there and then we can raise next generations to
stay there
excellent excellent mic dropped like my camera take a minute just
yet.
If I had the air horn, the air horn would be going off in
mashallah Tabata kala what we've been saying in the past one and a
half hour just summarized in one
excellent news, masha Allah smashed it does I feel fair
brother, it's my, I think that this is definitely a hopefully a
stream that people will share and will listen to and will distill
all these different these different threads really, of, of
inspiration of guidance, of experience of knowledge, you know,
and I want to thank you brothers man for coming and sharing, you
know, with us so so vulnerably really, so we don't we
men being vulnerable is is like a running joke on this channel. But
I think that you know, you've been very open and honest with us and
we appreciate that and I pray that everybody who who listens you
know, gets some benefit from everyone who's come up here and
being open and honest because I mean, I love that that's what
makes these these conversations so so important and so you know, so
potentially game changing mashallah so
make sure you like the video guys make sure you subscribe, share the
video and I want to go to brother nozzle and brothers might if you
do find your wife, come back to the channel. Let us know and share
All Access because we want to find out we want to find out all the
brothers who are here who are regulars here when you find your
wife inshallah you find her and she's the coolness of your eyes.
Do come back on the channel and let us know Inshallah, brother
Nasir. Good evening, Salam aleykum.
Well, Sarah, how are you? How's everyone?
Hamdulillah, blessed, blessed and grateful. hamdulillah we've been
talking about baggage, we talked about checking baggage, I think
you may have heard that part of the conversation. We also talked
about this issue of people, you know, kind of gone through stuff
and repenting. And then we talked about no strings, and what are
your thoughts? What do you want to share? This evening with us?
Yeah, so I think I think I think tolerance, I think what you
mentioned earlier about expectations is is is key. But I
think tolerant for the fallibility of the spouse is another area that
I see in my practice with as this is problematic, right? We don't
have the threshold we need for the divine fallibility of the spouse,
right? We're all created as fallible human beings. So your
spouse is going to have just as you are going to have that
fallibility baked in, right? So with that being said, how do you
handle that, and that's that emotional regulation. But I think
another part that's important for this conversation is also the
fallibility of existence, this life, like, you have to have a
tolerance for the lack of certainty. And so going into a
marriage, demanding certainty, that your vetting system was
right, that this person is the right person, that it's going to
last, I think, is problematic from the beginning. So for me, you
know, everything that was said, I think is spot on. But I think the
other thing that needs to be mentioned is just the lack of
talents, right. And so obviously, you have to have boundaries. But
with that boundary that you set in your relationship, you need to
have talents, tolerance for the availability, that your spouse is
going to demonstrate, because that's how Allah created us to be
fallible human beings. And he created this existence this life
where there's a lack of certainty. So don't demand that there's going
to be certainty in your marriage, or anything in this life.
So for me, that's, that's the piece that stands out to me, at
least.
One thing I want to mention very good point that you mentioned is
my mother always says that marriage is like a watermelon. And
it's like, no matter how you test the watermelon on the outside,
like, you know, sometimes he flat, they say it's gonna be three there
is like, no matter how much you test it, you're only going to know
how it really tastes, when you cut it, and you open it.
Yes. And then she says, now you have to try it and eat it. And
even if it's not, try and make the best of the situation that we can.
And I think one of the things that is, you know, being propagated a
lot today, particularly with the whole liberals, and liberalism is
rooted in individualism, what's best for the self. And I think a
lot of reasons why marriages don't last day is because once again,
we're not able to tolerate each other. And it's like, the minute
that things get a little bit too uncomfortable get up.
And that lack of ability to tolerate to
what is compromise? Right? You have to you're not perfect,
they're not perfect. How do we make the best of the situation,
right, because you got into it. And the problem is that today,
especially with dating, and boyfriend and girlfriend becoming
such a, it's so easy to get out of a relationship. Even if you put so
much time and commitment, like I hear couples say like we've been
with each other for 10 years, and they're still not married. And
imagine 10 years, you put so much effort, and so much time. And all
it takes is I break up with you.
We don't have that we've lost it. I mean, it's so easy to get out.
Instead of putting effort in trying to make it work. We have
made it or society has made it so easy to just get out. And we no
longer know how to tolerate. We no longer know how to see that there
is
when you put so much effort into something to make it work even
though it may be painful. The end product will always be beautiful.
That's what I've been, and I've seen it. And I think that so many
people have so much impatience that if they just put in a little
bit more time and tolerance to make it work. It could be so so
beautiful. But we don't have Yeah, this is this is the piece right?
And I want to just say, you know, so people don't think that we're
sensationalizing this
Right. The thing is, it's not like they have one argument, right? Or
they something happens that they don't like, and they bounce.
That's typically not what's happening. I think and, you know,
those of you who are in this field, you can, you can bear this
out, what happens is, something happens, that was not what you had
in mind what's planned, you know what you expected. And you allow
that to color to literally put a filter over the rest of the
relationship, right? So you're not able to let that thing go, you
hold on to it right? And you holding on to it starts to
influence how you see the person. So it's not even like, you guys
have an argument. And then it's like, I'm out. And this one goes
his way, and she goes her way and a mom, I'm getting a divorce.
Often, it's not like that, if something happens, not ideal. It
wasn't what you wanted, whatever the case may be, and you can't,
you will not let it go. So now you start to this is who this person
is, right? Now, your image of your husband is tainted, right, you
can't look at him the same anymore, you start to find faults
in other things, you start to focus more on those faults. And
the more you focus on those folks, that clearer they become the
bigger they become. And then they're connected to other faults,
right. And of course, as the faults are growing, in your mind,
any benefit from him is being reduced, right. So now you can't
see the good. Now you can't see that he's trying now you don't
appreciate the things that he does do, because you're so focused on
what he did, and what he always does, and what he never does. And
then you start to have petty arguments, you start to get an
attitude, and then now you're cold in the bed, and it just starts to
escalate and escalate and escalate until the relationship is
untenable on both sides, right. Whereas, if you had made the
decision not to hold on to that thing, or to deal with that thing
in a more productive way, the whole sequence of events of
Unfortunate Events afterwards could have been avoided, and your
relationship, material rater to a state where you literally hate his
guts, and he can't stand the look of you. Does that make sense? It
goes, am I making stuff up? Is that Is that
a reasonable proposition? Yeah, and I think that my advice for
people,
one of the things that I've seen in very successful long term
relationships that 100 My parents have been married two decades, and
one of the things that I've seen is the importance of
communication.
