WHY does Islam care if you’re Married or NOT

Once not too long ago, I was invited to a community events. It was a fundraising dinner, right here in Utica. And I saw something that made me pause and think I was sitting at the back. There were round tables, maybe 100 150 people there.

And at one table on my left, there was a young lady, probably late teens.

And she had her phone out. And she was angling, and she was to take pictures for Instagram and go on through the filters and things like this.

And then not 30 feet away from her. across the room, there was a young man of a similar age, that was going through social media, swiping, swiping, swiping,

through pictures of girls, just like the one across the room. And I stopped. And I thought to myself,

one of the things that's hard about living today, for everybody, but especially for our young people, is that there's not an obvious sense of purpose. Many of us in the West, we have lost our sense of what we're living for, what are we aiming for? What are we striving for? What can we expect? What's ahead? Where are we going.

And because we don't have a strong sense of where we're going, what this all means, and what's expected of us. And we get very easily distracted and tempted by the dunya.

For ladies, the social media encourages you to be vain, it encourages you to put yourself out there. And you think that you're something because you have all this attention, and you have all of these likes and hearts and interactions. But in reality, they're just swiping through you. Just like they would swipe through a catalogue.

And for the men, they're swiping and you're looking and you're looking for something but what you think you're really doing, or what you think that you're searching for happiness, fulfillment connection, well, you're not taking the right way to get it, you're never going to find it through swiping through these apps, we have a loss of purpose. And we've talked before in the last month or two about how certain things that Allah subhanaw taala put in the creation has a fundamental connection to our purpose. And one of those things is gender. And that's not a surprise. We've talked before about how gender is under attack in this country at this time. This is partly

responsible for the confusion and the loss of purpose.

But today, we're going to look at the same thing, but we're going to look at it from a very positive perspective, we're going to look at how Allah subhanaw taala gave us this beautiful gift without any of us asking. The second you were born, no, actually long before that. He decided whether you're going to be male or female, he decided what gender you are going to have. And that was something that actually has a large role to play and your purpose. What you're doing here. It's a fundamental part of Allah's creation, Allah subhanaw taala says, Yeah, you had an S in katakana come in that Korean War Onza which I'm gonna come show, Ruben Wakaba it's awful. He said, Yes. Oh, people, Oh,

you people, certainly we have created you, male and female. And we made you into tribes and nations so that you will get to know each other. Allah subhanaw taala. He also says what mean cliche in Latin as of Jane, Lala come to that karoun That from every single thing we have made it into pairs, no manifested in scholars of tafsir they say this is male and female. And Allah says Allah, Allah come to the Quran, so that you would think, so that you would pause and consider why what's the wisdom behind this? There's some sort of mystery or a secret to be unraveled here. And Allah subhanaw taala said, well, Anahata XO, Jane, at Zakharova may not have attained either thomna And He

is the One who created the two pairs, the male and the female.

So Allah subhanaw taala did all of this very intentionally. And that's because what gender you are, it helps to define your life and give meaning and purpose. It puts you on a track, it puts you on a trajectory and so you understand what is expected of you, and what's lying ahead. Whether you're a young man or a young woman who's not married yet, or whether you're someone who's about to get married, whether you're someone who is married or whether you're someone who's gone beyond that, to the point now where you've got kids and grandkids whether you're a male or a female, it shapes what your duty is, and it shapes how you think about your life and how you're supposed to go about it.

Islam is not neutral

rule on this issue when it comes to getting married or not getting married, having children or not having children, Islam is not neutral the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said Yeah, mashallah Shabaab Minister Dora. I mean come Alberta fell yet as overage for in the little buzzer were asked on a little Farraj he said and he was talking to a bunch of young people he said oh you young young people, whoever among you is able to get married and he should get married. Why he mentioned that because it is going to help you avert your gaze, and it's going to be better for your chastity. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also indicated that marriage was half of our deen

that we find this in oil by happy he narrated the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said he then says Oh, waterlogged, therefore the Tamil and that's for Deen failure, tequila Filipinas. Well, he said when somebody gets married, then they have completed half of their Deen. And so they should fear Allah subhanaw taala with the remaining half. Why? Why does Islam care if you're married or not? Why does Islam care? What's the difference between the two? Isn't this just a private decision, you have your opinion, I have my opinion. Allah subhana wa, tada cares, because marriage is supposed to bring you into a relationship that is going to transform you talk to anybody before they get

