Tom Facchine – Riyadh al-Saliheen and Women’s Q&A #30
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the negative reactions to people showing their loss of father, including distraction, distraction, and belief that grieving is not an act of grief. They stress the importance of compassion and allowing people to express their grief, emphasizing the need for men to be allowed to express their grief and not be punished for their actions. The process of divorce is discussed, including the importance of statement of divorce and the need for a marriage contract. The speakers emphasize the importance of avoiding a marriage contract and educating women on their rights and responsibilities during divorce. The length of waiting periods for divorce is also discussed, with women experiencing a period of divorce before getting divorced and the importance of severance gifts and severance guarantees. The segment emphasizes the importance of early marriage preparation and counseling, and encourages attendees to share ideas and feedback.
AI: Summary ©
salatu salam, ala Ashraf, an MBA almost an interview now, Muhammad Ali he sort of saw that as a sneak on Lahoma and interview May and Farah now one fat nothing that I learned when I was in England, the enemy.
Okay, let's say I want to come after that, everybody, welcome.
Let's get right to it
just kidding it's not Arabic
There we go.
So tonight we have a new Hadith
have you
on the Aloha? Who said that when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was very ill?
So much so that his illness made him faint or made him unconscious, his daughter Fatima, or the Allahu anha said, Ah, the distress of my dear father.
He's a little Avani who has on him said there will be no distress for your father after today.
When he dies Allahu alayhi wa sallam, She then said, my father Allah has called you back and you have responded to his call. Oh Father garden of filth house is your abode. Oh Father, we announced to the real your death
when he was buried, so Allahu Allahu wa salam, she said, Are you satisfied now that you put earth over the grave of the Messenger of Allah.
This is a Hadith in Sahih al Bukhari, we have three statements from Fatima
that happened in isolation to each other, but the author here has put them together under one heading to try to tell us something.
What is he trying to tell us? What's the point of
what's the lesson that Imam nawawi is trying to teach us with these three
different statements from Fatima? What's the what's the common thread
we have one that happens before her father passes away so I set up
and she is kind of be moaning or lamenting the pain that her father is in
and then you have right after
the prophesy son have died.
And she is responding to that event. Father Your Lord has answered your prayer Father the garden filled dosis your shelter etc.
And then the final statements after they put him into the ground so Aloha you Sunday
what's email I know we're getting out here
oh, let's have a guess. Somebody take us take a shot
Okay, think about what chapter we're in.
Okay, there's your hint.
What chapter are we in? And what do these statements have to do with the chapter that we're in?
Okay, we are in the chapter chapter three. Chapter One was sincerity. Chapter Two was
Toba repentance and chapter three is patience Saba
or we go
Oh, I'm fine with uncomfortable silence. I actually enjoy it.
Okay, okay. Patients Yes, yes. Okay. But what what has even been that we trying to teach us about patients with this heavy
Okay, yeah, let's work through it. Let's work through it. Okay, so she asks if he's in pain. Okay, right.
That's the translation that we have right in front of us in my translation. It has an exclamation. Not necessarily a question. Oh, how much pain my father isn't? Right. Obviously, thought the mom knows that her father is in pain. Right? She if this is not a question Jani is to have him. She's not actually seeking information. She knows he's in pain he's passing out. Right? So what's the point of her asking?
How is faulty my feeling about the pain of her father? So?
What's her emotional response? Yeah, she's upset. She's distressed. She's worried.
That's her response to seeing her father in pain.
So here's
what does your mama know we want to teach us about patience.
By showing us this little dialogue where Fatima is upset.
Is Imam and now we trying to say that Fatima wasn't patient?
Or is he trying to show us? What are the borders and boundaries and contours of patients?
Is he perhaps responding to people who would go too far?
Right? Don't we have it in the Muslim community when some sort of calamity or some sort of thing happens to somebody? And very well meaning people
are very quick to kind of Hush, hush, be patient, be patient, so much so that it can actually be suffering, it's suffocating.
So much so that it doesn't actually give space for a person to grieve, or to feel sad or lament.
Doesn't that does that? Does that or does that not happen in our community?
That's a rhetorical question. I know what happens our community.
So innominate over here is showing us that found the most reactions do not violate patience.
