Recorded at the ICNA Houston Conference – 2013
Saad Tasleem – 8 Misconceptions About Love
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses various misconceptions about love and relationships, including the belief that only perfect couples are allowed to have issues with their partner, the belief that love requires work, and the belief that it cannot be broken by a relationship. He also emphasizes the importance of finding the right person for one's love and protecting oneself in relationships.
AI: Summary ©
Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh
Okay, are there any kids in the house anyone younger than let's say
14?
If you could raise your hand, okay, if y'all could just leave inshallah.
Why are you laughing? Not not. What's going on here? It's not cool. Okay, okay. So Carlos, there's a couple things inshallah Tada. I wanted to discuss that I might not discuss inshallah. code words. Okay, so maybe, maybe we'll use some code words, I might need to shift downwards help without coming up with the code words, Sharma. Okay. misconceptions about love hamdulillah. I've been in a position for the last almost two years, where I get a chance to speak to a lot of people. And I've been put in a position where I very often have been put in front of young people. So one of the outcomes of that is that young people come to me for advice. And the other thing that I've seen is that a lot of
young couples come to me for advice. So obviously, older couples, they look at me, they're like this young guy wearing this ridiculous leather jacket. We're not going to go to him for advice, but the younger crowd does come to me for advice. And so for me this these last few years, they've been a learning experience in terms of the types of problems that a lot of the young couples especially and I'm not not saying that the older generation don't, they don't face these problems. But I'm saying I've found it prevalent in the younger generation. And a lot of these problems. What I've what I've noticed in these last two years is that a lot of these problems stem from misconceptions,
misconceptions that young people, and I hate to generalize, but I have to hear a little bit misconceptions that young people tend to have about love and relationships. And All right, so I compiled a list in Charlottetown. And I did this the first time doing this, I compiled a short list of my top eight misconceptions in shallow data about love and relationships. Number one, first misconception or first issue
that infatuation
equals love, or not being able to distinguish between infatuation and love. infatuation is the initial feelings of lust and attraction. And those butterflies in your stomach, which most people tend to confuse for love. They tend to think that that initial feeling when you look at someone in your eyes and meet someone, and you feel butterflies in your stomach, and in your head, there's like a Bollywood movie going off in the background. And you're in the field somewhere running through or something like that. That is what most people tend to think they think that is low. And, and yeah, it's kind of weird, a little bit weird.
But that is actually infatuation, there was the initial feeling that you have towards someone. Love, on the other hand, is something that takes time. So as we know, when a couple when they get married, of course, Allah subhana wa tada puts love and mercy in their hearts. But that's the birth, that's the birth of the love. And as time goes on, the more you put into love, the love will grow and get stronger. Now, one of the issues I've found with with this point is that sometimes young people, they will base their decisions regarding the person that they want to marry or the person that they're in love with, based off of their infatuation with them. So they may overlook serious issues
of in compatibility, for example, so you have a brother and sister who want to get married. And on the face value, like if you were to talk to them, if you didn't know that they were in love, or whatever, you'd say you two are never compatible. And most likely, if they were to go speak to a chef or the mom or something like that, or they got some premarital counseling or something like that, the it's very likely that the mom or someone would tell them, Listen, you guys have a lot of issues that you need to work out before you actually enter into a relationship. So that's, that's, that's the first step. The first thing is power. I remember once a brother came up to me young
brother, and he told me to shift, I'm in love with this girl, not at all this kind of stuff. And I said, Okay, tell me about her. And I know this brother very well. So I was like, Okay, tell me about her. And I was like, if you can, if you can tell me about her, I will give you my advice on whether I think inshallah two out of the two of you will be compatible or not. And then he told me about her. And then I realized that she is very, very different than him. And he was actually a religious brother. She was completely not religious and all of that. And so I said, I told him, I said, Listen, what's the deal here? Like, I know, this is not like you. If I were to ask you, normally, I
would never imagine that you would marry someone like this. In terms of like your religiosity or whatever you want to call it, you guys are on very different levels. And then he tells me, he says, you know, shift, I just I just felt like the first time I met her, you know, I just felt it just felt right. And I felt like this is the one this is my soulmate, which I will talk about soulmates inshallah, but he said, this is the one and I said, Okay, let me just
ask you one question. I send you think about this question and then and then tell me what you feel about the decision that you're about to make. I said, inshallah, tada, this girl or this woman, she will inshallah tada one day, be the mother of your children.