Where when a problem comes up,
communicate your feelings.
Because when you keep it in, and you refuse to deal with it, like
you said, it creates a filter, small, small things that would
otherwise not be so big, they become big, because you refuse to
deal with that initial problem. And so I think conflict was one of
the most important things to deal with conflict resolution in any
relationship, especially marriage is when a problem comes up. Right
when something unexpected comes up, don't keep it in, you have to
communicate with your spouse, you have to. And the problem is
even our tarbiyah. And our understanding, I mean, if we look
at our parents, and we saw how cold they were with each other,
and it's like, we didn't see that example of the importance of
communication and things like that. I know a lot of sisters who
their whole idea of marriage is based on what their parents went
through. And the past generation, they didn't have the perfect
marriage, most of the time, it was just so many problems, so many
problems within the marriages, and they kind of they weren't taught
how to deal with these type of things. And so when we get into
marriage,
this the aspect of communicating, we don't have that trust number
one, right? Because for one, most of us come from
a family where we weren't allowed to openly talk about our feelings
and things like that. And when we get into a marriage is the same
thing. It's like we cannot communicate our feelings. But it's
so incredibly important. Because both the man and the woman, when
something comes up and you don't address the issue, it's only going
to become bigger and bigger, bigger. And over time, it turns
into resentment. It turns into problems. It turns into
exaggerating things. And you just don't feel at peace. And then the
minute something big happen, right, all those small moments. It
just now it's like no, I'm going you know what all that almost
won't build up and it explodes and now it is.
I have something that I want
to ask about the lessons learned from parents marriages, but I want
to go to brother Nasir. First to get your response on this idea of
one thing happening, that is just not what you wanted, not what you
expected and holding on to that. And that coloring the rest of the
experience. Would you say that that's accurate? Or am I telling
fairy tales?
No, no, no, I don't I don't think you turn on fairy tales as much as
you are often caught up in the distant fantasy. What I would say,
though, is this, I think you're you're absolutely right. If you
also acknowledge that that can mean one event that happened when
the sister brother was eight years old, or 10 years old. Right?
Because those events that happen in early childhood and teenage
years, color the lens that you have, when you then married and
your spouse expresses their fallibility.
Right. So that one event is a major event, it's a valid event,
but the lens that you have that you're interpreting and proceed,
and then the evaluation is made, has been born out of the meanings
you develop from past traumas, past events. Right? And that's
what you bring into the relationship, you bring it to the
marriage. So no, you're you're I think you're spot on is that
event, but what is that event that develop the meaning that you have
about yourself, about others and life conditions, that comes to the
moment when your spouse does something that you don't like,
right, or gives you something you don't want? Right? In the
marriage. And I think that's the part of us is self awareness,
the self awareness that we don't have in terms of our own emotional
regulation. And previous generations, I think, if we're
honest, previous generations didn't have it either. Oftentimes,
oftentimes,
parents stayed together because of societal pressure, meaning
pressure. So it's not so much that they had something that
we need to replicate. It just didn't have the means to exit as
we do.
Without the blowback.
To that point, I agree with you.
But I also think that
we co host the show, so you actually have to
know, we know. We disagree on the show.
No, but the the, we have a party line, right? We have a cake. This
is this is what we're putting out there. Okay. So, you know, we need
to pretend to argue, but no, actually, this is the message. No,
but I do think previous generations had different
expectations of the relationship in terms of its quality. And
actually, speaking of our show, we shall are going to do are like a
reaction response to sffs clip, where she talks about what we
expect now as modern people from our romantic relationships is
unprecedented. Historically, you've never seen a culture or
civilization or time in history, where husband and wife actually
expect to be best friends. I'm so sorry. This is a new phenomenon.
It's a post modern post romanticism phenomenon, right?
Post romantic phenomenon where we expect our spouse to be our best
friend, to be our lover to be supported to be a co parent to do
all of these other roles, right? Previous generations expected
less, so they could cope with less their tolerance for for not
getting what they wanted, I think was a lot more because life was
harder. So their tolerance levels, in general, for discomfort and for
disappointment were much higher than ours. We live in a time where
we expect to have the best in everything. You guys know, I love
to talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We are up there right at
the top of that triangle right now, okay expecting to have every
level of satisfaction. And if we don't have that level, there's
something wrong, we need to make a change, we need to make a shift
and I being from the personal development space. And having been
in personal development for you know, a good many years now, I see
the benefit of human beings aiming to fulfill themselves on all these
levels, right. But I also can see the danger in it right, and the
cost of the price that we pay, the price that we pay is that our
expectations of ourselves and our relationships have risen. And now
the gap between reality and the expectation is much wider for most
of us. So that frustration that we have that I don't have the perfect
soul mate relationship is real. Previous generations didn't know
nothing about no soulmate. They didn't believe in stuff like that.
You know what I'm saying? It was a completely different context. So
now the context that we're in now
It's harder, because our expectations are higher. Right?
And yes, we have more tools at our disposal like emotional
intelligence and language, right? And even knowledge of the
psychology behind things, we have all of that. But in a way, it kind
of makes things harder still, because now we're trying to figure
out a difficult situation. And you've got all of this,
like input, right? As to why things happen, how things should
happen. How do we deal with this? It's not easy. Like it was a two
generations ago, where it was like, there's no final word on it,
boom, it's done. I accept Philos. It's not like that anymore. So
Sobat Allah subhanaw taala. Okay, so this was the I would I would be
interested, just as a side note, I would be interested in the
emotional well being of that generation. Because, yeah, the
decision was made, this is what it's going to be like, and that's
done.
How did they cope with that? Because look, I am, I am the but
the byproduct of being a convert and enjoying the perks of the
South Asian aunties, that, unfortunately, had a terrible
relationship with their husband. Kids had grown up finishing
university. So their relationship, their marriage was to domestic.