They are not contradictory to patience
to lament the pain of yourself or have someone that you love does not contradict patience.
That recalling and recounting the virtues of the deceased, that's what she does in a second quote, Father, the garden of Fidel says your shelter.
Father, Your Lord has answered your prayer.
Somebody we can imagine somebody from our community coming up to such a person and saying, you know, the dead don't hear right. Which by the way, the majority opinion is that the dead do hear but they can't respond.
Right, we can see a situation where people are rushing to correct and to smother. And EMA Minogue is telling us that these are acceptable expressions of grief and patients within a snap.
It does not contradict patients to grieve or to lament one's own pain or the pain of their loved one, nor does it contradict patients to call out in the motion to your deceased relative and to make a a kind of
an emotional plea or a passion kind of statement
that recognizes and honors the fact that they are dead.
The types of things
that are impermissible for us in the grieving process
are excesses.
Right.
And excess externally.
And they lack of faith internally. Right. Those are the things that we have to avoid. So externally there's a Nia Ha, there's like wailing, there's self harm self mutilation, right? You have to understand the context here. Okay. What did the what did the Arabs used to do? at funerals?
Right? They used to actually pay women to come and a whale and make a scene
at their relative's funeral, and it was like a competition. Because if the the more wailing people you had at your funeral, the more beloved you seemed and the more you know, honor it brought to you and your family. So people would compete and they would hire out mourners. This sounds like a like a neoliberal thing like the commodification of mourning, but it's actually something that was going on back then. And so the prophesy Saddam and Islam put a stop to all of this.
So that this is excessive.
This is not even genuine mourning.
But it also put limits on expressions of grief. It put a red line at self mutilation, you're not supposed to tear it you're tear your hair out or tear your skin until you bleed or rip your clothes or things like this all forbidden, indifferent Hadith of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasallam. That's one extreme.
But the other extreme is to imagine that we can express no grief that any expression of grief contradicts patients with Allah's destiny and decree
or even acceptance and pleasure at Allah's decree.
So we have Hadith such as this where no, no, he is educating us. He's showing you look, this is how Fathima dealt with the grief of her of her father. So La Jolla center.
And so these are acceptable, perfectly acceptable ways of grieving,
they do not fall into the extreme of
disingenuous
or self harm,
sort of spectacular morning.
But at the same time, no one can accuse her of having transgressed any bounds for feeling grief,
at the pain and passing of her father, so the holidays
one of the takeaways
from this hadith is that we need to be compassionate above all else.
When it comes to other people, and their grief,
there is a time to correct and there is a time to not correct
there is a time to let a person express their feelings. And there is a time to
instruct, these are two completely different things.
I and there's no place where we see this.
Perhaps more significant than with converts.
Converts, we're like the companions.
They have family members who are not Muslims.
And unless you're one of the rare exceptions, the majority of those family members probably won't accept Islam as their faith.
And so what happens in our community
when the family member of a convert passes away,
what always gets brought up? Go ahead tell me what always gets brought up.
You know what I'm going to say?
What's the issue? What's the fifth issue that always without fail? gets brought up?
Really Masha Allah, I hope that you don't know. What always gets brought up is whether they're allowed to ask lots of forgive their non Muslim relatives.
In my experience that always comes up every single time and people are very, very quick to
Try to
police this point or enforce
a certain etiquette of grieving on converts when their family members pass away. Is that the appropriate moment to do so? No, it is not.
No, it is not.
Everybody needs to be allowed to go through grief.
And as long as that grieving
is moderate, it's not going to excess, then you should be there for people in their grief, and put your energy and dedicate it as an act of worship, to comforting that person.
Comforting that person. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam was a comfort
to other people, the companions were a comfort to each other.
And when somebody is grieving, that is, and shouldn't be our primary orientation.
Anyone have any questions about this, before we go to
divorce law, we have quite a bit to cover, I'm gonna try to
let's see if we can blaze through it.
But anything else before that?