married. And after they get married, they're completely different people. And that's exactly the idea. You're not the same person after as you were before. And that person that you've married, that person has the most intimate window for who you are. You can fool us people here in the masjid, you can come to the masjid and act pious, and do these sorts of things be very common patient, but when you go home, to your husband or your wife, they know the real you. They know how short your fuse really is. They know your strengths. They know your weaknesses. And this forces us to become better, we need that accountability. Think of it like think of it like a life coach, or a personal coach. If

you want to get the best results from the gym, you don't just go to the gym and you know, kind of go through the motions and throw the weights around and do this and do that. No, you sign up for someone who's going to hold you accountable. Today, you're supposed to do this tomorrow, you're supposed to do that. And I want to see this amount of improvement and that amount of improvement. Obviously, we hope that our spouses will be more gentle with us than a personal trainer or a coach. But the idea is the same. That you have someone who knows you very intimately that now you're accountable to Yes, they've known you for years. Yes, you have to rise to the occasion and try to be

better than the person that you were. Yesterday, we talk about how marriage is just a contract and flip. But that's not that's only half true. Technically, yes, it's easy. It's just a contract. But it can be so much more than that. That's not the ideal. The ideal is that marriage is transformative and it transforms you and brings you into Jannah by the transformation that you undergo. That's why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that it was half of your deen

if that's what marriage does for you, then guess what? Having children does the same thing, perhaps even more. And just as we said that Islam is not neutral as to whether you get married or not. It's also not neutral as to whether you have children or not the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said to zawal were doodle valued for enable care. thrombey become an MBA on piano. He said he encouraged people to marry into relationships where they could have children and even abundant children. And then he said For I am going to be the most of the Prophets when it comes to their followers on the Day of Judgment.

We find all over the Koran, the prophets, they asked Allah for children, Ibrahim alayhi salam asked Allah for a child, Zachary Allah, He said, I'm asked Allah for a child. And as we make the do I have for in Surah Surah Fatiha if then I said autonomous JETBeam Siddhartha Medina and I'm Tara Lee him, we ask Allah to put us on the path of those prophets of those who asked her these specific things, it wouldn't have been a, it can't possibly be a bad thing if the prophets were asking for it. In fact, Allah subhanaw taala in the Quran, he takes it as such an obvious point that getting married and having children is such a desired good thing that he actually warns us about going too far. He

warns us about going overboard. He says no, I mean, as wide as you can, well radical fitna is that some of your spouses and children will be a test for you. This wouldn't make sense to put in the Koran as an iron, unless we naturally had this love

For getting married and having children, because children provides another degree of responsibility, another degree of accountability and another avenue for transformation, the first moments that you hold that baby in your arms, and that baby is completely vulnerable, completely dependent upon you, you are now responsible in front of Allah subhanaw taala, the angels on your shoulders have begun writing what are you doing for this child? It's an enormous responsibility. And some of us truly don't wake up until that that responsibility is thrust into our hands. We can see an example of this sort of character development, Allah subhanaw taala wants every single one of us to experience and

to go on. When we see the story of Musa Allah. He said,

How does the story of Musa begin after his childhood and we know that story already, when he's a young man in Egypt, in the situation of surrounds Egypt. It's a situation of slavery. It's a situation of oppression. And Musa alayhis salam gets into trouble. Like we might imagine some of our young men, hopefully not too much, but sometimes they get into trouble. There's a fight on the streets. Who's fighting it's almost like what we would say today again, fight. It's someone from Benny Israel, Ian and someone from ferons tribe. And so the person from Bani Israel calls out Hey, Musa, come and join me. Now Mossad he said, he thinks just like most people think he says, Well,

this is my guy, I've got to come through from my boy, this is my tribe, this is my people. He comes in he intervenes, he accidentally kills the other person. And he soon finds out that he was wrong, that the truth is not in your group or your tribe. But the truth has to do with people's choices. And in this situation, the person from his tribe was wrong. He shouldn't have gotten involved that it was a horrible mistake. But notice what happens next. Musa alayhis salam has to flee, he has to leave Egypt, he goes out into the wilderness, a place that is unfamiliar to him. And he comes across a situation and this situation is extremely profound. There's a watering hole. And there's herds of