And so I was the convert that they always sent home with a lot of
food. And I used to always wonder how was the auntie always at the
masjid. And it's because she didn't have a healthy
relationship. At home, she didn't have a healthy relationship with
her husband. So she turned to the masjid. And so
when I work with sisters now, and I see them going in that same
direction, I have a different perspective. And I'm sure you guys
do in terms of the emotional damage that's done that then gets
them to that point where the refuge is developing a 100%
commitment to the community. Right, that's born out of yes, a
connection to their lower, but also out of a refuge from decades
of pain. Right. So again, I get your point. But I wonder what that
emotional state was like.
I just think that they weren't that life was so much harder, that
a lot of things were numbed. I think previous generations would
have done a lot of numbing because they would have needed to, because
the hierarchy of needs is all about basically.
It's not a judgment, it's not healthy or not healthy. It's just
I don't think that. So I'm a bit of a cynic. In the sense, I don't
believe that there is a utopia. I'm sorry, guys, I don't believe
there is a perfect time. I don't think that there is any time when
human beings are not tested. We've always been tested, and we will
always be tested. And it's like that phrase from Dickens. It was
the best of times it was the worst of times, right? Look at the time
of the Syrah. The best of times, of course, the Quran is being
revealed, the Prophet SAW Selim is alive, the Sahaba are alive. The
worst of times, look at the other stuff that happened as a result of
people being human beings. Okay, assassinations, assassination
attempts, war, famine loss, you know, bereavement, the human
experience, right? Look at any period of history, you will find
that there were good things that happened, and there were bad
things that happened. So previous generations, I don't think they
had it necessarily better than us. It was just simpler. And if
numbing made life possible, that's what you did. Now we have
addictions, right? So addictions make life possible. So that's what
we do. As human beings, I think we are always going to be trying to
cope with the reality of this dunya you know what I'm saying?
And hamdulillah for those who Allah has given the sweetness of
iman, and maybe it's just that that keeps them able to cope in
that particular situation. But we've gone down another rabbit
hole now. But I know that answers your question, but I, I just think
that that's a like a luxury question that we get to ask today.
How were they emotionally? Because if you go back 100 years, and you
say, how are you feeling? How is your heart Have you been? They'll
look at you and say, What are you talking about? I have to realize
that my family today like we ate food, like I don't know what
you're on about talking about feelings and emotions. So yeah, I
mean, I think that it's, it's not for us to say I think it's more
what do we do now? And what can we decrease our children? Not Not to
belabor this point, but I think the point that needs to be
remembered in this is and what did that produce?
The comment there, because what you're producing is another
generation that it's numbing their emotional distress and discomfort
and not equipping them with the means to deal with the emotional
distress. Hence, where we are right now, where we can most of us
can look to our parents generation to say, this is a healthy way to
deal with marital disturbance, emotional discomfort.
Right? So again, I'm not saying which one is worse or, and I can
agree with you that previous generations was worse. Okay. But
my point is, and in any situation, you always want to look at what is
it producing? Right. And I think these previous generations, were
seeing the evidence of what it produced, and what it produced was
generations that did not know how to regulate their, their emotions.
Hence, we don't have tolerance, right? Because tolerance is
emotion, right?
We don't know, the thing that I wanted to mention is now we have
the luxury to come and speak about these things. Right? They weren't
thinking about that. A while back. And you know, the cycle I'm sure
you guys have heard were good men.
Create Good times.
Good times.
Hard Times create good men, isn't it or something? After find it,
hard times, create strong men, strong men create good men are
good times Good Times create weak men, weak men create hard times.
And so I think
it is a constant cycle. Something that maybe if we go and we look at
civilization from its started, we can see because one thing that
I've noticed when studying about history
is there are certain behaviors that are repeated, constantly
repeated by mankind. Right? It's almost you know, we have the sound
tetra, right, which is the inclination towards God and
morality and believing in Allah. I think that we also have the and a
one knows best, but the unsung factor, which is, if man is left
to his own devices, there are certain things that he will do.
That is
what is the word it's in my head inevitable, inevitable actions
that man will do. And it's just like if you leave a child in an
island, they grow up there believe in Allah morality, that fitrah
there is also the inclination towards the unsound figure. And so
now, we have these behaviors, we have these actions that mankind
collectively is committing, and we see it with every civilization
with the rise and fall of civilization is very similar
things that we see what causes the rise? What causes before, and I
think we'll see exactly when brother Nasir mentioned, what does
that produce? So we had now a
civilization, our past generation, our past generation, which is our
parents, they didn't have a very ideal time. They had technically,
I'm trying to remember the cycle. So they were the good times create
strong men, strong men create strong men create good times, good
times, create weak men, and then weak men create our times. But I
think if you look at outside time says,
we've got the quote here. Hard times, I'll put it off again. Hard
Times create. Alright, yeah, perfect. Go ahead.
Okay, so we have hard times in. All right. And because of that,
you hear a lot of parents saying, We've been through it hard. Yeah,
we've had so much so and so. And we want to make life easy for our
children. So we reason been through now that hard time that
hard times. Create
strong men, strong men create good man, we are in the city good
times.
out Yeah. Okay. Just let me know if this is this is what you're
thinking. Right? When I think of the strong man or the hard times
of our community, I think of colonialism. I think of the end of
colonialism. I'm thinking partition that period of history
and the mass emigration, right. As for those of you who are not in
the West, my apologies is a very western centric conversation. But
if you think of those people who first came over, right, as the
generation that gave birth to the first British and American sort of
raised Muslims, right, they came, they faced the racism, they faced
the discrimination they left a lot of there was a lot of pain.
A lot of trauma in the city and the reasons why they left a lot of
them. Everything that they faced starting right at the bottom with
nothing, building up from scratch building businesses from scratch,
getting financially on their feet, buying homes, you know, setting up
brands and stores and products, building massage, and building
schools, building all neighborhoods, actually,
their children now, I would say all the weak men, because those
men came, and they came from hard times, they came into hard times,
but they laid a foundation for us as Muslims, where we have the
masajid, right? We have the halal stores, we have the schools, we
have all of the stuff that the uncles built. And I think that the
weak men have been raised in that generation. Now what the weak men
are going to produce, I think, is yet to be seen, because we're
seeing this generation starting to step into itself now. But I think
that, you know, the problems we're seeing with, you know, brothers
and men, you know, the whole crisis of masculinity, etc. I
think that's all these weak men from this generation. What do you
guys think this is? What do you guys think? You see, what I was
trying to say is until the hard times is until now, right now.
