Naima B. Robert – Marriage, Masculinity and Lessons from the Seerah @alromaani TMC 2E3
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Guys, welcome to yet another episode of the
marriage conversation
with Naima b Robert. If you have not
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amazing conversations inshallah.
I'm super excited about my guest today. It
is brother Gabriel Al Rahmani, who is a
positive Islamic psychologist and we're gonna be chopping
it up about all things, masculinity
and, you know, Sira and history and, feminism
and all sorts of good stuff. So brother
Gabriel, for
coming on the show. Welcome. Oh, yeah. Assalamu
alaikum.
Okay. So
I first came into contact with you and
your work, when you were having conversations about
masculinity in Islam.
You know, obviously, there was a big brouhaha.
Some things I agreed with. Some things I
didn't. But I am aware
that there needs to be a conversation
amongst muslims
about what masculinity
really means. Right? And what it means for
us because I think we can all agree
that the world that we live in today,
masculinity is like a bad word. Right? And
masculinity
equals toxicity,
for many people. So
what would you say
if somebody was to ask you, okay, what
does it mean to be a man in
Islam? What is Islamic masculinity?
What would your response be?
Okay.
For hosting me on your podcast. May Allah
bless it.
Amen. I think there's there's 2 elements to
anything that defines
Beni Adam or the sons and daughters of
Adam. Right. Number 1 is
their,
their physiology, their DNA, what they are as
a human being.
And number 2 so you can say maybe
the hardware.
Okay, and then the operating system. K?
And when we look at the hardware, Allah
created
every single person.
Okay?
And many of the scholars use this, and
so that mankind has been created in the
best mold, the best way.
Right?
To the point where one of the imams,
you know, was
composing some poetry,
about his wife. And he said that if
you're not more beautiful than the moon, I'll
divorce you. And then he realized, oh my
god. Maybe I said something wrong. So then
he went to the imam, and the imam
gave him this that
is the best. Okay? So, actually, there's no
better creation than
human beings.
Okay?
That is why we are carrying what we
are carrying, this tamana.
So Allah has created us in this way,
but
so there's the fitra.
That's what we call the fitra, natural state
of human being,
the uncorrupted
human nature.
So specifically, when it comes to masculinity,
all males have been created in a specific
way. They have the
you know, they're hardwired to be men.
Mhmm.
Right? So that's something Allah has given us
as a gift. Everyone, Muslim, kafir, you know,
they meaning Muslim, non Muslim,
Chinese, Indian, white, black. Everyone's got this same,
pretty much, DNA. There's a few small differences
in our,
you know, in in certain things when you
look at the, the,
the genetics,
but we're basically on the same,
you know, genome, the same type.
However, when it comes to the software,
this is what's called the
operating system of human beings. How how do
human beings behave?
How should a a man
behave? What's his way? How does he
feed that fitra, the natural disposition, so that's
protected and it grows,
and it's used in the right sense in
the right way? Alright?
So and this is what we call wahi
or revelation. Allah is the creator. The one
who created the hardware
has also sent the
operating system with it. Alright? If 1 of
the 2 gets corrupted,
it doesn't work well. So for us to
understand what is a man or what's masculinity
from an Islamic perspective, we really need to
look at at
the revelation,
the theory,
and put it together with the, you know,
the pragmatic
applications of of human beings, what they are
biologically speaking,
and and protect those 2, and then we
get what is a real man. And the
easiest way to understand that is, again, through
knowledge and understanding of
who the prophets were because they were the
best representation
of men.
K? The the
the the,
the highlight, you can say, the superstars of
masculinity
were the prophets. Mhmm. And of of of
course of course, according to the strongest opinion,
there's a slight difference opinion that can be
refuted. This is not because I want to
refute it. This is just among the scholars.
All prophets and messengers were men, okay, males.
Okay? And as Allah says in the Quran.
Alright?
So
we look at them,
and that's what we understand what is real
masculinity.
What does it mean to be a man,
specifically
to the last prophet, prophet Muhammad
to which Allah
tells us that he is the example to
be followed. We look at his life.
So I would be very subjective in telling
you what I think a man would be
if I wouldn't use evidence and I wouldn't
try to,
take that back to the Quran sunnah. So
that's basically
what I think it's important for us to
start from the beginning to define the parameters
that we're gonna be discussing in and the
evidence because, yes, there's a lot of opinions
about what a man should be, or man
should be. We have the very popular opinion
of the non Muslims, and we have the,
you know, the opinions of others as well.
So that's what I would like to lay
out as a as a the beginning and
the foundation of this discussion, Shar. Mhmm. Mhmm.
No. I think it's a really really important
point. I love the,
that analogy of a hardware and a software.
Right? It's almost like the nature and the
nurture, isn't it? That that conversation about how
much of who we are is a product
of our environment and our conditioning and how
much of it is actually biological, you know,
hardwired into us.
And, you know, when we look at the
the prophet, sallai alaihi wa sallam,
and the companions, you know, as a whole,
And we look at them through the lens
of
masculine behavior,
and how they showed up as men within
their families, within their peer group, within the
society.
I always find it very interesting
how multifaceted
the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam himself was
already. But also all the the companions.
Because
you see the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
you see him exhibiting
the what one would call traditional or even
stereotypical masculine roles. I'm not saying in quotes,
guys. Okay? But being a leader,
making decisions,
you know, not being afraid to do what
is necessary,
not being afraid to sacrifice,
you know, you know, speaking the truth in
spite of the blame of the people. K.
Being courageous, being brave, being strong.
Right? And leading and and and punishing and
doing all of that good stuff. Right? That
is typically what we would say is sort
of masculine behavior.
And then you also see that very same
person
submitting to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And submitting
with a soft heart.
And and and so I wanna look at
sort of how he was in the society
and then I look at how he was
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and the companions
and and all of them may Allah be
pleased with them. But this ability
of Islam and I I see it in
Islam specifically and, you know, feel free to
correct me if I'm wrong.
But
Islam seems to give a man
permission
to be
a wakeel, to be a wali, to be
a mere,
to have ghayra,
to to fight, to defend, to lead, to
to make things happen,
but also
to cry before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Also to be humble before his lord, to
also love his wives and his children,
to be to be sweet with them, you
know, to be kind, to be generous, which
typically a lot of a lot of the
the conversations about is that, no, that's not
male behavior. You know, though you're not a
real man if you cry, for example. Right.
What what do you think about that? I
mean, do you think I'm way off with
that, or do you think that that is,
like, that that's quite accurate?
Again, that's a very good point and saying
that there's
almost like, 2 extremes when you talk about
masking. You have the ones who are saying
everything is toxic. If a man has muscles
or he's daring or he's brave or he's
assertive that this is toxic, it's not good
for society.
Right? Yet when a woman does that, they're
like, she's a bad whatever. You know? She's
a wow. You know? That's true too. That's
very true. But I have my thoughts on
that. Yes. Exactly, it's part of love.
Right. And then you have the other side
of, like, I think almost like a reactionary
movement
to the other side. And they're saying, look,
real men don't cry. Real men don't have
emotions, or they don't show emotion, a lot
of stoicism and so on.
Again, I would like to bring us to
what I've just said the way I laid
off the foundation of the discussion. We we
need to analyze
the for the Muslims, anyway. For this, this
discussion is mostly for Muslims. Okay. Non Muslims
listen as well. Of course. No doubt. Yeah.