She's going to be the person, raising your children, giving your children the Tobia and upbringing and all of that. Are you comfortable with this person? raising your children?
And do you foresee any issues? And then he thought about it for a while, and I told him, I said, you know, go home, think about it, come back to me. And then he came back to me. And he told me, he said, he said, I don't see it. He said, I never I never thought that far ahead. And that's the problem, infatuation that people we get so blinded by this quote, unquote, love that people don't tend to think beyond the attraction that they have, initially. So that's misconception number one. I don't know how I'm gonna keep this under 10 minutes, but I'll try.
Okay,
number to seven minutes. So okay.
Second misconception that people have about love and relationships is that if someone loves you, so someone, they don't tell themselves, if this person really loves me, then they will change for me. So they'll tell themselves that, you know, even though once again, we may not be compatible, we may have a lot of issues, a lot of differences, but we love each other, and inshallah, tada, we'll make it work. And I know like, there's things I don't like about her, but I will change her inshallah, and out of her love for me, she will change, or she may be telling herself out of his love for me, it will change. And as they say, love conquers all right? Have you guys heard that? love conquers
all, they say, you know what we'll get through all of this, because of our love. And found a lot this is this, once again, one of one of the main issues that I've seen is that when people get over that infatuation stage, they realize that it's very, very hard to change someone else. And it's really that person who has to want to change themselves. And once you're no longer infatuated with the person, and it's no longer past that honeymoon stage, or whatever they call it, five, six months, four months, two months, depending on who you ask, right? Once you're past that stage, it's very difficult. So I always tell young couples, I said, Listen, this person, the way they are in
front of you right now, the way you see them, marry them,
keeping in mind are telling yourself that they're never going to change. And if you're happy with them the way they are right now, then go ahead and get married. But don't make the assumption or don't assume that they're going to change or don't tell yourself that yes, one day, this person will change. Number three, third misconception
that by getting married,
you are completing yourself. And as they say, you know, I'm looking for my other half when people try to get married, or people say my better half, you know, sometimes in the beginning of marriage, especially people say, my better half right? The issue here. The issue here is that when a person tells themself and they say, I have issues right now, I don't feel whole, I have problems with myself. But once I get married, my spouse will complete me. And all the problems that I'm dealing with in life are my problem is in my Eman and whatever else I'm dealing with, my spouse will make up for that. Because she has the strengths that I want for myself, and I may have some strengths, and
we'll complete each other, and islamically how long we don't depend on our spouse to complete us, our spouse can help. But once again, we can't count on that. Right? And it's also the issue of our relationship being whole with a loss of data, or at least a striving to make our relationship whole without loss. How do I get to Allah.
And keeping that in mind before we get married, right, and the most important things Pamela is actually our relationship with the last panel tab. Right. And if you're in a relationship with Allah subhanaw taala, is fine, then your relationship will be helped by that. Right And so once again, issue is depending on your spouse to complete you or help you complete your your email. And a lot of times what happens all the other issues I've seen here is that sometimes we, when you when you marry someone with the intention that they will complete me, or that they will make it better and all that we tend to leave put our self worth in their hands. Right? We tend to tell ourselves that if my
spouse You know, they're the ones who are gonna make me feel better about myself, and they're the ones who are going to make me whole and we forget that our self worth
is truly defined, at least according to Islam. Our self worth is defined by our relationship with Allah subhana wa Tada. And that's an amazing unbreakable thing when a person puts their self worth
In their piety, or their relationship with Allah subhanaw taala, they will be secure in their relationship. Because they don't need they don't have that need to have their spouse always tell them that you're amazing or you're perfect, which is all good. And Allah something that spouses should do, they should encourage one another and praise one another. But they don't rely on that single factor to make them feel make themselves feel whole or make themselves feel complete.
There's a story of the Ola hotel on which shift or Mr. de mon, I believe, shares in his class, is that correct? Yeah. And I shared my class as well. So if you've taken our classes, you've probably heard it twice. The story is that it's basically a, it's a very, very, very nice story. But one of the points of the story that I want to mention here is where the person said, basically, he grabs a head on the left and puts it on loves that had very much one of the companions across them. He grabbed them from from the back, and then one in the price that um, says who will buy this slave from me? All right, it's like a joke that I was playing on Saturday a lot that is to show us love
and affection for him. And his or her once he realizes the process that um, he realizes Martina was joking with him. He actually moves further into the brace wants to hold on to him tighter. And at one point, he says, He says O Messenger of Allah, I think you will find that I am unsellable that no one will really pay much for me. And they say about the love that I earn, that he wasn't like the best looking guy, right? wasn't that good looking or whatever. And he knew that. So he says, the price that I'm he says, Listen, I, I think you will find that if you try to sell me like no one's gonna pay anything for me. And so the price that I'm telling him, he says, most certainly oza him
with Allah subhanho wa Taala, you are extremely valuable.