Right now, at the moment, I'm seeing him Yeah, okay, I'm seeing
because even that is right to the good times, create weak men, those
weak men create bad times. So that whole period of good times create
weak men who create bad times, the whole period is what we've been
experiencing, we're in the bad times now, the bad times created
by weak men. Now, I think that what you're saying? No, what I'm
trying to say is that we are now going to what I see is a rise of
people waking up. Right? And
a lot of the problems we I mean, we look at society, even though we
have technology, we have a lot of ease, we also spiritually, we are
in this so many problems that we can actually consider now as hard
times, because even though it's so easy, right, we have technology,
we have the wealth, we are not a piece, we're not a piece
spiritually, we're not a piece, we're not able to bond with each
other. Right? Even if we look at the hard times, at least there
was, there's a lot of instability now that there wasn't then. And
that's why I say right now, until now, we are still in that hard
times. But this hard times, well, this hard times create strong men.
And I think right now, using the knowledge because remember, we
have the luxury now to communicate, and to address issues
that they didn't have the time to do that. They were trying to get
food on the table, there was so many issues, they didn't have time
that we have the luxury even though it's a luxury, we have the
time to address that we are able to heal ourselves. And that's what
I think until now, our parents, right, and until now, even now in
the 20.
You know, 2015 2018? Now, you know, you have the rise of these
new agendas, the LGBT, you know, getting raising
prevalence and all that. But I think there is a huge rise over
the past two, three years of people waking up, agreed and if
people
have people going back to what's true to that. And we are realizing
that we are almost living in a sort of, I don't want to sound too
Orwellian, or too pessimistic. But in a very dystopian and from a
spiritual level. I see that we are living in a very dystopian world.
We are super ritually deprived. And it's just
now I'm seeing and it's very good. And I have just recently entered
the Dow we'll see. Right. And I've seen a lot of people coming back,
that are pushing aside what is making it what is essentially
making life more harder. If you look at liberalism, when it first
came out, it's probably a very bad, you know, freedom, equality,
justice. But now we realize what will work it's not as good as it
seems. And the fact that we have the luxury to understand and to
actually communicate and address these issues. I think we are now
going from hard times that create strongmen
because that's what the quote says hard times create strong men, I
think, in the past few years in the past, you know, with self
improvement and reviving masculinity that's, you know,
trending now online and men wanting to go and reclaim their
masculinity. They taste that how it feels to be the pride
and they were deprived that when they were being deprived, that was
hard times. And so when when I'm saying hard times create strong
men, right? We are now shifting we are in the moment where
We are shifting from hard times to strong men.
You get what I mean? Yeah, no, I do I do. I think we're on the same
timeline, except that I didn't go to the end of your timeline,
because I think we had the good times that created weak men
already. And now we're back in a hard time. So, brother Lawson,
what was your take on it?
Think you guys are looking at it at a macro level. And I think when
I hear this, quote, critical four, I think of it more on a micro
level, right, on an individual level, right? And I think that is
the mindset of each particular man. How does he perceive his
time? Does he perceive his condition and what he takes on as
being difficult and hard, then it's going to produce a strong
man. But if he doesn't have the aspirations doesn't have the
vision that he's gonna have, you know, good time. Right? It's going
to be
luxury.
It's going to be ease. Right? But if you are a man on your mission,
and got a purpose for whatever happened in life that created that
for you, it can be comfort, but you realize that this conflict
isn't what's best for you, and you don't want it for your kids.
Right? So it could be good times. But I think it's all perception.
For me, I think it's our perception. And I think that's why
and in each generation, you can see disparity between the quality
of men, you can see it now.
Alright, so, on a macro level, I think you guys are saying that for
me, I look at it on a micro level. And I think it's very much
dependent on the perception of the individual man. What he has is as
his focus
whether or not also we have a compliment about the colors.
The request in last week's video was that this week's color be
green, but today is not our usual stream. So maybe you'll be wearing
green tomorrow for the people who requested it in the stream mungkin
I don't know. But I said let's highlight the fact that somebody
appreciated the pink and the light. So
I appreciate that. And we definitely we definitely are going
to come with that green tomorrow to make sure that you know those
that tune in, get what they want. Inshallah we like our supporters.
We do listen guys, we do read the comments and we do pay attention
to don't miss our live stream tomorrow, inshallah. It's all
about the human side of Muslim marriages. So it's some good
stuff. Mashallah. I want to hear from Abu Murad. What do you think
about this hard times creating strong men strong men creating
good times good times, creating weak men weak men creating hard
times? That's it? Yes. What What are your thoughts on it?
No, it's funny. There's actually a book by
is a non Muslim, he passed away. He's like, really red pill, but
he's a bit different. Because he's, yeah, he's a bit like,
undertake, but he's like before agitate. And he done business and
stuff. And he got constantly possibly it's because Stephen are
new. And he's got a big book is massive, it goes through so many
different things. But his book is hard times create strong men that
his book and Hamdulillah I read a bit of it, there's something that
obviously
totally goes against Islam. And, you know,
what's occurred is construct this kind of goes against Islam, but
not in line with our No, it's not, it's not in line with our
tradition at all. And even him himself, if you look at his
mindset, like is a bit wild, but the principles of things, you
know, like 100%, I agree with that, you know, hard times, you
create strong men, you know, and Allah knows best. If you look at
the way we are right now, we're in hard times, whether it's creating
strong men or not, Allah knows best, you know, definitely there
are men that are coming out, trying to find solutions. But
why I mentioned that book is because he talks about a lot of
strong principles, for example, working, you know, like a young
men have to find something that they're engaged in young men need
to be working, you know, and obviously, again, I'm talking
about men because that's what
that's what, that's what I'm imagining it, you know,
hamdulillah and that's what I'm dealing with. So, you know, I
definitely believe that 100% And, and you even see that with the,
if you look at look back into Islamic history, for example, in
Spain, you see that Subhan Allah when de la Mer Arbitron are more
hidden when they came into Spain or LA literally hard men can't
play with them, you know?