But this is for the Muslims. So for
the Muslims, a Muslim claims that, okay, we
go based
on evidence. Right? It is an evidence based
way of life, a deen. It's an evidence
based
So Allah
says, bring your proof if you are truthful.
Right? So these are these are fundamentals in
our deen. So we look at the prophet.
As you said,
the prophet
was a leader. The prophet,
participated in wars. The prophet, sallam,
took life.
Whether people like it or not, whether it's
politically correct or not, we're talking here academically.
Today, this discussion's academic. It's not,
what people might, want to label as. So
these are it's like saying Alexander the Great.
Right? They don't offer flowers. I mean, people
study his life and university. They're so happy
and so proud of that type of heritage,
and we know that he, you know, took
many lives. Right? No one has a problem
there. But when it comes to the prophet,
somehow there's always this problem.
You know? People get all sensitive and funny.
You know? The funny bone gets hit and
hurt. Yeah. So yeah. I think I think
it's you know, just to to digress slightly
on that point, I think that the reason
why there is this ideal of a prophet
that he is nonviolent or that he never
is involved in that kind of thing. I
think it's to do with esalay salam. I
think it's to do with the Christian idea
of Jesus as the ideal prophet, right, or
the ideal messenger or whatever it is in
the But that's that's a mis you don't
think so? That's that's a misconception. It's wrong
because, you know, for example, in the in
the in the gospel, so Jesus went in
the market and he threw over the tables
and he made a whip and he whipped
people. Okay? He whipped them. Like, imagine imagine
the the prince of peace coming and you
know? Like, I mean, the pros have never
done that. Like, he wouldn't just go into
the market and start throwing tables. I don't
have a problem with Jesus doing that. I'm
like super, man. Like, he had a reason.
You know? He was upset.
Right? But but I get it. Superman can
do it. If Batman can do it, if
Spiderman can do it, like, what's the deal
here? Like, what are we saying?
Yeah. No. So so I'm I'm cool. And
I can give you other examples from the
Bible. It's just peep the Christians are selected.
This whole, you know, feast it.
Like so, anyway, so the prophet
was a man of action, but at the
same time was was was a,
see,
okay. Even when I talk to act there's
a difference between violence and being strong, right,
and and and and fighting and having conflict.
I like to call it conflict. Yeah. Violence
is usually uncontrolled, and it's like Yes. You
know, something that right? So so he was
a a man of conflict. No doubt about
it. He didn't shy away from it.
And, and the prophet was also, I would
say, a passionate man. You know? I don't
wanna say he was emotional. He was passionate.
He was he was passionate about Allah. He
was passionate about his. He was passionate about
his family.
He had passion. Right? He had feelings. Mhmm.
He had feelings. Something that we don't see
a lot of passion today. Right? And so,
yeah, no doubt. He he he loved,
his family, loved his wives.
He he cried, and we have, hadith about
beard being wet and tears coming down his
face. Right? When Ibrahim, his son, passed away,
he cried,
and and this is something amazing. You know,
you have to understand,
he was happy, for example, when Jafar returned
from from the Hijra,
from Abyssinia,
and he said you know, and even though
they just conquered Khayib, but he said, I
don't know which am I most happy about,
seeing Jafar coming back, and he hugged them.
You know what I mean? So you can
imagine,
like, how beautiful it was. And,
you know, the genuine
personality that the sahaba, when you read some
of the hadith, you're like, is this an
exaggeration? Right? But it's not like that sahabi
who who kissed the prophet's belly. Right? Because
he thought that's the last thing he's gonna
do, and he kinda like, this what do
you really do with that? But if you
really study the seal of the prophet and
understand
what he gave these
people, right,
what he brought to them where they were
ready to sacrifice their lives, and these are
no people that were just like do that.
These are tribal tough people, right, who are
coming, like they would have to have a
specific allegiance,
and here, they are ready
to sacrifice for the prophet,
competing and and being close to him. So,
I mean, a a rational person would want
they're like, wait a second.
A genuine person,
you know, is is something that's that's felt.
You know?
There's there's there's an attraction. There's there's something
healthy going on. The wild a a liar
and a person is trying to get benefit.
Mhmm. You know? They're not gonna be able
to do that. They're not gonna be influencing
people to that level. Now someone might say,
well, what about these cults and these
with all due respect, when you analyze these
cults and you see the what what they're
talking about, you cannot compare it to the
life of the process, and you cannot
you you don't have the amount of detail
and time spent. Like, look at how much
we know. We know how many Mhmm. White
hairs he had in his beard, what kind
of thobe he had. His wife tell us
everything about his,
house life, about all the intimate aspects. You
know? To that point, right,
an insincere person wouldn't be able to slip
through this scrutiny. It just wouldn't be able
to happen. It wouldn't happen. Yeah. You know?
Yeah. So the prophet,
he cried. He was passionate. So all those
brothers who think that being a man is
just beating yourself in the chest and, like,
you know, fighting, that's not correct. And all
those people think that
being strong and assertive is something wrong, then
they're also wrong. Right? So again, we look
at the prophet, this amazing balance, and Allah
says
when defining the of the prophet and
he says,
and
here
is pretty much the the the highest
rank or the highest
example
of morals and behavior.
And interesting enough,
this or this definition or this
this,
this adjective is used for the Quran.
Allah describes the Quran, and
he's he describes the the whole of the
prophets and as Awdeen. Right?
SubhanAllah. So that's what I have to say
about that.
It's funny, subhanAllah, that you mentioned,
you know,
the idea of sort of men being strong
or powerful, etcetera. And, you know, I think
if I'm gonna keep it 100, and I
think we we spoke about this in a
previous conversation Correct.
Where it's almost like certainly, so, you know,
the the circles that I was in.
You had good Muslim men
and bad Muslim men. Right? Okay. And the
good Muslim man,
he does all the fara'id. Right? He's he's
practicing,
but he's he's soft.
And he lets you do what you want.
He doesn't give you a hard time about
things. He doesn't ask you where you're going
every minute of the day. He doesn't try
to control your movements or make you do
stuff that you don't want to do. You
know, he never tells you off, you know,
puts you in your place. He's a nice
guy. Right?
And he does all the farad. We like
him.
Then there's the bad Muslim man who also
does all the farayd,
but he's stern.
He's demanding.
He has standards and he expects you to
rise to those standards. He wants things done
a particular way. He has opinions about you
and what you wear and who you speak
to and where you go. Right?
And
it's in it's it's interesting to me,
how
it's almost like as women and again, guys,
feel free to come for me in the
comments if you think that I'm talking out
of pocket,
But I think
that there is an aspect of us as
women
that wants
the nice side of masculinity
or should I say the easy side of
masculinity,
the side of masculinity that makes our lives
easier,
the pro the provision, the provision. Okay.
The protection, but not too much protection. Okay?
You know, the the the the love, but
not too much love. Okay?
And and all of that
And and is is not comfortable
with what comes with that, which is the
other side of masculinity.