And what a lot what what the process that I was teaching is that all the stuff that I'm here is that your value doesn't depend on your looks, on what people how people see you and whether they think you're a valuable person or not. He tells him a lot I send them he tells about the love that he says Allah subhanho wa Taala finds you valuable. And here we see the price that I'm teaching the companions about self worth, where their self worth lies. And it's very important that before people jump into a relationship or get into a relationship, they understand that that in the end of the day, their spouse may be happy with them, they may be upset at them, they may be proud of them, they
may be disappointed with you like your spouse may be disappointed at you. But your self worth is directly tied to your relationship with Allah subhanho wa Taala.
Also misconception number
four,
there is one single person out there for each and every one of us. And this goes back to the issue of your soulmate. One of the things I talk about in my classes is this issue and how pop culture and Hollywood and romantic comedies and all that one of the things that all this teaches us is that one of your goals in life is for you to find your soulmate, that one person out there in the world somewhere who is perfect for you, and they're going to once you meet them, everything is going to be perfect. Everything is going to be amazing. Like I said, if you're in a Bollywood movie, there's going to be like fireworks and stuff in the background. And you're going to know this is the person,
right? This is the one person for me how I remember the first time I taught my class.
After I mentioned the issue of the soulmate, a sister came up to me and she said sure. Are you telling me I don't have a soulmate?
And I said, Well, it depends. If by soulmate, you mean that there's only one person out there, who once you meet them, you're going to know there's going to be butterflies in your stomach and everything's going to be amazing, and they're going to be perfect, and they're never going to say anything to upset you. And they're always going to know when to bring you flowers, and your mind will be on the same wavelength that all the time, right? Whatever you're thinking, this person knows. If that's what you think a soulmate is, then yes, I'm telling you, you don't have a soulmate. However, if you mean that Allah Subhana Allah has decreed for you to marry a certain individual. And
you want to call that person your soulmate that handed in law, no problem, go ahead and call that person, your soulmate. Right. So now the issue here is when we tell ourselves that there's only one person, and that person will be perfect, and there's gonna be no issues and all of that, and I've had this happened to me as well. A sister came up to me, and she said, um, you know, I'm having some issues with my husband, and we're having problems. And she said, it wasn't like that in the beginning. But now you know, we're having all these issues. And then she says to me something which Pamela very hurt me very much. It was actually the first time I'd heard it. Now. I've heard it many
times. But it was the first time I heard this. And what the sister said to me, she said, I think I married the wrong person. And I said, Why? And she said, because I don't think he's my soul mate.
That's probably not the issue that they were having. We're not like major issues like that are grounds for divorce or anything like that. Right? These are issues where she's like, Yeah, I just don't feel that connection anymore. Right? Like, it's just not there. Like, my heart is just not there. And, you know, we don't, he doesn't know what I'm thinking, right? Like, it just doesn't. So I think I marry the wrong person, I need to go find my soulmate. Right? That's misconception number four. Number five.