like they were they were looking down everything. And then next
minute, they started to you know, they create very good times, and
good times create weak men, weak men, though Subhanallah doing all
kinds of fires, and then, you know, weak men get taken over by a
different type of heart many
different types of strongmen. So, yes, like, revolve and circle,
some people have actually had actually the quote, to be in
control originally a lot more specific. That's correct. But um,
yeah, it's like, you know, it's all about the blueprint, you know,
maybe we've seen our parents, especially the fathers and
communities, you know, that they're not emotionally available,
kind of this sergeant, you know, militants soldier kind of theater
kind of thing going on with them Cipolla, may Allah, you know,
bless them and forgive them for their shortcomings. But they, you
know, though there was strong provided, you know, they'll always
provided and that was the key, and that was the objective. So, you
know,
I think it's really, yeah, I sorry, but I just wanted to jump
in and just, like, just sprinkle this because I think it's easy for
us to look at previous generations and see the faults. And I think we
as a culture have done that a lot. And I think a lot of that sorry,
guys, shoot me if you need to, but I do think it is the liberal
imperative is the liberal worldview, that established
traditions are problematic, right? Established traditions,
established norms, established ways of living and doing things
are inherently oppressive, inherently problematic, in need of
change in need of revision in need of review. That's the whole
liberal imperative, right? And we see that in the feminist movement,
we see that in the sexual revolution, we see that now with
gender ideology, they attack on the traditional family, all of
that stuff, right? All of that comes from a, a negative view, on
tradition, peer, right? And I think that we as Gen Xers
millennials, and now Gen z's, we imbibe that from the society. So
we look at our parents and our grandparents, and we see faults,
we see mistakes, we see flaws. And that means that our impetus is to
do the opposite of what they did. Right? Is to swing the other way.
So for example, do you remember in the 90s, when people started
learning Islam from the Quran and Sunnah? I don't know if anybody
was around at that time, right? But before that, people just
learned with the local Mowlana. You know, whatever they did in
their little school in the madressa, they never read the
Quran, or, you know, learning the Quran, or learning Arabic wasn't
even a thing for people to pass on. It's just passed down, this is
what we do. This is what we do, right? And then when people in the
sort of late 80s started to give Dawa now and you know, in the 90s,
where people are actually researching Hadith and
understanding the isnaad, and stuff like this, right? And people
started to embrace Islam, from the sources and embrace it for
themselves not as a cultural expression, but as a religious
expression.
How did many of us newly practicing Muslims treat our
families for example? Do you remember those days?
I couldn't the days of fire in it, because everybody will just rage
like to fire. But again, as you said,
the point I want to make was, yes, we had something right. We had
Dino hawk. We knew to hate, right, we knew the proof for everything
that we did, right? But except manners. So thank you, okay.
Except the things that our parents felt were important, like respect,
respect for elders, manners, the way to speak to people preserving
ties of kinship and things like that, like we weren't interested
in that. We were like, not, you know, bonding with it, like to
see, you know, like established all of this kind of thing. So you
found a lot of young people at that time completely alienating
their nonpracticing families, right when they started
practicing, and they would actually make Hindraf on their
families. Right. And so
it's the same No, is it still happening now? Yeah, it's like,
it's like, what's the code? What did they say? There's a quote by
like, you know, just it's a revolving door in terms of the
fact that, you know, you see these young brothers stopped practicing
and maybe their family is not upon what they feel was like the soul
now and what they feel is, is Quran and Sunnah in Islam, they
just start moving on. So where was that with their fathers or their
mothers like you shouldn't do decision, rather than like having
that type of
lowering their wing of Mercy slight just Yeah, it's that iron
iron kind of justice, you know? Exactly. And I think the point
that I was trying to make was that in that process of, we don't want
culture, we want Islam. You guys remember that one? We don't want
culture, we want Islam, right? What happened was a lot of the
nuance that allowed previous generations to function was lost,
right? Because the thing is we we can't exist without a cultural
context. It doesn't. It doesn't. That's not true. Like, it's not
possible to not have some kind of culture. But I think in the 90s,
we thought we could, we certainly did have only Dean, right and no
culture, right. So people were like dropping their parents
cultures, they wouldn't speak their language, they wouldn't wear
the traditional clothes anymore. Things that their parents
expected, even if it wasn't sure it wasn't better. It's like, no,
that's not the deal. Right. So what happens now is you've got
this breach. And what I was saying was, we, I think that we have
looked at previous generation, the liberalism has helped. But also
the revival of Islam also pushed us to see our parents and previous
generations mistakes, and their flaws and their failures, and not
be able to acknowledge when they got it right, when they were on
the right track, right when they actually had figured something
out. Because we sure ain't got it figured out. Even though we can
quote Quran and Sunnah, even though we can give you the
evidence for why we do this and that we haven't got it figured
out. And another point I want to make sorry to go on a bit. But
when people say practicing,
I've said this on streams before we've had this conversation on
here before we will say what do you mean? What do you mean? What
do we have this thing where we say, oh, practicing people, right?
Choose someone who's practicing or practicing people, there's
practicing people that sorry, guys, I've been in this OMA long
enough. And I know all of you have been.
The fact that you're practicing the deen does not mean that your
life will be perfect, and that you will never make any mistakes and
that you will not go through some hardship. Because you can marry
that practicing sister She's practicing. You can't take that
away from her. Right. She's practicing. But she could have
issues, unbelievable issues, right? Literacy, nothing no more.
No more.
She could be cold, right? She could be cold. She could be mean
spirited. She could, you know, be harsh with the kids. She could not
take joy in mothering, all sorts of things just because she's
practicing just because somebody handed her a lot of blood and he
recites the shahada prays five times a day fasting, Ramadan,
where's the things reads the things, it doesn't mean that
everything that they've read has permeated, and they are no longer
their own person. And they don't have a character and they don't
have personality, and they don't have flaws. So this whole thing of
practicing people don't don't have certain things. I'm so sorry,
guys. We know practicing couples, where there's domestic violence.