animals. And all of the tough guys with their animals are his they're watering them by the watering hole. But there's two young ladies who are vulnerable, who are weak who are unable to do it by themselves. And so Musa alayhis salam puts himself forward to do the job for them. And honestly, the things that he does, it's totally a boss move as as we would say, as young people because he takes the flock, he waters them. And then he goes, and he sits in the shade. And he doesn't say anything. Mike drop, he does the deed, and

it's very impressive. And then he doesn't expect anything from it. What we can learn, one of the wisdoms of the situation is that look at how Musa alayhis salam rose to the occasion, because he was put in a position of responsibility. Some of us were afraid to put our young men and our young women in a position of responsibility. We're afraid that they're going to mess it up, are afraid they're going to make mistakes. But look at what it what happens when you put them in that position of responsibility. It drew that out of Musa Musa is not the same person that he was getting into a fight on the street, just a little bit ago. Now he's responsible for these women, he protects, he

provides and so he puts himself forth, and he starts to transform. That's not the end of the story. So you know the rest he ends up marrying one of the two young ladies. And then after he completes his term of work for his father in law, now it's time to go back to Egypt. And he's going to be commissioned to become a prophet. They're traveling in the deserts. And it's not like today you travel on the thruway, you've got the rest stop, you've got your Starbucks, you've got your Chick fil A or whatever else you're going to stop and avail yourself of. It wasn't like that.

He's traveling through the desert, there's no lights, there's no police. There is no people in anybody you could interact with. Maybe they're bandits. Maybe they're murderers, people who might want to harm you. And Musa alayhis salam is with his dependencies with his family. He's responsible for them and nobody else is responsible for them. And he comes across he sees in a distance of fire people it could be dangerous, it could be helpful he doesn't know and listen to what he says is raw and now on the orderly Ernie him coastal in the earnest to now on La Liga T caminha become a sinner, our LG duala Nari Houda.

This is what it means to be a fully responsible adults and especially as a father, somebody who says

I'm going to sacrifice myself, I don't know if I'm going to come back, you all stay here, stay safe. I'm going to go and see what this fire is, I don't know, it could be the end of me. But I'm going to try, I'm going to see maybe I can get some benefit for us some guidance as to where to go next, or even just a brand of fire so we can warm ourselves. This is a completely different Musa than the most of us started out fighting on the street in Egypt. He was put in a position of responsibility. He got married, he started having children, and then look at what it brought out of him. A completely different human being a human being who is more concerned with protecting and providing

those around him than his own personal desires, or his own narrow interests. This is the way of virtue. This is why it's half of our deen. This is why it's something that Allah subhanaw taala is not neutral about that he wants us to go down this path, because it pulls certain things out of you. It pulls the trust and the truth, the trustworthiness out of you. It pulls out your ability to sacrifice. We see this every Ramadan, nobody sacrifices Ramadan more than our women, more than our women who cook and clean and do everything possible to facilitate the worship of the men. In addition, they have their worship at home, but they sacrifice so much. That's how it's meant to be

each side sacrificing for the other.

It brings out patients in new patients you didn't know you have. Remember there's a famous story of Fatima and Ali, you know, the Laquan, Huma, they were very poor, and they were married. And they had to resort resort to menial tasks to make their livelihood on the on the Aloha. No, he used to draw water from the well. This was before hydraulics This was before him sort of making it easy. He used to draw with his own hands until his chest had marks on it and his shoulders had marks on his shoulders from carrying the water and fall to me Father, Manuel de la Panda, she used to grind grain, very hard work. Imagine the blisters on her hands hard work, things that we've seen from our

parents and our grandparents and things that even some of us still do today.