Once you find your soulmate,
they will be perfect. They will be absolutely perfect, there's going to be no issues with your soulmate. Now, seeking perfection is a big problem. And I've narrowed it down to two big issues with seeking perfection, or looking for that perfect person that soulmate or whatever. Number one is that that person doesn't exist. As we said, there's no one who is perfect. So a brother or sister may spend their whole life trying to find that perfect person. And a lot of you think you may think I'm exaggerating, but I once again, I've seen this happen. Now what's stopping a certain brother from getting married? This dude's like 35 getting on to 40, right? He's got a job he can provide for all
that kind of stuff. But he's not married yet. Why? His mom brings him a new girl every weekend, right? Check her out. What do you think about her? He's like, Yeah, I don't know. There's a couple issues here and there. Let's see what else you got. Right? And this is started when the guy was like 2510 years later, he's still look, he's still going through sisters. Right? Every day, someone else like yeah, I don't know if this person but you're never gonna find that person. There's no single person out there. Who is perfect. There's something I believe I mentioned my earlier talk as well. No matter how big of a scholar someone is, no matter how big of a mound, there they are, no matter
how popular they think there are, there is no individual on the face of Earth on the face of the earth today who is perfect, who doesn't make mistakes, but doesn't have certain shortcomings. Who doesn't have certain issues, right? So you're not going to find that person. Number two. The other problem with looking for perfection is that if you marry someone on the assumption that they are perfect, that they are your soulmate, then you're going to be let down very quickly. Right? in a short period of time, you're going to find out that they have issues and they have mistakes. And I get it I get it. We live in a in a culture where we're told like you watch TV, and you watch movies
and things like that. You watch the notebook, for example. And you're like, Oh, my God, Ryan Gosling is like, perfect in this movie. Right? Like, I want that I want that like to a sister Mary watching a notebook. And she tells herself she says, that is the type of guy that I want my for myself. Right? I want I want my Ryan Gosling. Except in this one of the things I often say, I want my Ryan Gosling, except I want him wearing a job and I want him with a beard. Right? That's the difference. That's the difference between that Ryan Gosling and my Ryan Gosling, this person doesn't exist. And you're going to have issues if you marry someone with the assumption that they are perfect. Even
like, I get it, we live in a culture even cPanel. And this is an issue, which
I was debating whether to bring up here or not. But I think this is an issue which is common now. Even in the Islamic circles, even in like the debt the way debt was, is the Darrow scene is right now, a lot of young people look up to speakers, and and scholars and people who are well known. And they just assume that this person because they're on stage, because they're giving a talk, because they have knowledge. It's not that they are perfect, that they have no issues. And that is now
he said, Don't blow a cover. I'm about to blow your cover cover really hard right now.
I'll share a story with you. Okay. This is a story that happened with a close friend of mine actually share the story of my class as well. So I'm taking my class, you've heard this story before. a close friend of mine who's a well known speaker, and I'm not gonna say his name. But if I said his name, I would imagine that almost everyone in this room would know who this person is this, this brother in law, protect him. He was the Imam of a community for a long time. So he'd get a lot of phone calls. People would call him with issues and this and that. So one day, he gets a phone call, and it's his sister. And it was an odd because, you know, like I said, He's email people call
him with their problems and all that. So he gets a call, and he picks up the phone. And it's the sister she says that I'm on a comb. This is why it comes around. And she goes, Shay.
I'm in love with you.
And this brother Marsha, one of the things I say about him is this guy's a boss, right? He's He's a boss. So you know what he says, Sir, he goes, sister. If you're not in love with me, you're in love with your perception of me. You're in love with who you think I am. He says if you only could talk to my wife, she would tell you
I'm not telling the story yet.
He said, If you could only speak to my wife, she would tell you how I make her cry every single day. Right? And he slammed the phone. Right? So we assume that because people may be good looking or whatever, like ship over semaan, obviously, right? And they're a public speaker.
Anyway, the point is perfection doesn't exist, right? Even people who look amazing and they may be very amazing people like I know shape commerce today, man. All jokes aside all jokes. All jokes aside, I love them for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala.
Okay, moving on, what what point was that number 54666. I promise I'm almost done. I know. I'm like five minutes over my time. Do you guys allow me to continue.