We know practicing couples, where there's * addiction, you know,
practicing where there's, there's, there's what are called
infidelity, where there's, you know, fraud, where there's
violence, where there's all kinds of madness, right? Even though
they are practicing family. So we have to we have to get realistic
and realize that someone practicing is not a panacea,
right. It's not a panacea, and it doesn't solve everything. It's so
certain things, but we still have work to do. We still have work to
do. Okay, I'm off the soapbox. Mallesh.
This is why, on our last show,
I took issue with the basics or the bare minimum
that was posted
for marriage, because of just all attributes of someone who's
practicing.
And if that's the bare minimum for marriage, I think that's short
sighted.
Because the fact that they're practicing the deen does not
automatically mean they will make a great wife or husband or, you
know, this is what we've seen, like play out in front of us,
right? Hence, why I said in our in our love, that that list had
nothing in no indication of emotional intelligence.
So if I could
add a comment Sharla is our old everyone. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I
just want to say this for me, like going back to
something that I wanted to speak about originally is that you know,
even
in the
in this livestream, people talking about
like, we need to be men, women, and you know, even practicing, you
know, all these, as you said, the ideal the ideal man, ideal woman.
Now, what is the what's the definition of that?
You know, especially. And it's not just definition in terms of Yeah,
we have the Prasanna Salam which is, you know,
you could it transcends time, space, everything and Hamdulillah.
And that's the perfection of the Quran and Sunnah. But at the same
time, relevant to our current situation. What does that mean?
You know, what does that mean to be a practicing man or practicing
woman in the 21st? Century? 2022? You know, what does it mean to be
a man? What does it mean to be a woman, you know, that it's not
like, because you see even, especially due to lack, undertake
the manosphere femininity and stuff like this, you see a lot of
that people coming up with definitions, and you know, some of
them is very open, some of them are specific, but is that what do
you how do you define that? You know, because even though I'm
practicing that some of my teachers, they say, What do you
mean by practicing? You know, like, a lot of people would
consider their parents law or not, they're not practicing, then
they're not, they're not like how I was supposed to law brothers
Sister, if you look at the way your parents are there 20 years
marriage deep, you know, like, if you look at the way they were
doing things like Hamdulillah, their community was, even though
they might have had problems, but the type of problems that they
have, in comparison to the top problems you have, it's heavens on
Earth, you know, in terms of space. So it's like, you know, you
like even even what you said about culture also can now just speaking
to my, to my wife about this, because I say and, you know,
people say that culture is not good, and especially when you
start practicing you just everything, everything, I'm, I'm
only dealing with Islam, black and white. That's it. But it's like,
even if you look at Islam, when the Sharia came to certain places,
if the culture didn't go against the Sharia edu culture, you
understand, like, there's no, there's no, there's no type of
boundary or prohibited action against culture, because that
defines a person. How many people do you see, like, for example,
maybe you might get revert from a certain background that doesn't
have a culture they marry or a spouse from a culture, they adopt
that culture? What if culture doesn't mean anything? Why would a
person when they get married, or when they're in a relationship,
adopt the culture? Because it's, it's that significant, you know,
under so many aspects, within
cultures that we have from back home, that are
amazing, you know, just to name one is not respecting the elders,
you know, I work with indigenous law. You see, you can say what
people, cockney English, your I mean, how are you doing? I work
with these people. And it's like, when it comes down to agent, age,
age difference and how you deal with somebody that's like, older
than you Subhanallah like, everybody's the same. There's no
There's no secret. There's no,
there's no wasa quote,
There is no differentiation. You know, for me, sometimes when I'm
dealing with somebody that's old, especially some that can maybe
even be my granddad, like, I have to kind of show him some level of
respect, even though you might not be acting in that certain way. But
just the way I've been raised, like, I'm showing him a certain
level of respect, because he's a granddad. Yeah, like, it's like
calling people who, by their first name, I still can't do it, even
though
you know, say uncle auntie, but that's the way I was raised.
Ya know, so choose, there's a quote here, sorry, I just want to
bring attention to this. I'm not sure this is a brother who says
please reference Hadith or Quranic IR to prove your argument, that
it's that practicing is not a prerequisite for a good partner.
That was not the point that was made. That's not the point that
was made. Firstly, we did a live show last week, where there was a
list that was going around online of sort of basic qualities of a
partner and what the conversation was, is that the list on the wall
that the items on the list, which you can find in my community tab,
were all to do with a person's practicing on Islam. And none of
them were related to the person as a partner so an emotional so in
terms of him as a as an individual in the marriage, or really to do
with his role as a leader of the family or anything like that. But
brother Nasir, do you want to just clarify that for for this
there's no I have no desire to clarify but I'll just will say to
properly some made mention of someone comes to you with sound
Dean and sound character on
so that's the fight I need nothing anymore. Yeah. And it's this this
this point that the sisters making here, when we say practicing most
of the time, let's be honest, we're referring to outward things,
because those are the things we can see. Right so when we say
yeah, that brothers practicing we mean
We see him at the masjid, he has his beard he's dressed a
particular way you know when you speak to him he says certain
things, so then we can put them in the box of practicing. But I think
the point that has been made several times today is that that
is not the totality of the person. The person has a public persona
and has a private persona and everyone has that now how aligned
your public and private art differs from person to person so
if you're going to if you're going to marry based on the public
persona, you might find yourself sadly disappointed when you meet
the private persona the real person who they are in the you
know, privacy and the sacred you know, those take to their four
walls, because it might not match up and we've seen this happening
too many times to mention so I hope that's that because I think
we should we should try wrapping up because we've mashallah, it's
been a two and a half hour live could definitely go for another
hour, but it is late. Mashallah. So, do you guys want to just give
some parting words? I think, do you? Okay, firstly, do you feel
that we've had a fruitful discussion today? I want to start
with you, Sister, what, what are your thoughts? Certainly, I think
there are so many different views are not viewed. But I liked that
there was so many different input so many different people sharing
their views. I love to hear other people's thoughts, and it's not
only one sided.