One of the sisters had messaged me, with a reminder that I had said that I would go over a particular question, when we were talking about divorce, that is made conditional
upon a certain thing occurring. And so what if a husband
promises or even swears that he will divorce his wife? If she talks to her friends or leaves the house or does something like this? And we're assuming in such a scenario, no wrongdoing? On the part of the wife? We're not, we're assuming she's not trying to talk to, you know,
some dude. Right? Or anything like that. We're assuming the innocence of the wife, is such a thing.
Acceptable? Is it actionable within Islamic law, or not?
All of these things violate the spirit of Islamic law.
That's the most central point.
Right? Whether it's
permissible in a bear permissibility sense of the word
will never take away from the fact that as a practical point, nobody
in a marriage should use divorce as a threat,
or bring up divorce.
Right. And the scholars and the jurists, when they're looking at these issues, they're not
trying to encourage this practice at all this practice is blameworthy, and in certain situations, is even sinful.
However, their concern as good jurists is whether the divorce goes forth or not. Right? So they're looking at issues of bear permissibility, because that's their training. And that's what they're trying to. That's their purpose, right. However, any marriage in which divorce is brought up in a reckless way,
in a threatening way, in an ultimatum sit scenario,
is either partially or entirely a broken marriage. And this is not how a Muslim should conduct themselves, they should find real ways to deal with the needs of their spouse and communicate their own needs in order to come to understanding and agreement without having to resort to threats
and forcing oneself
to get what they want.
That is never the way in our faith.
That's not the way in a marriage.
But when the scholars and the jurists, they talked about this particular thing, they said that, technically, technically, according to the letter of the law, if such a person was to do this, then it would count as a pronouncement of divorce
And this is no punishment for the woman. But it counts as a pronouncement of divorce. Because if
a husband is going to resort to such a thing, then perhaps the wife should consider whether she should be with him in the first place at all, right? These sorts of things. The mechanisms that exist in Islamic law, are meant to protect people's rights. So when the jurists say that this type of statement or this type of statement, initiates this divorce process, this divorce process, it's not a punishment for women, it's actually freedom.
Right? If this is the sort of thing that he's going to go to, then, and haven't we seen it, anybody who's a mindset is in my situation, or maybe perhaps you in your situation, there are abusive husbands, right? There are women who are afraid, or
there is a mentality where they do not think it's possible to leave their abusive husbands. And so sometimes people will stay with somebody.
And they really wouldn't be better off not staying with that person.
And so in the city, this is how divorce law is structured by Allah azza wa jal, so that it's not always left up to the individuals because the individuals can act against their own best interest. If somebody speaks a certain formula, it doesn't matter if they say they were kidding, it doesn't matter, this or that, or the other, they can make excuses. The process of divorce, it initiates. That's part of the latent wisdom behind that is that people take this stuff seriously. They don't play around with it. They don't use it to threaten other people, but they don't dangle it over somebody else and try to use it to influence or steer them or manipulate them in any way. Well, I'll
go to Ana.
Okay, so
that being said, I hope that answers that question sufficiently in sha Allah, we have kind of a catch all section of what's left in divorce law. So we're going to talk about first of all, reconciliation. Okay, we had talked before that divorce, once you've consummated a marriage.
If there is pronouncement of divorce, there's this whole process, the waiting period, the pier, which also serves as a period of record of reconciliation, okay. And we said that this period depends on your status as a woman, if you're menstruating, the period lasts for three menstrual periods. If you're pregnant, it lasts until you deliver the child. If you are not menstruating, then it lasts for three months. Okay. So this time period is given to both spouses so that they have the chance to reconcile. Okay, what does it mean to reconcile? How does it happen? Or how does it happen? That's what we're going to look at now.
However, it's worth noting, and this is just the implication of what I just said, if the marriage was not consummated, then there is no such thing as a waiting period. The divorce is final, right away, no waiting period necessary. And each may go about their business and do whatever they please.
Okay.
So the first question that we have, is that for reconciliation to take place, is it a requirement that there be witnesses to this reconciliation? Do other people have to know
the majority of scholars said that no, other people do not have to know it can be completely between the husband and the wife. This isn't like a contract like a marriage contract, where we need witnesses to the contract, because they're still married technically. Right? He's still paying for room and board and we'll get into all of that in a second. So they are still married until the divorce is finalized. So they don't require a new contract. To get back together. All they need to do is we'll talk about what it is reconcile and they don't need any witnesses for that email Machete is the dissenting opinion here. He said No, it has to has to has to have
witnesses. And he likens it to other sorts of situations in Islamic law, where there needs to be
where there needs to be sorry, where there needs to be what
This is
okay. So how does reconcile take place? Okay, what counts is reconciliation?