Number six, number six. The sixth misconception people have about love is that love is effortless or love is supposed to be effortless, that if you love someone, and they love you, and you know if they're your soulmate, and all that love is not going to require any work, that you don't have to put anything into your relationship. You either love the person or you don't. And the reality of the matter is that love. The truth is that love always requires work. And that's that's love in your relationship, not only with your spouse, it's with anyone who you love, right? Even your parents, who you have that natural inborn love, you can increase that love, you can strengthen that love by
being obedient to your parents, for example, right doing things for your parents, being kind, generous to your parents, or you can decrease that love by being disrespectful to your parents and things like that. And even Suppan, along with what he must have allowed for las pantallas is the highest example. Even with a loss of how
we can increase our love for Allah, if we are obedient to a loss. The more obedient we are,
the more we worship Allah subhanaw taala the more of our life we submit to Allah subhanaw taala The more we strengthen our love for Allah subhanho wa Taala. And the more we disobey Allah subhanaw taala The more we disregard the obligations and all of that, though, what we will find is that even with Allah subhanaw taala our love for Allah will weaken. Right, love requires work. And this is something a lot of young people, they just don't get this, right, the whole concept. Either you love some person or you don't, or you don't love some person, and they don't realize that love indeed requires a lot of work. Number seven, that true love. The seventh misconception that true love is
unconditional, that if someone truly loves you, and you love them, or let's say and I'm actually once again, another case study, someone came to me I was talking to this couple,
they're having issues with one another. And one of one of the things that I came to realize is that they had very unrealistic expectations from each other. And then one of the problems was that the the sister, when talking to her, I realized that she her concept of love is very skewed, because she believes that her husband has to love her no matter what. Right? Whether she's a good wife or not what she does not it doesn't matter. This is your soulmate, the love will always be there. It does not dependent on what you do for your spouse when and same thing like the same thing happens on the guy side as well. And especially it's I would say, especially on the guy side, where a guy says
you're my wife, you have to love me no matter what, right or, or especially like if you believe you married your soulmate, that because you're my soulmate, this love will be there. It doesn't matter how we treat each other, or what we do, that love cannot be broken. And once again, when people begin to see that their love is doesn't have that same factor and their spouse doesn't love them unconditionally. They may resort to saying something like, maybe you're not the right person for me. Maybe you're not my soulmate, or something like that. Lastly, last issue is that you're always ready for love. As long as it's the right person. I'll say it again. You're always ready for love as long
as it's the right person. So basically it doesn't matter where you are your life doesn't matter.
how much you've done or what you're capable of, and all of that none of that matters. When you find the right person, when you find your soulmate, for example, then that is the right time to be in love. And that is the right time to be in a relationship, you're always ready as long as it's the right person. And the truth of the matter is, this is one of his I know, I put this at the end. But this is one of the biggest issues that I've seen, you know, about, I would say 10 or 15 years ago, before I went to Medina. But when when I remember, back in the day, when I first started practicing Islam, when there was a revival in the derawan, there's a lot of speakers coming on the scene and
people calling to Islam and all that. One of the things that a lot of speakers would say that always encouraged the youth to get married young, right, the scholars and the speakers in America, they would tell young people like listen, you're young, there's so much fit tonight in this society, there's so many issues, so many problems that we temptations. So one of the things you can do to protect yourself is to get married young. And to paddle up because of that whole era. We're actually seeing that the some of the problems of that era today. And one of the problems is that people jumped into relationships back then unprepared. Right? They were like, okay, the only thing that
matters is that I find someone and I get married. So people will get married. And they don't understand some basic things that a person should know, before they enter into a relationship. For example, just the simple fact or understanding that men and women are different. There are times when women react differently to situations and men react differently. There's nothing you can do to change the person, there's going to be the time when your spouse reacts in a certain way, and you just cannot understand it, you have no choice. But to accept it. You can bang your head on the wall, you can go crazy, you can pull your hair out, you can do whatever you want. But this is how she
understands the situation. Right? And so you have you just have to accept that at certain times. Like the understanding that there are certain difference between men and women. One of the things that scholars of the past they would say panela is that I think this isn't used to be revived today as well. They would say that it is impermissible for a person to get married. Until they understand the rulings of marriage and divorce the fact of marriage and divorce, at least the basic fact of marriage and divorce and spousal law, how many people today get married and they don't have a clue. I single issue happens and it's like I don't know what to do call the Imam start freaking out
because they have no idea and a bigger issue that is not understanding the rights and responsibilities that you have as as a as a spouse, and paddler one of the misconceptions brothers have is that my only responsibility for example is I have to provide her with food, shelter, and clothing. Right? And especially like this is something I saw from religious brothers who like you know, maybe are not providing wealth for their family and when questions Hey, listen, what's the deal? Like why aren't you providing for your family and she has certain needs and wants and all that kind of stuff? Why can't you provide that and he says listen, shut up Sharon, according to the
shitty are the only thing they surely are asked of me that I'm required to do is provide her with
food, shelter, and clothing. And some had a lot that is a very limited understanding of what the Shetty requires. Right? So not having the knowledge of what a relationship takes. And this is why one of the things that I always tell anyone who comes to me for advice regarding getting married, I say always, always, always get premarital counseling. Right? Always for me, like if someone wants me to do any gas or something, I'll be honest, I'm not touching your kneecap with a 10 foot pole. Unless you can prove to me that you've gotten some premarital counseling done that you can show to me that you know what it means to be married. You can you've had to at least think about some of the
situations that will come up when you get married. Right and a Lost Planet Allah knows best that's my top eight. list and shall without and shall without our Misha from the brothers can add to what I've said in the last para todos best