Right? Because
we can all agree that, you know, if
a man is Amir
and he takes that role seriously,
there will come a time when he's going
to say
no, there will come a time when he's
like, I'm not happy with that. There will
come a time and he'll say, no, I
don't agree that we do this. We're gonna
do it this way. And, I mean, I
don't know whether you've
either heard of this kind of conversation amongst
sisters or whether you have any view of
it, But I'm I'm interested in how even
as Muslim women,
we there's a resistance there to accepting a
man in his full masculinity because it's like,
just be easy with it. Like, be man
enough, but not too manly that you kind
of, you know, upset my program. What do
you think?
Okay. That's
interesting.
So, what I'll what I'll start with is,
I'll say the women test men. Women, they
test men. Okay? It's just whether they do
it willingly or unwilling, I think they do
it most unwillingly,
but women test men because women are created
differently than men. Allah says that very, clearly.
The man is not like the woman.
And they test men to to see if
they're they can stand their ground, if they're
real men.
Okay? A woman, see, if you put the
right thing in the right place, everything works.
If you put
the right thing in the wrong the right
thing in the wrong place, doesn't work.
Alright? So,
so that's the first point. So women will
test men to see whether he's he's got
a standard or he's got certain,
you know,
ethics, certain directions, whether he can maintain his
frame.
And a lot of times, this nice guy
who prays and does all the fa'aid,
but he just kinda lets go.
To be honest,
those marriages are not very happy according to
my experience. You know, it's it's a theory,
and it's a theory based on 20 years
of experience in counseling.
So I think,
almost 20 years. I think a lot of
those marriages, even if they continue, they're not
very happy.
K? Because, again, you have you have 2
good people maybe,
you know, but they're just not in the
right position. Right? It's like it's like the
forward is playing goalie. Yeah. He can, but
not so good. And then the sweeper is
playing, like, I don't know, he's serving water
on the in the side of the bench
or something. Like, yeah, we're the same team.
Yeah. But you're doing the wrong job. Right?
They're not very happy. The team still works.
You know, everyone's okay, whatever, but in the
end, it's not the best performance.
Alright? So that's the first point.
The second point
is that,
see, there's there's a there's an either or,
it seems,
kind of issue. Like, well, you know, I
want this. You know, I want this,
you know, we want this soft guy who's
gonna allow us to do this, this, but
he's a nice guy, and he provides and
whatnot. And then he got the other side
was, like, oh, he's this strong man, and
he's not taking anything and so on. It's
it's not this or that. It has to
be a a connection between the 2. And
I think this is this is a problem.
Now there's a lot I can say about
women,
here, but I think your question here on
masculinity, I'm not gonna speak that much about
women. I'm not gonna I don't know if
you want
to hear that. We can go we can
go into that. We can go into that
because I think the the audience for this
is, you know, it is brothers and sisters.
And, really, the goal of
these conversations is to have an open, honest
conversation.
I I really think that and Allah knows
best. But I really think that for many
years, especially in the west,
sisters have had been having conversations in their
own silos.
We've been talking to each other
and reinforcing each other's views and viewpoints and
and centering our own experience in that narrative.
Right? And then wherever possible, brothers maybe have
been speaking, but it's like we're not hearing
each other. Right? So the brothers don't get
the sisters. The sisters don't get the brothers,
and that's the that's the least of the
worries.
The worst cases
are where the sisters feel that the brothers
are the enemy,
and where brothers feel that the sisters are
just not on the team. You know what
I mean? So this is a place really.
It's a safe space to have that conversation.
So Bismillah.
Alright. So so let let me address then
then the the ladies first, but not from
my perspective necessarily.
So I've had a lot of discussions such
as this with some female,
professionals,
counselors, psychologists,
and, with my,
you know, let's say,
family members, okay, who are female. Some very,
very honest discussions in trying to match theory
and
studies and research to actual practice and the
reality on the ground.
And it it was very I think I
can consider myself blessed to have there those
discussions, to be able to get the insight
from very honest sisters. Okay? Practicing sisters.
And I know people can say, like, man,
you know,
why you talk like this? And how did
you have all stuff for? Like,
I don't wanna give you the details, but
inshallah, all the conversation with professional and and
and halal. But
I'll tell you what what these ladies said,
these sisters said about women. Okay?
They said, number 1, as I said, that
we will test you.
Okay?
Number 2,
they said,
if if you're not holding your frame and
you're not strong enough as a man,
we will dominate you,
and we will push you.
And and it's it's normal. If if you
don't push, you're gonna get pushed.
And we don't even know that it's happening,
and we will go through, but we're not
gonna be happy.
Because by fitra, we want sorry to use
the word, but we want to be led.
Mhmm. And it might be a short term
satisfaction that's somehow fueled by the feminist movement
where women should be out there. They should
be leaders.
You can do everything that a man does
or anything you can do. I can do
better. I can do anything better than you.
Right? That type of,
mentality.
But they say
there's a certain age
Yeah. Where we realize that, wait a second.
What the heck did I just do?
Because I thought I'm happy.
Mhmm. Maybe I was on a high. You
know? It's like you're kind of on this
roller coaster
and, like, wow. Your drum is pumping. Wow.
All these things are but then you you
you end up, you know,
on the horizontal line and you just stop,
and you're like, is that it?
Right? So they said they said, basically,
we want to be led.
And if you don't know how to lead
us,
then we will be
very sad,
and
we're gonna we're gonna regret what's happened, but
a lot of them just say, well, now
it's too late. I'm already in this relationship.
And by the way, that's turning around a
lot. There's a lot of that's happening now.
A lot of women are divorcing their husbands.
Yeah. I know. There's certain there's certain communities.
I don't wanna I don't wanna name them
because people are gonna get upset again, but
there's huge problems where the women are like
reaching, you know, and they're like, when you
talk to them, like the, wait a second,
how did it happen in your twenties? They're
like, well, you know, I was this, out
there. We were happy. You know? We're wearing
the same color, doing the same things. Today,
I was talking to a brother, and he's
like, I taught my wife everything I knew.
Right? She's like, till the point there was
no difference between us, and that's what broke
us. And that's what there's no polarity.
This is the word, the polarity word. Yes.
Yes. And lo and behold, they are divorced
now, and and both, you know, are are
very but but he said it became that
I was like, it's like I'm married to
myself.
Right. You know? And she's like, she's married
to herself. There's no Or a roommate or
something. Mhmm. Mhmm. Something like this.
Yeah. So so so women say, like, you
know, look. You guys have to be careful.
You have to keep your frame. Even if
we push it and we test, you gotta
push back, and then I'm gonna make,
an important statement there in a second.
And then they said that,
you know, if if if we're not led,
if we're not sorry, even, like, to an
extent, maybe the word is, you know, a
bit harsh, but dominated,
it's not attractive for us,
and it's not something that we'll respect in
a man. We'll we'll test you. We'll push
you, but you need to stand your frame,
and you need to impose yourself.
But at the same time,
the problem on the men's side is that,
when a lot of men impose themselves, they're
not fair.
Okay?
And women
get that.
So for example, a guy is gonna say,
well, I'm a man, you're supposed to do
this, this, this, but he's not doing his
part.
You understand what I'm saying? Right? The big.
This is the big.
But but but this is the different different
this is a different part. Right? Like, I'm
talking about so the the soft guy who
allows his wife to do whatever.
Okay? She's testing him. She's wearing tight things,
whatever. She's going out. It's girl's night out.