And what makes you willing to be patient with this what makes you willing to sacrifice if it's just to bring a loaf of bread to your children, or to bring a loaf of bread to your wife or to your husband, you would do it. And you would do it a million times every single day treasury on thankless work, he would do it look at what marriage and children can bring out in you aren't these qualities and characteristics and virtues that you need to get to Gemina? Don't you need the patience to get to agenda Don't you need to be responsible and trustworthy to get to Jannah Allah subhanaw taala gave you the path. If you want to get gains in the gym, you know that it's push ups and pull ups and

chin ups and this if you want to get to Jana, it's marriage as family as responsibility. This is the path that Allah subhanaw taala gave.

And once you're in that situation, the cherry on top for every parent is to facilitate for the future generation, to put them in a better situation than what you're in. That's what makes us able to sacrifice and able to be patient is that we're willing to protect and to facilitate for our family and Allah subhanaw taala told us that we have a duty for this. When he said Yeah, you'll have the you know, cool and full circle coming out on Baku 200. So we'll Hijra many of us were got the materialistic concerns covered. We know that we have to take care of our kids and provide for them, get them an education set them up for success. But Allah subhanaw taala reminds us that the true

success is the success of the afterlife. And just as much as you facilitate this worldly success of your children, you have to facilitate their success in the afterlife, as well. And in the time that we live in brothers and sisters with all of the things that we're going through today and Islam being attacked from every side that this message is more important. Now more than ever Upolu Kali how there was stuff below HollyWell accompany certainly Muslim equally them as somebody who in a hell of a full Raheem.

Alhamdulillah Allah if Cerny was Shukla who allowed Sophia he wants in early what should have Allah ilaha illallah whatta rulership Are you going to tell the militia in your shadow and then they'll be on our side and then Mohammed and Abdul Hora sudo apt they are elected why so the Allahu alayhi wa the early he was however, he was a clown. He was suddenly monster Sleeman Kathira

we have to live up to the reality or we have to face the reality that now

Not every man and woman lives up to these expectations that not every father or mother lives up to the lofty ideals that Islam puts forward for us. And so we have to confront a situation. We have to say, what do we do when we observe this reality? If we see men that aren't behaving as men should that abuse their position and abuse their power? What is our response to them? When we see women or mothers that neglects their responsibilities that don't facilitate the afterlife of their children nor of their husbands? What are we supposed to do? Allah subhanaw taala tells us something very interesting. Surah Nisa, and it's very contrary to what society's current solutions our society

tells you. You have to take the power away. If the men are in charge, and the men are abusing their power, then you take the power away from the men and we need women everything. Or if the women are a problem, then we take them out of power and we have to do something else. Only intervene at the level of the system.

But Allah subhanaw taala has a different way for us. Allah's fondata he said wala Tata melanoma fotball Hola. Hola. Heba. Humala about Tao la Kumada about literary jellynote Cebu Mactan Cebu What did he say no Cebu min max the seventh was ALLAH hum in Foley in Allah Hakuna because Leisha in Lima, he said do not wish for that by which Allah has made some of you exceed others meaning Allah subhanaw taala will do that there would be some inequality, men have certain privileges. Women have other privileges. And Allah subhanaw taala does not want you to envy one another, or to compete for these types of privileges. For men, he says as a share of what they have earned and for women they

to have a share of what they have earned. And ask Allah subhanahu wa taala for his bounty, don't ask each other for each other's bounty Allah is saying, don't ask to be like the other one.

Ask Allah subhanho wa Taala for his bounty Indeed, Allah subhanho data is ever of all things knowing. There is such a thing in Islam as just power as just leadership as just authority.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that one of the types of people who will have shade on the day in which there is no shade except a lot of shade, Imam on an ideal, a just leader, somebody who is responsible, someone who does all those things that we talked about facilitates for the good of those underneath of them. Brothers and sisters, it is a moral intervention. If you imagine, imagine there is a kingdom and imagine a boy becomes the king, and he's not ready to become the king, and he inherits the robes of his father, do you cut the robe to fit the boy? Or do you let the boy grow until he fits the robe? You let the boy grow until he fits the robe? Every single one of us

has a responsibility to grow into the most moral version of ourselves. The answer is not to take people down but to build people up to encourage their education and their tarbiyah and their fear of Allah subhanahu wa Tada. That's the only way to achieve justice. And we ask Allah subhanaw taala for success for Taufiq and we are able to depend upon each other and may Allah subhanaw taala guide us off