Naima B. Robert – Single Muslim Women Part 3

Salam Alaikum, I'm back. Because I wanted to just finish off what I

was saying. And too many things are coming to me, it's upon Allah

Bismillah. For those of you who may hear this, or may see that a

sister leaves a marriage, and she, whether it was domestic violence,

or whether it's a divorce, or whatever the case may be, she

leaves a marriage. And she's struggling. Yeah, she may be

struggling with the kids who may be struggling financially. And

people say, Oh, she should have stayed. You see, now look, now

she's a burden on the community. Now somebody else has to be

worried about her nobody, you know, now like, she's, you know,

she's, she's, she's, she's Dishonored herself. Right? I

really want to speak to that for a minute. Because, as I said, in my

previous life, every, every choice has a consequence. Okay? Every

choice has a consequence. So let's look at the situation of a of an

abusive marriage. If you leave that marriage, yes, you will pay a

price, there's a cost, you will no longer have the kind of protection

that you had in your home, whatever protection that was

right, you will probably have to leave that home, you may have to

leave a lot of your belongings behind, it will be stressful for

you, it will be tough for your children, they may not understand,

you may or may not get the support of family members. So it will be

it will be challenging. So that is a fact.

Now, let's look at the scenario where she decides to stay in the

abusive marriage. For a lot of people, and this is something that

I've noticed lately is that we have our brain is always involved

in distortion. Okay, we are always distorting facts to justify what

we already believe or to to shore up what we already believe. So we

believe marriage is good and divorces bad.

So now what happens in the case of an abusive marriage, is that the

bad part of the marriage is downplayed. While the good part of

being married is kind of highlighted, right? At least your

children have their father at home. At least you are still

married and you're not divorced and a complete pariah. At least

you don't rely on anyone from outside, you know, at least this

at least that Okay. Very much kind of hyping up those aspects that

are still true about the marriage, and downplaying the other things,

and what are some of those other things? Well, for one, the

physical harm that may come to the wife, and very often to her

children, not only the physical harm, but the emotional harm, and

not only the emotional harm, but the psychological harm, and the

psychological harm to the wife to the woman who's being abused, and

the generational trauma that is being inflicted on those children.

I'm gonna say that, again, the generational trauma of what is

being inflicted on those children.

Not to mention, the fact that the abuser is enabled to continue the

abuse, thus earning Allah's wrath and deserving Allah's punishment.

I'm gonna let you sit with that for a minute.

I'm gonna let you sit with that for a minute. Because all of those

people out there who are encouraging abused wives to stay

with their husbands and who are not calling out the abuse, or not

putting their hand up to stop the abuse or not protecting the

vulnerable who are being abused. Every single one of you is an

enabler of an oppressor, you are enabling oppression. And Allah

declares war on the oppressor. That person, even if they get away

with it in this life, do you really think Allah subhanaw taala

is not going to question them? Do you really think that Allah's

Panatela is not going to punish them severely for that, and you

enabled that? And that's because, again, I'm going to come back

around to this. That's because you were more willing to pay the price

of silence and complicity in order to keep the peace, then pay the

price of actually stepping up to protect the people you're supposed

to protect. And that's the people who are vulnerable in this

situation. So again, you see the distortion that happens.

Marriages, good divorces bad. Marriage is good regardless of how

painful and damaging it is. And divorce is bad, no matter how

liberating and empowering it is. Yes. Give me yes in the chat if

y'all know what I'm talking about.

I'm not saying every marriage is bad. I'm not saying every divorce

is good. But it's interesting how we are prepared to accept way too

much garbage in the name of marriage and

and are prepared to downgrade and completely deny the the gift that

divorce can bring in the right circumstances. This is a

distortion that we need to stop because women and children are

suffering as a result of this. If you say that, you know, as I said

before, everything comes at a cost everything. And so you just need

to ask yourself, Okay,

what am I prepared to pay for? And what is it that I actually want?

And exactly says, you know, and all of this happening in the name

of Islam as well, which is even worse, that's actually even worse.

Because when you use the deen to justify

LOM

when you use the deen to justify abuse, and violence, and neglect,

humiliation, oppression,

this is another level, this is a totally different level of

oppression, a totally different level of blackmail of religious

and emotional blackmail. Okay, and not only that, I'm gonna go back

to this point I made earlier, it sets the bar so low for us and our

men and our children. It sets the bar low for our community. None

other than our sisters. They say a single parent household is broken.