The guy doesn't care. Have fun, honey. You
want me to drop you off? This and
that, whatnot. He's got no rira whatsoever.
He just lets her do. She leads whatever
she wants to do.
She's okay for the first he's the weak
guy, the nice guy, but in the end,
she's not gonna be happy with him. On
the other side, you got the assertive guy
who says, I'm the man, Allah has put
me as the imam and whatnot. That's all
good, no doubt about it. And a woman
is willing to submit to that.
Alright? She is willing to it. It's in
her fitra. It's attractive even. Yeah. Yeah. The
problem comes the problem comes is when he's
not fair. Like, he he's he's he's demanding
that part,
but he's not providing the other side. Yeah.
But he's all talk. Right? He's a lot
of talk, a lot of, like, claims,
But when it comes to, like, well,
do you provide the safety? Do you provide
Mhmm. Let's say even even just the
the the charisma and the behavior.
Like, a woman needs to be you know,
a woman loves to be treated nicely. Yeah.
I always ask I always ask the brothers.
I'm like, bro, do you like, for example,
it's a very simple thing. Do you open
the door for your wife when she gets
in the car? Most guys don't do that.
You know you know No game, basically. No
game. No game.
The women you know, people are like, oh,
that's so chauvinistic, so typical. I don't need
anyone to open the door for me. No.
No. No. Wait a sec.
Women
love that. They love it when their husbands,
like, treat them nice and, you know, like,
treat them, like, kind and and and you
do things for them.
You please them. You know, a lot of
guys don't
right? And here, what I mean is, like,
literally to to do your job,
as a man and all that. They don't
take care of their appearance. A lot of
the guys slack off after they get married.
They want their wives to be, like, super
nice looking. They get very they complain, which
is not good looking and whatnot.
And then he's like, sadly, right, he let
himself go. And,
but he's the man. Right? So Yeah. I
think that's the problem. So Can I just
just just jump in there, to to to
to put this into the conversation? I think
that is one of
the trigger points for a lot of sisters,
I think. Whenever we have a conversation about
husbands,
even being a wife,
you know, taking care of your husband, respecting
the husband, obeying or submission or anything like
that, The the immediate idea that is triggered
is men who want everything their way, but
do not take care of their responsibilities. So
they don't take care of things on their
end, but they expect everything else to be
according to what they want.
To to the point where it's all there
is a block there. It's like, don't talk
to me about the husband's rights. Don't talk
to me about x y zed. Because in
my head, all I can reference
is men not actually being men. Right? And
men not stepping up to the plate
whether it was her father, whether she's seen
it with her brothers, whether she was married
to somebody like that. And I and I
do think that that, you know, even this
whole conversation about, you know, women wanting a
manly man. Right?
When you were talking about, you know, women
sort of wanting the soft guy and all
that kind of thing, I think
maybe at a certain point in your life
when all you're thinking about is, you know,
kind of the the look and feel of
things. You may want all of that.
But definitely, once you have children, I think
it shifts.
And I think it's one you when you
have children and you're living that chapter of
your life
or the the thing you want most in
the world is for a man to take
charge
and just tell you babe I've got this.
And I know so many sisters who
have have wanted that have have have longed
for that but for whatever reason
have never felt in safe enough with their
husband
to let him take care of the finances.
Let him take care of the the vision
for the family. Let him take care of
the target. You know what I'm saying? So
yeah.
Well, look look, again, I don't think it
has to start when you have children. I
think that's the problem. Right? People think that,
okay. Once I become a father, I'm gonna
be this perfect man. No. It needs to
be start from when they're boys. Agreed. Oh,
okay. The fathers have to train their their
boys. Education is not conducive for to to
build men today. It's not. Look at education.
Look at curriculum. It's all against it. So
you don't expect the guy to live his
whole life as as a weak man and
then all of a sudden wake up when
he has children. So it has to be
starting. The man has to learn, has to
be educated. Our imams, our scholars, our teachers,
our fathers have to educate boys because they're
the ones who have been,
endowed with this responsibility.
Yeah. K. Being an imam and a leader,
a Khalifa, it's a responsibility given from Allah,
and it's something that you're accountable
to and by. Alright? So that's that's very
important.
When it comes
to having children and so on, yeah, then
the level of responsibility becomes I always say,
look. You're never gonna be a real man
so you become a husband.
Mhmm. And you're never gonna be a real
man to become a father,
and you're never gonna be a real man
till you reach 40.
Okay? That's, like, kinda like the last
step. Okay?
Right? But we have to have all. Like,
it's not like, okay. I'm never married, and
they reach 40. There's still a 40 year
old boys. You know? Yeah. Right? So these
are some of the things that we have
to consider. But,
I I I think going back to the
standard, though, right, the Quran sunnah,
because I don't want people to misunderstand this
here.
When a man does his job,
and it's not me saying what his job
is. Allah
what says what his job is. He's strong.
He's assertive. He takes lead,
and he respects his wife as well. He
loves her.
And I'll talk a little bit about that
in a second.
And then
he
he has
that frame and that charisma.
She feels safe with him. You know? I
mean, imagine you walk on the street with
your husband. Right? Like, do sisters feel safe?
Do they feel safe, like, they're gonna take
care of them? Like, they feel like, man,
I'm walking with a real man, or they're
like, I'm gonna have to defend them or
something like that, right, if something happens. So,
when, do you have a real man like
that who's doing his praying? Okay? He is
not sorry. Yeah. And he waking up at
9 AM or 10 AM,
right, and and missing fajr and stuff like
that. Right? He takes care of himself. He
does his duty to Allah
He takes care of things.
He can solve problems. He takes initiative.
He's got
a certain limit that even she knows. Within
the very early stage of it, she knows
that he's got a frame that he's not
going to go outside of.
Okay? She's tested it, and she's comfortable knowing
even if you push back, even if there
was some conflict and some argument, it's healthy
because the female understands, woah. This is my
husband. I know his limits,
and they find that attractive. They're like, man,
this guy is like, he's not easy to
sway. I can trust him. I know that
he's going to be able to take care
of things.
It's not me now trying to gain female
followers. Sorry, Sorry. Because maybe some people are
saying, oh, man. This guy's talking about guys
being like, if you look through my videos,
I talk a lot about these things. Right?
And I'm not saying that I'm at, like,
the best.
I'm in my journey has been to try
to do this, and I'm not there yet.
I'm still
moving towards that. And it's not gonna be
like a just like a a threshold that
you're gonna reach. You're gonna go up and
down. You're gonna oscillate. It's like kinda like
iman. You know? It's it's it's an ongoing
process. But what I'm trying to say is
that when you have that man who's fulfilling
his duties according to what Allah has revealed,
if a woman doesn't submit to him, then
there's a problem because she has no
excuse.
When and I told guys,
when you don't do your part, then she
has an excuse. And that's what women say,
but he didn't do this, but he didn't
do that. He expects me to do 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, but he didn't even
do one thing.
Alright?
Men want this from their wife and that
from their wife, and men don't even know
if their wives are, like, happy with them
or feel,
sort of intimate
or anything like that. A lot of men
have no clue about this.
And and and I I I asked the
guy straight up, one of the first things
I asked him, how's your
relationship? How's your intimate relation? And they're like,
well, I don't know. I guess it's good.
I'm like, you don't know?
No. No. I'm telling you.
You know? I I thought it's good. You
know? I mean, it's good for me, right,
kinda thing. Right? And I'm like, look, man.
If you don't understand so it's good. Okay?
That's it. That's the end of the conversation.
And a lot of people are like, why
are you talking about this? Because this is
the main connection in a marriage
that Allah says
the love is the first thing, and making
love is
the event that creates life, if you think
about.
Right? Yeah. And and
a lot of people don't understand that. So
if you don't take care of these this
department
so I would say, number 1, a woman
wants
safety.
She wants love, I. E, intimacy, emotions, and
so on. She wants strength.
Okay? She wants assertiveness. She wants protection. She
wants provision.
Okay? These are just 6 things that if
you go to the Quran sunnah,
this is what defines, and there's many other
things.
Right? So if a man doesn't do that,
then she has an excuse. She's gonna say,
well, I'm not doing this because of this
is this. Now the problem is
if a man fulfills all those things and
the woman is not willing to submit and
she's competing with him, then we have a
problem. And there are a lot of these
problems, where now the woman has no excuse.
Right? She can't say the noise is not
good and he is good. And there's a
lot of still a lot of good men
out there who fulfill all these duties, and,
sadly, their wives are continuing to test them.
And this is another phenomenon, and there's a
a whole,
you know, different drive behind it. Feminism
and new age, you know,
feminist, the new age women,
and, you know, being so called the woke
and whatnot. And that that's a problem because
you have no excuse
to obey a husband who's doing his duty.
You have no excuse whatsoever.
Right? And we find a lot of that.
So we have a few different elements in
this equation.
Not everything is just black and white. There's
a lot of nuances
that need to be addressed because not everything
is just this or that.
Yeah. No. I agree. Definitely not anymore. And,
I mean, would you agree I mean, I've
spoken about this on podcast before.
But I think that, you know, being a
Gen Xer, I'm in my forties, so I
grew up with, I guess,
the beginnings of the education
into feminist ideas.
Right. You know, I certainly considered myself a
feminist before Islam.
I've been observing the feminist movement from the
outside all this time. And I think the
way that our society has developed is that
masculine traits are prized.
Right? Because masculine traits
drive progress.
They drive the economy.
They drive knowledge. They, they drive, you know,
progress and development and all of these things.
Right? And they make money,
you know, they generate wealth. They generate capital.
And so if you look at the situation
in most parts of the world where, you
know, before
children, maybe they were farming or something like
that. But and it depends, of course, on
the children. Maybe they were farming or something
like that. But and it depends, of course,
on the class because in some classes, women
have always worked in fields and been involved
in the means of production in production.
However,
if we look at sort of Western society,
women, you know, did not go out and
produce
wealth. They may have been consumers,
but they didn't produce. So now we have
a situation where through our education
and through our conditioning,
we are all now meant to be part
of the money making machine. We are all
supposed to spend on our education,
invest in getting degrees,
getting careers so that we can acquire. Right?
So we can acquire
homes, cars, shoes, clothes,
you know, holidays abroad, whatever the case may
be.
So I would argue
that
with those masculine qualities that are prized,
we as women have been raised to prize
our own masculinity.
Right? Our own masculine traits of competition,
you know, of of of pushing, of making
things happen, of ambition, and, you know, the
things that you were saying, you know, being
strong, being outspoken, etcetera.
So as a result,
our femininity
has, has suffered because femininity
is not prized.
Not real femininity. Of course,
commoditized
femininity is.
So the physical of the woman,
obviously, it's it's a commodity. It can be
exploited.
And and that's great.
You know, some of the traits of femininity
that work well in the system, they are,
you know, they are encouraged. But as for
the homemaking,
the being a wife, the the the raising
of children, the being a mother, the prioritizing
of family,
not to mention, you know, feminine traits such
as submissiveness,
you know, gentleness,
humility,
you know, sacrifice, whatever. You know, we've always
seen, from women throughout time,
These are not highly prized. Right? So we
could argue that women are being pushed to
be more masculine.
And at the same time, men are being
encouraged to become more feminine. So it's like
a feminization
of men and a masculinization of women. Right?
But then the question it begs the question,
well, why can't that work?
Why can't we have masculine women and feminine
men? Like Mhmm. Why is that not working
for for society today? What do you think?
Right. It's it's like putting Windows on on
a Mac. Right? It's never gonna work well.
Right. I mean, it's just it's it's just
not built for it. It could it could
power up. It can do certain things. No
doubt. Yeah. You have parallel desktop or whatever
they call it.
But in the end, it's not gonna work
because you're not gonna get the best out
of it. Allahu Fuentes creates us in specific
ways. He's also given us our gender roles,
what we do, what we shouldn't do, and
so on.
And that's just the way he himself,
and he knows exactly how we can work
at the optimal level to produce the best.
And the problem is
that,
the 21st
century
or postmodern era
is
encouraging this competition
as opposed to cooperation between men and women,
between husband and wife, between the gender. It's
like, no, you're better. No, you're better. You're
better. You're better.
And there's no tawen. There's no cooperation. We're
a family.
Men are men. Women are women. That's just
the way it is. Right? Men are the
leaders. Women are the supporters.
That's just the way Allah has decided. Do
be the best at what you've been assigned
to be.
Okay?
You know, do that. Allah encourages competition, but
compete within your field and within your
league.
Right? And I'll tell you one thing. Real
men are not attractive to masculine females. They're
just not. Not at all.
Okay? A real man, there's always going to
be this polarity, and you notice it. Even
in gay couples, you always have
the feminine and the masculine. Even in lesbians,
you got the butch, and you got the
feminine one. You'll find some, things that deviate
from these rules maybe, but in general, you
have to have that player. Even in that,
you will have someone who has to play.
Even if they switch the roles, in the
end, there has to be one here and
one there. K? It's just it cannot violate
this law. It's just almost impossible.
So a problem is, as you said, right,
these masculine traits that women are trying to
go for, yet they are claiming to be
feminist,
but you're
not.
You're masculine. You are trying to be a
man. Why would you wanna be a man?
Honestly, like, I don't understand.
Right? Why do you want to be a
man? There's no point for you to be
a man. There's nothing attractive in a woman
acting or being like a man. Not at
all.
I just in answer to your question, you
know, about who would want to be a
man, I think that we have a particular
view of what it means to be a
man.
And that is
to be a man is to be in
control,
is to have power. Right?
And many women today
want control,
and they like the idea of having power.
Right? And I remember Jordan Peterson talking about
this, where he was saying how
let me maybe try and get my ideas
straight.
It's our society has
characterized
masculine
history
as the history of the victors, the male
victors. Right? The kings,
the leaders, the, you know, the warrior princes
and all of this. Right? The the elites,
the wealthy, the people who were always on
top in society.
Were all men pretty much.
And we've
equated
their experience
with masculinity, with men. This is how men
lived, right? Men have always had
power influence, etcetera. And he makes the point
that
no, only a few men had that.
The rest of everybody else
was in the trenches,
working hard to feed their families. That's it.
No grand adventures,
no wonderful exploits,
no exciting
trips here, there, there. Like, you know, we
we talk about the the travelers, for example,
the explorers
who, you know, went out and explored the
world. And we've got women here saying, you
know, but women didn't have the opportunity to
do that because women were stuck at home,
etcetera. And it's like the explorers were a
tiny minority
that actually went out to do any of
that stuff. The rest of everybody else,
we were literally in the trenches,
men and women
doing their roles, trying to survive. Right? So
anyway, I think that's the reason why when
even a sister, if you were to sit
a sister down who maybe
may say things like what you're saying and
you actually write down any brother can do
this. Any any any anyone who's watching this
can do this.
Write down everything that you have to do
as a man,
as a job description.
And, sister, give it to the sister and
say, is this what you want?
So praying in the masjid,
all the prayers,
fasting all the time,
paying for your whole families,
you know, everything and being completely responsible for
everybody in the house. Let alone dealing with
the job market, dealing with your boss, dealing
with, you know, the society at large, politically,
socially, etcetera. You know, just all the things
that men go through
and you would present that to somebody. I
don't know how many people would actually sign
up.
That's what I think about that.
Well done. That's a good point. Well, you
made a good point,
women wanting power.
I think there's been a push
on that.
Of course,
if you can see even in the discourse
of our right now, women are encouraged to
seek more and more leadership positions.
Some people are offering extreme incentives
for women to step up. To the game
who wouldn't want to, right, to be paid
more and to,
to do these things in many Muslim countries
including.
The the problem is I hope people don't
misunderstand
here, and don't get me wrong.
It's just the women have not been not
being created for that role.
You know?
And can they do it?
They can attempt to. Can they successfully do
it? Maybe here and there. Is that the
standard?
No. It's not. Okay? And it's not because
I'm talking. Maybe people are gonna get upset.
People have tried to give different evidences as
to where women were in in roles of
of leadership.
You know, these are exceptions.
In general, it's always been men,
Allah send men prophets.
It's not because, oh, wow. I'm so proud.
It's because this is how Allah
created them to be able to handle this.
It's just facts. It's just facts. Right? It's
just facts. So so
so Bilqis is is leading her nation, and
Suleiman comes. Right? And she has to submit
because she cannot resist his power and his
strength. You know what I mean? It's just
impossible.
And she does submit,
and she she does convert.
And and how does she does he, like,
give her, like, oh, you know, your book
is wrong. My book is right. Do dua?
He overpowers her. He shows her what real
might and strength
from Allah. Why do we say?
You know what I mean? That's what it
is right there. Right? And she she thinks
she's had it all, and then she sees
this man who's a prophet,
you know, who's who's got that strength. What
does he say? He said,
I will, like, come and just take over
everything because he says it very clear. You
know what I mean? You know, they're like
they try to send them a gift and
whatnot. Right? And he's like, I don't need
your gift. I'm coming. You know what I
mean? And and that's the way it is.
So,
you know, when you look through the history
of Islam and through the history of mankind,
Allah has created men for a certain role,
women for a Excel in what Allah has
created. You'll be more happy.
You will be you'll have leadership in there
as Apostle Sam said. Right? Everyone is a
shepherd. So the man is a shepherd with
his family and the community. Mhmm. What's wrong
with being a shepherd to your children and
to the house? Like, why? You know, I
think this is a problem.
They they've, you know, they they've tried to
to convince women to say that you're losing
out.
You're missing out.
Right? You've been assigned this job, this amazing
job of nurturing human souls, which is just
amazing. Right? It's like nurturing
human souls. And some women have said, I
don't want that. It's horrible. Yeah. Why would
I wanna do that? This is not fair.
My husband is out there. He's having fun.
I wanna be out there. I wanna go
to the office. I wanna put a suit
on. I want to achieve this and this
and this.
But, subhanallah, you can achieve so much. No
one said you can't be educated. No one
said you cannot achieve certain things. It's where
the priorities are
and how you achieve certain things.
What are you gonna do? What are gonna
be your circumstances?
And, again, we see that
to to have achievement,
a lot of women, Muslim women, will have
to disobey Allah.
I mean,
it's just the way it is. You can
tell me, no. This is a difference of
opinion.
Most women who are trying to achieve, like,
this this amazing success and, you know, be
whatever.
You find that they There's compromises to be
made. There's compromises to be made. That's and
this is the thing is that what as
you as you were saying,
nothing comes for free. Right?
There's always a price to pay. So I'm
thinking of those couples
who, you know
and I want to say
by choice,
but I I want the re the listeners
and the viewers to to to hear what
I'm saying when I say by choice
because
most of us
do not make our choices in a vacuum.
Our choices not only come from us and
our own perspective and our own experience and
what we've learned and how we've been shaped,
but also from our environment.
Right? So things that we consider necessary in
our society,
in other countries or other societies are considered
absolute luxuries. Right? But for us, it's necessary.
Right? So for example,
in our home, we must have 2 cars.
Right?
Why must we have 2 cars? Because that's
our standard. That's what all the neighbors have.
That's what I'm used to, etcetera, etcetera.
So, of course, there's always a price to
pay. Maybe in your case, the price that
you pay for a particular house or having
2 cars or being able to go on
holiday every year is that your wife has
to work. Alright?
No harm. No foul. It's your choice. However,
what's the price you're paying for that?
And it's something you need to we all
need to and I'm gonna say this to
to to Insha'Allah. Hopefully, to share with you
brother Gabriel to get your opinion on this.
But it's also something I really want my
my viewers to pay attention to. And that
is
we've lost a generation
of Muslims,
okay,
to chasing the dunya
in the west.
I believe that because many of our parents
when they came,
they came as immigrants.
They came for a better life. Right? They
came to better their situation. Didn't come for
Dean. They came to have a better situation
for Dunya,
hopefully for their children to do better than
they did,
for them to be able to offer them
what their parents couldn't offer them.
Again, the best of intentions.
But for most of our parents,
their focus was achievement in the dunya.
A better education,
better money, a better suburb, you know,
marry from a better family and all of
this. It's all dunya guys. Let's just call
it what it is. Right?
So what was the price that was paid
for that? Because for sure, there is always
a price to pay. And I think we
can see that we've lost an entire generation
of Muslims
because parents'
main focus
was dunya
and doing well in the west, doing well
in the UK, doing well in Canada, doing
well in the US or whatever, and getting
out of the ghetto, getting out of, you
know, kind of those silos and getting out
and doing well in society. And SubhanAllah, when
you hear the sisters who
I I My heart bleeds.
When I think of those sisters who,
you know,
they believed what they were told.
It's school,
then your university,
then masters if you can,
and get a good career. They believed what
they were told by school,
by their parents a lot of the time,
okay, by their community, the pressure that was
put on them to make sure that they
achieve and have high grades and get into
the best university and do all of that,
then they find themselves on the other side
of all of that. Maybe
they are beautiful. They're in shape. They have
a great job. You know, they eve may
even have their own property, etcetera,
but they can't find a husband.
And their childbearing years
are behind them. Their peak years are behind
them. And these sisters, what has anyone got
to say for these sisters? Let alone the
ones who did get married and have got
no wifely skills whatsoever
because the mother never bothered to prepare her
to be a wife because she's always talking
about her education and her career and getting,
you know, and getting ahead. And so what
I'm saying to to anyone who's listening to
this and watching this is
whatever choices you're making in your family, just
be aware that you're always paying a price.
So if the price for your lifestyle is
that both parents have to work,
what is the price you're paying when it
comes to your children?
When it comes to your little ones going
into nursery school early, when it comes to
your children being in state school, period. Being
in in in school. Okay? Because anybody knows
me. You know how I feel about that.
Okay? But putting your kids into government schools,
into state schools,
but I don't know what they call them
in the states. Oh, what do they call
them?
Public schools.
Public school. Right? Putting your kids into public
school,
babysitters,
child minders, you know, childcare,
you know, kids being latchkey kids and coming
home on their own. No parent who's actually
focusing on them and both parents just focused
on work, focused on building their careers, focused
on achieving their own goals.
Guys, this is not something to play with.
So the reason I'm saying this is that
the next generation is counting on us to
do better and to have a more balanced
view of what is really important and be
prepared to make the sacrifices for that. That's
my opinion on that.
No doubt. No doubt. I agree with that
100%. Our our sadly,
our parents are
projecting their
dreams onto us, maybe their failed dreams.
They've got married early.
They were convinced that it was a mistake
again through media and through that movement that
started at that time. And others say, you
know, my daughter,
you have to be independent. You have to
have a because your husband,
he might leave you, by the way. You
know? So you can depend on it. So
so imagine you are raised with that fear
already
and that
mindset that I need to because
he might leave you. What do you mean
he might leave you? Why do you wanna
start like that? What do you you
you the default is that, oh, you gotta
be ready because he's gonna leave you.
Right? So that's the mindset.
The the the groundwork is already laid negatively.
What do you think is gonna happen from
the relationship? Do you think it's going to
work out? It's not gonna work out. No.
No. That's why more than 50%
of our Umma right now, the Muslim Umma,
are divorced. People are divorced. This this is
the thing is that, you know, the the
shortsightedness of it is this. And I you
know,
on this platform, I've, you know,
invited my guests to be very open. I've
also been very open.
The thing is that as a woman today,
the reality is you don't need a man
to survive.
We know this. Right? And it does it
well, if you're in the west, you don't
need a man to survive. You can have
the government give you a house. The government
can give you money for food.
You can live by yourself. You know, it's
safe for you to kind of go out
and do your thing and do all of
this. So
the trick
here is that
you believe
that you can do better on your own.
What a sad life.
It it's it's awful. It actually is awful,
but we never hear about that.
What we hear about is how * hard
it is to be in a marriage.
We don't talk about how hard it is
to be single, be a single mother, to
be out there on your own. Trust me
when I say any sister who's right now
married
and is in a in okay marriage. That's
my baseline. It's it's decent. Okay.
It's
decent. Sis, that's all it needs to be.
That's all it needs to be. Trust me.
For it to be worth saving, it just
needs to be decent because
no one talks about
the other side of the divorce. What we
do is
we celebrate the sister being brave enough to
do x y zed, you know, and the
thing is I've been on this, I've been
in this situation before. Okay. Because at the
end of the day, if you were in
a difficult situation
that in your head was untenable,
When you get out of that situation, you
have this sense of relief. Right? You have
this sense of,
I can breathe. You know, now I can
breathe.
Now my kids and I can do this
and this and this. Alhamdulillah.
I'm free of him, you know, and you
can now live your life. Right?
And I'm not discounting
that for many women, there is that sense
of relief because guess what? Working on a
marriage is hard work. And if you don't
have to do that work anymore, it does
feel like a relief. However,
if you speak to many sisters, 1, 2,
3 years afterwards,
especially
if they have teenage children
and especially if they've been trying to get
married again,
you will hear a very very different side
of that coin. And the side of that
coin is that it is it's damn hard,
you know. And and like I said, people
glamorize it and they romanticize it as if
now you're free. You're not free.
You You just have a different type of
slavery. You just have a different type of
work on your hands, but now you're on
your own.
Now you are all by yourself. And now
to be honest, you're at the mercy
of the elements because
if you don't have a family or a
father who says to you come home,
right, come back to your your family,
which to be fair, most of us don't
have that. Certainly in the west, I don't
think we do.
But if you don't have
that, people,
women, sisters,
we discount
the value of having a man in your
life
because we think we can do better on
our own. And we think that it's much
easier to not have to negotiate,
you know, the the the the temper or
the opinions or the the will of a
man. Just do it on your own. You
know, just just do just just do it
on your own. Right?
But I think for many sisters, and again,
you can put in the comments what you
think. But I think for many sisters, sisters,
they realize that, you know what? Actually,
there were things that man brought to our
family
that I did not realize at the time.
I didn't value those things. I didn't see
those things. I didn't consider them to be
important.
But now, 2, 3, 4, 5 years out
down the line,
I see the impact of no longer having
that masculine presence in the house,
no longer having that structure,
no longer having the
of a man and the protection of a
man. I see the results now. And
my message to sisters is, like, think so
carefully because you may think that the divorce
is, like, freeing you.
Trust me. It's the wild west out there.
Anyway, that's all I have to say on
this topic.
No doubt. No doubt. But let me let
me put a quick spin on this.
Look, if you have a man and a
woman
who
marry very late, who have been conditioned by
their environment, who have been individual
living in individualist
stick lifestyle.
And all of a sudden, at the age
of 30,
that's the average marriage age for Muslims these
days.
They're finally coming together. Okay? So let's say
from the age of puberty, when you start
understanding what is desire,
you feel that you wanna be with someone,
and, you know, things get,
they become different. So let's say, you know,
by the age of 11 or so. So
you're basically about 19 years living alone.
It's all about you,
and all of a sudden, you're told you
have to share things and share life with
another person.
It takes you about
5, 6, 7, maybe years to get used
to that, to now doing things in a
different way. But in that time, maybe you
already divorced because you are not able to
recognize
that what you felt
irritated by,
you know, that difference. Like, why do I
have to do this? Why do I have
to do things this way? I'm used to
19 years. I was doing it this way.
Now he wants me to do it this
way. Right?
That's one of the problems. And by the
time you already get accustomed to and you
realize, wait a second. You know? My god.
Actually, that was, just
the male perspective. It was the male presence.
This is what how life should be like.
I was very selfish. I was very individualistic,
but it's too late. It's too late. You
know what I mean? So that's one of
the problems. We don't encourage our our children
to marry early.
They're not able to adapt
to that relationship.
When they're young, it's much easier.
Yeah. Their psychology is not as strict. They're
not as foreign as as when they're 30.
Right? So a lot of marriages fail because
of that. And yes, indeed, as you said,
by the time the divorce is on the
table,
they realize, like, wait a second, maybe this
was a mistake.
You know, maybe it's not as, as romantic
as I thought it would be, and I'm
free and all these commercials and all these,
happy
coaches and divorce coaches and telling you that
you can live your life in a successful
way. You just have to
self love and self care and just focus
on yourself.
What does that mean? Just focus on yourself.
This is the dean of cooperation
and taking care of each other. Yeah. You
have to take care of yourself. No doubt
about it, but it's not just like, okay.
Just you. Right? It's about
actually sacrifice,
to you know, for the other person. And
that's the concept of.
Right? And they prefer you over themselves. I
mean, that's what parents do. Right? The mother
sacrifices herself
for the children of her husband, and the
husband sacrifices himself for his wife and for
his
children. Isn't it? Yeah. Right?
So
I have to say a word for my
divorce coach friends, Madish. I've got lots of
them.
But I think I think
what we see now
is coping mechanisms,
and they're needed.
I'm gonna be frank because those sisters that
I spoke about who are lovely sisters, you
know, practicing, trying their best in their thirties,
forties, never married, never had children.
They have to find a way of coping.
Right? They have to find a way of
understanding
their situation
in a way that doesn't lead them to
hopelessness.
Doesn't lead them to depression. Doesn't lead them
to be angry with Allah or anything like
that.
So I get
I get where
that focus is.
I understand it. But I think that it's
a mistake
for those voices to become the dominant voices
within the community.
This is the issue. This is the issue.
This is and this is the problem really
because it means that
the the conversation or the narrative
and this is an interesting point actually because
it's almost like the narrative
of women who have either not fulfilled
the traditional Islamic ideals
or have tried to fulfill them, but have
failed for whatever reason
that narrative dominates
the the space. Right? So you don't have
wives talking about marriage. You have divorcees talking
about marriage. Right? You don't have, you know,
married women talking about men. You've got single
women talking about men, and it changes the
dynamic. It changes it. No doubt. No doubt.
Well, look. I I think, I I I
just
I I maybe you see the point of
their coping.
I don't see it, and I'll tell you
why I don't see it. Because
the problem is with these sisters
is that they've made marriage as the ultimate
thing. It it's the goal.
It's
the end.
Alright? And and they've they were disappointed. And
guess what?
This dunya is gonna disappoint you, and men
are just part of dunya.
Okay? And same for for mentors women.
Right? That's your highest objective in life. And
I'm talking to sister right now, the men
and having husband and family and children, maybe
a nice ticket fence and a holiday once
a year and all that that you see
on social media, they're snapping their coffee and
their, you know, salad and whatnot and, you
know, on some island and you want that,
and you're angry that your husband cannot provide
that, if that's
your objective,
then you're gonna be disappointed.
Human beings are gonna disappoint you even if
it's your hubby.
Right? And you look at the Sahabi at.
Okay. Let's take that example. Right?
What what's I mean, they divorce. If you
look and you study the fact and you
study the Sarah, I mean, you know, the
the women divorced.
Some of their husbands passed away, and and,
you know, like, for example, one of the
the,
you know, they married some of the great
sahabas,
and she didn't just say, like, I'm just
gonna be a widow, and then she continued
her life
because her highest objective was Allah subhanahu wa'anhu.
Okay? Sad sadly,
some women worship their husbands today
and and some men worship their wives.
And because of that, when that's removed from
the equation, it can be removed through divorce
or through that person passing away due to
a terminal illness or some, and then their
whole dunya collapses.
Okay?
And this is due to, and I know
people don't like this. They call it what?
The religious card or something like that, but
it's not.
It's like literally, I mean,
it's it's an indication
of of iman, a problem in iman.
And I'm not gonna say this one or
that one, but it's indication.
Because, again, if if that's if your
source of happiness is removed
and now
you are basically,
of course, you're allowed to be sad. You're
allowed to mourn. You're allowed the prophet himself
did that. We have Amun Husan, the year
of sadness.
Okay? He was extremely sad when Khadija passed
away. He was extremely sad when al Muhtali
passed away.
But don't mix sadness
with desperation. And as you said, being with
Allah
and having some coping mechanism that is incorrect
and misguiding other sisters
and trying to follow the same path that
it's somehow easier and better
for them to leave their husbands because you
found happiness, and they're gonna find happiness Right.
I see what you're saying. I see what
you're saying. So it's almost like are you
saying then that, you know because I think
I think this we're conflating 2 things here.
I think,
many traditional societies
do teach women that their ultimate goal is
to be married. Right? And, you know, we
could argue that that's
that's we want women to think of marriage
as important. Otherwise, they want to swipe and
not go for it. Right? I'm not saying
that. It is. It is an ultimate goal.
I'm talking
about what's your
is your husband
Right.
Is that The peak. Is like Is it
is it the peak? Is it the peak?
Right. Right. And I'm not talking about in
serving him and being kind because that's part
of the. That's that's your fault.
Yeah. Right? But but who are
you obeying by doing that? You're obeying others,
but you're obeying Allah's order. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
100%.
Yeah. 100%. Allah remove I think Allah removes
them.
Mhmm.
Sure. Go ahead.
Yeah. No. I think I think we might
be saying the same thing, But I I
think that the coping mechanism,
which is that, you know, as and I
think what I see sisters doing who are
genuine
is you may have had all these hopes
for this marriage and and for the family
that you wanted. Right?
And so when I see divorce coaches working
with with divorcees who are dealing with a
lot of stigma and pain and guilt already.
Right? Because of, you know, the way that
divorce is seen.
And I and I understand why it's seen
that way
because I I actually don't think that it's
healthy for us as Muslims to remove stigma
completely.
Because if we remove stigma
completely
as a society,
there will be no shame. Right? There will
be nothing that's, like, off, you know, out
of bounds, and we we can't have that.
However,
I digress. My point is,
I think the issue is not so much
sisters who are widowed or being, you know,
have been divorced whether it was they they
asked for it or they were divorced by
their husband trying to find meaning in their
lives now that they are no longer wives.
I don't think that's the issue. I think
the issue is that their narrative
seems to be almost dominating the narrative amongst
Muslim women who by and large are not
divorcees
and are by and large kind of not
in that situation.
So like I said, you've got divorcees talking
about marriage, and you've got single women talking
about Muslim men as if, like, they've they've
got this. You know what I'm saying? When
really it should be wives talking about marriage
and and married women talking about men. I
think this woman that's what I think. It's
like a like like a a broke man
trying to teach people how to make money.
You know?
I don't think you're gonna take any lessons
from that person. We need to we need
successful,
women to speak to divorced women, to teach
them how to take things back and and
then start working towards why give up? Why
why be satisfied
with this failure? It is a failure.
And it's not just and it's not just
her failure.
Maybe he has more share in that failure,
but the whole relationship failed. But does that
mean that you're just going to give in
to that? No. You need someone who has
worked it out, who has a successful track
record and say, look,
I understand what you're going through. Right. But
I'm not gonna tell you what just come
on my side and be divorced. I mean,
you need to get back in there in
the game and start, you know, because that's
that's what Allah wants you to be. Allah
wants for you,
and Allah wants for you to build a
family. And even if you have to start
again 2, 3, 4, 5 times, well, guess
what? Some Sahabi'at were married 2, 3, 4,
5 times.
Wow. Okay. Well, I think that's
a befitting note,
to end this conversation. I really, really enjoyed
it. I thought we covered a lot of
a lot of ground, a lot of interesting
ground. I had a ton more questions, guys,
but we have to wrap it up for
today. Maybe brother Gabriel will come back and
join us on a Sunday night livestream,
Inshallah. Brother Gabriel, where can people find you,
online Inshallah?
And what do you want them to find
you for? Very important.
Okay. Well, you can find me on Instagram
or on YouTube. Just type.
And you can find me for positive Islamic
psychology. You can find me for,
masculinity,
what men want, stuff like that.
Thank you so much for joining me. And,
guys, don't forget to subscribe to the channel,
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