I've definitely enjoyed it. Excuse me if I stuttered a few times or
didn't make my point clear. It is like 1:40am. For me, there
is like a lot of headroom for staying up. We appreciate it.
Thank you so much for being here with us. Mashallah. And bringing
your perspective which was quite a unique perspective. And I'm sure
it's not the last time you'll be on this platform insha Allah.
Further Abu Murad, do you think it was useful today? What What would
you say is your takeaway from today's conversation, um, the
learn from the last last, and I'm not a Salafi, this, this
conversation doesn't just need to be like,
even on a hamdulillah is very, very good initiative as again, I'm
gonna say Myanmar Bless you, bless the other host and bless the
Providence system involved in the conversation, I think is this is
the start of something very important because it's not really
being given the
the lack of wait days, that suppose to, especially with the
type of crisis that we've got, in the Muslim ummah, especially in
the West, think it's not given the amount of time that is supposed
to, you know, obviously, we've got a lot of problems, that ima the
people of knowledge of how to deal with certain things, you know, may
Allah preserve them and help them in their efforts. But at the same
time, this is something that I don't think it just needs to be on
a live stream, it kinda needs to be on a stage, you know, where
brothers and sisters come and they listen on on a stage and is spoken
about, even with people of knowledge, they're, you know,
because
this, this conversation needs to happen, you know, it's been too
long that people are just keeping it in the closet, and, you know,
stay in there, and we're not going to talk about this, we're not
going to talk about this. Unfortunately, that age is gone.
You know, especially with social media, that age is gone, you know,
that age is dead in the water. So, at the end of the conversation
needs to happen. Hamdulillah you know, even even people would say
things about this conversation, but it's not like we're doing
anything haram, we're just bringing, you know, issues of the
Ummah forth so that people can discuss, try and bring ideas, try
and bring solutions to it.
And better ourselves and better the people around us, you know,
but also you mentioned about frustration hamdulillah I'm
happily married, but in terms of just the problems that I see
continuously arising in the OMA, I think definitely I'm frustrated
about it and something that inshallah I want to be a part of
climate change even if that's just through speaking on your on your
live stream or whatever it is, you know, just kind of make an effort
in that regard, you know, and and as the sister mashallah sister
watch set, which I think is very important in terms of just China
you know, the children in China and create create good
environments where people can
you know, eat they can they can practice imagine, you know, an
increase in the email, but more importantly is like even it's not
just your children but even younger brothers and sisters that
you have around you that you you're aware of, you know, if
you're in a marriage like for me, like my role that I'm in a
marriage now I'm make sure that whenever I meet a young brother
and he's looking to get married, and you might be a bit gaslight,
yeah, actually, this is what I say bravo. Listen, it's slow down
Bravo. Like have you got these on point like this is that you know,
because not if you don't really
Get that talk, you know, sometimes you're young marriage and you're
in the deep end and you're thinking, Can Allah what's going
on here? You know, but it's, it's either you're gonna, you're gonna,
you know you're gonna jump out and kind of cower away or you're just
gonna say, You know what, hamdulillah I'm here. I'm gonna
try and make the best of it. And you know, so I always try to give
young brothers I don't have children yet May Allah bless me,
Allah sauce, Nina and all those that are looking to have children,
but
I mean by slack, those that I use in particular, because obviously I
don't see that massager doing it. And it's something people, I'm
trying to speak to Imams about trying to create a program, you
know, I'll be more than happy to front a host or whatever, in terms
of young people coming to the masjid and getting a breakdown of
what marriage is, you know, and, you know, the Prophet said, it's
not a thing where, you know, like, there's, there's, there's definite
things that are gonna happen, you know, it's not that you know, I
read men are from Mars, Women are from Venus before I was before I
got married maybe even twice or no got married, the reality was
completely different. You know, men are men are from Mars, Women
are from Venus did not it didn't come to my head, even though
Subhanallah so many times when I go back over and I think about
think Subhanallah that was that that was that was in generous.
Luck is complete. The the idealistic, you know, theory is
completely different to reality, you know, Fearrington melon ism is
the watermelon.
Practical, you know, when you're in a situation, and, you know, you
and your spouse may be, you know, on good terms, and this is that,
you know, you might think, yeah, like, before you get married, you
might think, you know, this, what I'll do or do this or do that, you
know, become this stuff, but you don't know yourself, you
understand, you don't know that Subhan Allah, maybe you've seen
it, you've inherited something, you know, you that's why that's
why marriage is such an incredible institution, it should be pushed
forth, in the best way as we're trying to do here because it
teaches you so much about yourself that you never knew, you know, you
discover a whole different side of things. And it's not just you
discovering yourself, you're discovering it with your spouse,
you discover your true self. If you're humble, if you're sincere.
If you're honest, you know, if you're generous luck, different
characteristics, come on you like and again, this goes back to the
question that people write on the profiler before I got married. You
see lots of people run Yeah, I'm like this I'm like damn like this
but you like that with your family. You know you like that
with people that are happy around you that mashallah that's very
good. When you get into a situation where you love this man,
but at the same time, he's really grinding your kids and you just
want to flip on him. How are you? He you understand?
We don't even know because you've been in a relationship before you
don't know. So it's it's as you said, it's the marriage is this
amazing place for
sure. And inshallah that's the whole half your deen thing, isn't
it? So
I want to just before I go to brother Nasser, I just want to
just shout out computer Salaam Alaikum Welcome to the Roma Great
to have you hear Masha Allah, may Allah bless your whole journey.
And consider us your brothers and sisters in Eman, back. Hello,
fake.
Brother nice if you came in late, but what are your What are your
parting words on the conversation Sharla.
So just a quick point to compute it that has recently joined the
faith.
Just words that were shared with me later that I wish to share with
me when I first converted is that this is a marathon not a sprint.
You have to be on anyone's time stamp or their pace for your
growth is being to marathon. You don't have to, to run a dance.
So you take one step at a time, one step at a time you shall
unlicensed studies.
So yeah, no, I think I think it was
informative discussion. And I think we brought together a lot of
different perspectives. And I think that's important.