We basically have two things we have words, okay. Like, you know, making up and then we have
intimacy. Right? So, the scholars, okay, they all agree if there is both a verbal reconciliation and a conjugal, let's say reconciliation, then mashallah, they're back together. The divorce was not finalized. Hamdulillah. Okay, but what if we have one without the other? That's the sticky issue. So you'll find different opinions, email McSheffrey. He said that what's really important is the statement.
And so even if they have a conjugal reconciliation without any sort of statement of getting back together, then they're not considered reconciled. This is the My minority opinion. The majority, the other three, they said that, they said that,
whether there's intention to reconcile or not, okay. A conjugal reconciliation counts as reconciliation, meaning that waiting period, forget it, throw it out the window. It's not complete, they're back together full husband full wife completely. Right. As well as statements. Okay. Whether that's the intent of either of them or not. So you see a little bit of a loophole here. You see where I mean, if you want to be frank with it, yes. If you're in your waiting period, and you want to, you know, seduce your husband. Yes. That's not like law says that's fine. And that's reconciliation, no problem.
Following up based off of this,
what is the appropriate
level of interaction between a husband and wife when they are a divorce has been pronounced, and they are within their waiting period? Should they treat each other like
strangers? Or should they treat each other like husband and wife,
the majority opinion is that they should treat each other like husband or wife, because the entire purpose behind this entire time period is to encourage their reconciliation. So it's actually quite humorous. If you go into the words of the ultimate, they're like, you know, she should go ahead and duck herself out and put on perfume and do a pro makeup and basically go for it. Right? Because the whole thing is that they're trying to get to go for reconciliation, the minority opinion, the minority opinion says that no, that they should refrain that they should have some sort of
barrier between them or coldness between them. So that each of them can kind of more rationally decide if they want to remain together or proceed and finalize the divorce.
Okay, that's not applicable to us.
Okay.
Now, all of these things that we just said, apply to a divorce, that is
not final. Okay. So this is again, looking at the mechanisms Allah placed within divorce law.
He made it so that men can't abuse this thing.
By limiting the amount of divorce announcements that he has, he's got three arrows in his quiver, if you will. He's got three rounds in the chamber. He can only issue three divorces.
If he if he issues, the third one,
then he's all out. Once the divorce is final,
then
they cannot get back together
until the woman remarried somebody else and concentrates that marriage with somebody else. Okay. So look at how this is kind of a huge deterrent for men playing with this, this sort of thing.
So if someone divorces their wife once,
and it's in the waiting period, they decide to get back together. Even if they decide to get back together. That's one.
Okay.
Then years go by, okay. He divorces her a second time. waiting period, takes her back again. That's two.
Three strikes, you're out. That's how it works. Okay.
After the third time when he pronounces divorce, he doesn't have
any thing left. The divorce is finalized.
She goes through her waiting period. And she if they want to get back together after that, not only does it require a new contract, but she has to marry and consummate it with somebody else first.
So now we're going to get into issues about this particular type of divorce, just called that and finalized divorce.
Okay, that's not so relevant.
Okay.
You've perhaps anticipated with the way that all of this happens, okay.
What if
this scenario happens, three divorces finalized, can't get back together? Unless there's a marriage and a consummation with somebody else?
What if
the woman arranges a temporary marriage with someone for the express purpose of making herself available to her first husband?
Does that happen? Yes, it happens.
We have guidance for the cinestyle UK law, it is put on this sort of thing. It's called a halal, it is
a major sin.
Very, very wrong thing to do, to enter into a marriage contract with a woman with no intent to actually stay married with her with just the intention to give her this sort of way out where she can consummate that marriage, divorce and then go back and have a new marriage with her first husband.
If she enters into that type of marriage, is it a valid marriage or not?
The vast majority of scholars say no, it is not a valid marriage. And so even if she did it, and consummated that, it does not count
at all towards what she wanted.
I will Hanifa.
dissents. And he says that yes, it's wrong. Yes. It's horrible. Yes, it's terrible. But But technically, it's a valid marriage. And it frees her up
for marrying her first husband, which is why I don't know if anyone has any experience with this. But in the subcontinent in the Pakistan, you'll actually find that there are Subhanallah
sir services, right? There are services that are like almost like Tinder, or like apps, like dating services, but they're not dating services. They're specifically for this type of marriage, where somebody wants to
marry somebody consummate and get right back with her first husband. And the fact about how widespread this is, should tell us something about where we're at with Allah. May Allah forgive us and guide us. Because this is something that's very, very wrong. People are incurring sin by doing it. And it is defeating the purpose because it makes marriage and divorce cheap. Especially divorce. Right, the whole purpose of this sort of finality of the third divorce is to punish the man for playing around with divorce. Well, if you give them a way out this sort of thing, then it takes away the deterrent so that he can play around with divorce as he wants
okay, it's not necessary that it get to three divorces. In order for the divorce to be finalized. We've talked about this it can happen on the first divorce, first divorce happens waiting period is complete no reconciliation, whether conjugal or verbal. Then after the third menstrual period, divorce is final. Okay.
If in that scenario, if a woman remarries
and then concentrates that marriage and then gets divorced and ends up getting back with her first husband.
Does he have only two divorces left or does he does it is there a restart? Reboot? He gets all three divorces back
But
the vast majority of scholars say that it starts back at zero, because it's similar to her having married somebody else and consummating it in the other situation, which we just talked about. Okay. All that has to do with reconciliation, reconciliation is done. Now, there's some other issues that have to do with
divorced women in general, eventually, we'll get on the waiting period that we covered most issues with the waiting period. And then finally, issues of widows and things like that. Let's see how far we can get. Okay.
We said that a woman who has not consummated her marriage has no waiting period.
Okay. And we've already talked before about the appropriate waiting periods for different types of woman, women see me, either you're pregnant or you're menstruating or you're not ministry. Okay. And your waiting period is going to be determined by that status.
Okay, that's not applicable to us. That doesn't matter.
Okay, this one issue does have some relevance. So what if there was an announcement of divorce? And then they're within the waiting period? Okay.
There was reconciliation, verbal reconciliation,
but no
conjugal reconciliation. And then there was a second announcement of divorce. Before there was any sort of conjugal reconciliation? Does the waiting period start back at zero? Or does it continue from where it left off? Since there was no, there was no conjugal activity.
The vast majority says it starts over, it starts over because even though one of the primary purposes for the waiting period is indeed to clarify the issue of whether there is a child or not in the picture, it's not the only reason. Okay, the greater reason perhaps, of which, identifying whether there's a child is is a component of it is giving an opportunity to reconcile.
Okay, now talking about what about in the period in during the waiting period, what is a woman entitled to Okay, a woman who is in her waiting period there has been divorced pronounced upon her, there is scholarly consensus that that woman is entitled to stay in her house
that she is provided for food board during the entire the entire waiting period, whether you're divorced, assuming whether you're pregnant or not pregnant menstruating, not menstruating. This is on, you're still married. And so all of the normal maintenance room and board money support, it's all on the husband until the divorce is actually finalized.
And a lot of these issues are not so relevant to us anymore.
Okay, here's a forgotten Suna. Here's a forgotten center that will bring so we're really at the loose ends here and looks like hamdulillah we're going to finish which means that next Thursday, we're going to just talk about women's issues with fasting. Okay, just about so tell your friends you can tell the the WhatsApp group next week, Thursday, second half of the class.
I mean, we could even do the whole class if you want. It's up to you. Just women's fasting issues.
One of the loose ends here is something called a multi. Okay, this is a forgotten son. So one of the Forgotten centers of divorce. Is severance to give a severance gift. Yes. So look at how far we are from the guidance of the show. Yeah, where you know, now we have each side,
scraping and clawing to get whatever they can from their ex and a loss problem Tada.
In the province, like Southern would have us give a severance gift, a the husband giving a severance gift to his divorced wife.
And there's agreement that this sort of gift, there's no fixed amount. Okay? That's something that's culturally appropriate something that's nice, something that softens the blow. Because divorce is difficult. And divorce is emotional. And divorce is not a pleasant experience.
Even if it can be liberating, depending on the situation, it's still never a pleasant experience. And so
this is a strongly recommended thing. What is the ruling of it? Is it something that's obligatory? Is it something that is recommended?
The majority of scholars said that this is something that is recommended as most to have that it's not an obligation, though there were scholars that said that this was an obligation.
And they stressed that this sort of severance should be given if they have not even consummated the marriage yet. So you've contracted a marriage contract, and you ca is done, dowry paid, etc, etc. But there's been no consummation, and one thing or another happens and they decide to divorce, then especially Imam, Abu Hanifa. And atman stressed that the husband is
emphasized to you know, it's an it's an emphasize some to give some sort of severance gift.
And the majority said that this is a good thing to do anyway, whether the marriage has been consummated or not consummated.
The majority said that there is no severance in case of a hook right in case of an annulment that's initiated by the woman.
Because it's kind of the opposite scenario. However, Ema Matic said that no, it's still a good thing to do, even in that scenario.
And that pretty much brings us to the end of the
the chapter on divorce.
Does anybody have any questions, everything else is pretty much either issues that aren't really relevant to us in our times these days, or they're just not, you know, sometimes too much information, can cloud with the
most important information. And so I've tried to just highlight the most important elements of marriage and divorce law, and things that are actual have practical takeaways for you all, or for your friends, you are women, you're in the Muslim community. And it's your duty to try to educate, and enlighten and advise other women.
A lot of how we go about marriage, let's just say that there's room for improvement. Okay. There's room for improvement and how we do
and how we go about marriage. Right? A lot of times, I mean, I've only been in the community a little bit, but
some of the couples I've married, there is
misunderstandings that indicate that there wasn't really a lot of work put in before the marriage was actually conducted.
It was a sort of a last shake due to divorce. No, I believe that from my off the top of my head, that's a weak Hadith.
I can look it up for you to be certain. But
I can look it up to be certain, but from what I recall, there are an amount saying in Medina, what I recall, was that all of the Hadith, that discouraged divorce, are weak.
Even though, divorce is generally discouraged if the marriage can continue, each individual Hadith that says something specific about why divorce is discouraged,
is weak From what I recall.
Marriage is a lot of hard work. And it's an ever it's an evolving process. Because we're evolving individuals, it's not going to be the same. I tell people when they walked through my door. My marriage didn't get good until 10 years.
Right? Just to give people a sense of expectation about how long these things take. It took a long time.
We do we need we need a lot. We need marriage workshops. We need pre marriage preparation counseling.
We need a process
We need to give people a process questions to ask procedures to follow red flags to look for red flags to look for. There are marriages that happen for visas.
Yes, and that usually
affects women the most.
Right? There's a lot of issues. And it's encouraging that the pandemic is coming to an end and shout a lot to Ana. And I think a yearly, at least, at least, a yearly marriage workshop
is a really important thing that we should try to implement sooner rather than later. And so I will definitely love to hear anybody's suggestions or feedback or thoughts on that. You all have my if not my phone number, you have my email for the Facebook page, please, if you have something, even just a piece of information about how the community how things happened in the community, that stuff helps me a lot, right to know
how, how things are going down. Because every community is a little bit different.
And a community as diverse as ours, we're gonna have a lot of kind of stuff to deal with an address. So please keep me in the loop. If there's something that you're like, Well, I know like I remember one of the sisters asked about something way back in the in the QA, about how the Yemeni community does it. It was actually very enlightening for me, and it was we found that it was, you know, part of the Sunday actually.
Anyway, that sort of thing. I always appreciate hearing those things. Don't think that you're bothering me, you're not bothering me. It's my job to know. And so if there's any way I can know, I love to know. And thank you very much, everybody for your attention and participation. This is dry stuff, okay. It's not fun to go through. But it's important. It's important to go through and I try to make it a little humorous or I try to make it interesting. Not easy to do.
But you all have
hung with it. So thank you very much, and I look forward to the next class together inshallah. Well, I'm butanna Salaam Alaikum.