But really the only thing that's broken is a home without

contentment and love 100% says, yes, thank you. That is exactly

it.

If a woman is broken, the home is broken. That's it.

If a woman is broken, the home is broken. And I don't actually care

whether everybody in the in the in the family is happy with it.

Because there are people who thrive off your brokenness as

true. There are children who thrive off your brokenness kind

of. And there are husbands and in laws and families that thrive off

your brokenness. They they love the fact that you don't have

boundaries. They love the fact that you can't speak up for

yourself. They love the fact that you have completely annihilated

yourself for their benefit. They love it. They love it. Because it

makes their life easy. And that's what they want. But my point is

this not to get sidetracked. My point is that it sets the bar so

low for our community. When we say that, basically,

you stay there. And you you take whatever he dishes out, because

that's your husband. Because then what does that give license to our

men to do? What does this teach our sons? What does this teach our

daughters? What are we giving them permission to do? We're giving

them permission to do all the things that the Prophet SAW Selim

warned us about.

Boom, I'm gonna say it again. We are giving them permission to do

all the things that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam warned

us against, and that Allah spoke about in the Quran. We give them

permission to neglect their responsibilities, to be violent,

to get angry, and to take their angry out or their anger out on

those who are less you know, those who are beneath them. We give them

permission to use, you know, bad language, we give them permission

to, you know, to oppress just the bottom line. We give them

permission to oppress even though Allah Subhana Allah has forbidden

oppression. What is that?

What is that?

So it's no wonder that they continue the cycle, because that's

what we gave them permission to do. So mothers fathers families,

we need to step up and set a just a higher standard for our

families.

The standard of Islam, the best of manners, a HELOC. Good Behavior,

humility, caring for each other, caring about each other, being

generous giving

upholding the truth, Upholding justice.

When it comes to these types of when it comes to behind closed

doors, our community is very good at keeping just keeping stone.

It's like we don't have to talk about justice or you know the

truth or anything like that. If it's behind your closed doors,

that's where we want it to stay. Just don't make a fuss and don't

make us know about your business. We don't want to know about your

business.

And that's why I feel like the the way that the conversation ends up

being about single mothers and about divorced women is a big

problem for me. And I'll tell you why. Why the focus is on women and

I could be wrong Allahu Allah, but this is what I see. The reason

that we focus on women when we are talking about single mothers and

divorcees is because we believe

that, if she had done things the way he wanted, he would not have

divorced her bone

is her fault. If she had done what he asked, he would not have

divorced her. Therefore it is her fault that she's in the situation

that she's in. That is why it is easy for us to look at single

mothers and divorces as creators of their own problem. Okay, that's

their fault. It's their fault. If they had listened if they had been

submissive if they had given him what he wanted, if they had

dressed up, if they had done this and done that, we wouldn't have

this problem, we wouldn't have to have Sharia Council, we wouldn't

have to have these kids who don't have a father wouldn't have to be

looking at, you know, money for these kids and didn't at all.

It would not be the community's problem anymore. It's interesting,

because

there is never a conversation as to what the man did to to create

the situation. Not only is there not a conversation about how the

man or the couple contributed to the breakdown of the marriage, but

also if there was an irrevocable breakdown. Where are the fathers

for these children? Why are they absent? Why are they not giving

the money that they're supposed to give? Why have they abandoned

their children? While they're not being called out? Why are they not

being told? I fear Allah, these are your children. Why is the

conversation all about single mothers who can't control their

kids? Those kids have fathers? They have fathers we're not

talking about kids born out of wedlock here we're talking about

children born in the sanctity of marriage. So why now are they

found fatherless because the Father Yes says is busy looking

for an ex wife. Exactly. But no one's gonna call them out on that

because man's got knees you get me

like I said, guys, I am I am. I am definitely like, what's the word?

I'm generalizing. And mashallah, there are families and communities

that really work hard to bring about

Islam, between the people who did Allah may Allah bless you and may

Allah continue to do that because it's what's needed. It's what's

needed. Yeah. So I'm not saying this. I'm not using you know,

tarring everyone with the same brush. Please don't say that I am

but this is what I'm seeing.

And we need to start talking about these things and we need to start

taking action against these things because they are damaging us and

they are damaging our children. And so that is all I have to say

on this. So please, may Allah forgive me if I said anything

wrong. Any good is from hims Panama dalla and any mistakes is

from myself on the shape on my Allah bless us all. Accept our

fasts, accept our deeds and place us in the very highest rank speed

Nila. I hope to see you next time inshallah. Salonika