And yeah, as I always say, I would just encourage people to learn
emotional regulation, learn how to regulate your emotions. I would
argue that that's the most important thing for a successful
marriage.
Because if you don't know how to handle
your own internal thoughts, your own internal dialogue, it's going
to show itself in your emotions and in your behavior.
Right. And, and that becomes the
stimulus for further issues in the marriage. So yeah, great
discussion.
But
Yeah, I would just stress emotional regulation, learn a
modality so that you can regulate your emotions. And you're not just
shooting from the hip.
And that you understand that it's not just your spouse, this is what
you bring into the relationship.
And something that we talked about in the last episode is,
you know, it kind of goes to that question you asked earlier about
if a sister rules herself? What was the question?
Is she disqualified if she wasn't in the streets or something like
that? I think.
I think one hand it's, you know, is she qualifying or herself to be
chosen? Because one, and I think two from the brother, I think it's
this element of, you have the responsibility to know what you
can handle, right? baggage, can you really carry and what what
amount of baggage is
productive for the way you want to go? The vision you have for your
family? So yeah, I think but again, all of that comes back to
emotional regulation. Right? I don't want to carry this baggage,
because I am healthy. And I feel content with myself. I don't need
validation, right from something external from someone else.
Because when I need validation, and I'm desperate, and I act out
of desperation, I take on too much baggage. And it weighs down the
plane and weighs down to training in the direction I want to go.
Because I don't have this in order. I'm desperate. Meaning I
need validation. I'll take the sister straight off the street
that hasn't done the work. Because she's given me the attention.
Right. But again, that's that's your responsibility to come to the
relationship coming to the situation
with a sound
sound mindset, and understanding that your emotions, hence learn
emotional regulation.
And that's one thing that, oh, go ahead. Just to add to that
emotional regulation that is so incredibly important. One of the
ways in which to achieve it. And I think I mentioned this earlier, is
reflection and self awareness. Whenever you want to do anything.
The most important thing is the ability to be aware of yourself,
your shortcomings, why you need what you you know, I mean, where
you need help, I mean, even when, for the sister that she has the
past, and she wants to fix herself, you can never change and
you can never be better if you don't have that awareness of
yourself, because many people be that okay, emotional regulation,
how do we, you know, master it. And I will say, be aware of
yourself sit down with too busy, you know, doing everything, we
just don't sit down and reflect and think and ponder. And I think
that is one important things that we need
is to reflect to ponder.
100% agree with that. And it's like, I'm sure I think we covered
this, maybe it wasn't the first episode of candid conversations,
this space between the the action or the event, right? And the
response, there is a space there, there is a freedom there, there's
a choice to be made, right, the stimulus and response, there's a
space.
And I think if more of us took a bit of time,
in that space between the stimulus, the thing that happened,
and the way that we respond, and actually did some work thinking
about our response and choosing the right response, or the most
productive or helpful response. I think a lot of relationships would
be will be a lot better. But I have a question here. Why is this
channel only about marriage? Well, may I just say for the for the
record, that this channel is actually about a lot more than
marriage. I do.
Personal Development for sisters, I have reminders on here. I have
writing training for writers, but guess what, the writing videos do
not perform at all. Even though mashallah I teach really good
stuff for people who want to write books, etc. And this is my work,
mashallah, those videos do not perform anywhere near as well as
when we are talking about marriage and relationships. And so the
reason we don't teach basic Islam here, all goes through fic or goes
through Sierra or any of those other things is because there are
plenty of videos out there on those topics, and there are
channels that are dedicated to those topics. This channel is
about the human side of this journey of being Muslim. And a big
part of that is our relationship with ourselves, our relationship
with our significant other and of course our relationship with our
children and our families. But that is coming next Insha Allah,
but for now I've got another one.
Oh my goodness me Oh, why is this Auntie always discussing marriage
it looks like she has done a PhD and sexology for Allah sake Islam
is not just about * and marriage teach us some Quran and Sunnah.
Again, guys, again, you're most welcome to leave the stream and go
to the next page, you're most welcome to leave the stream and go
to the home page go to I need that was page go to Sinagua Hodge go
wherever you want to go go to our syllabi and go where you want to
go. I'm not them and they're not me. And I don't talk about what
they talk about because that is not what I'm interested in. And
the people who come to this channel, they come here looking
for this as to you Thank you very much says thank you. Marriage Ever
After series as fire. Okay, good. So,
those of you
wondering, yes, it's fine, Mashallah. Apologies already, it's
not a problem. I'm not crossed. But it's like, you know, we can't
do everything, nor can we make everyone happy, right, we can only
do what we're called to do, and, and Hamdulillah. I'm grateful that
Allah subhanaw taala allows me to know people who can bring benefit
to the platform. And if you haven't, kind of been through the
things that we have here, we've had conferences, we've had seminar
series, we have a long like a long running podcast with the marriage
conversation. We've had the secrets of successful wives online
conference, the intimacy, conversation, and Hamdulillah I
happen to know a lot of people who can bring a lot of benefit in
these areas. So those are the areas that I provide a platform
for, and my sincere hope is that it is beneficial for people who
watch it and that Allah subhanaw taala accepts it from me and from
all the amazing people who who take the time to come and share
their knowledge and share their expertise and share their
experiences so that we can have these conversations inshallah
which potentially are not being at any else. So either lots of maths
for now, guys, I do think we should call it a night brother
nasib abou more ad system wide and everybody else who joined the
life. Thank you so much for coming. I appreciate you, Brother
Nasir. And I will be back for candid conversations tomorrow
Insha Allah, we will be having a live stream tomorrow evening. Just
look out for my on my on my stories on my community board to
see what time we will we will be going live because I'm not sure
about that as yet. But it will be tomorrow night and we are talking
about certain wifely skills. We've got a profile to share tomorrow, I
believe. And we're going to be reacting to some videos as well.
Make sure that you guys tune in tomorrow in sha Allah and we will
see you all there. Thank you so much for your support guys. Make
sure you hit the like button on your way out make sure you ring
the notification bell and if you're not a subscriber to the
channel, what are you waiting for? We're on our way to 50,000
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you can help make it happen. So we'll see you guys tomorrow and
what's Salam? Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh