Before You Say I Do – EP20 – PT 2

Always be seen as man and wife, fulfilling Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.

Good to be with you again. And this time, we are talking about a different type of a compatibility bomb. We spoke about age difference, significant age difference, we talk about different religious background. And now we're talking about different socio economic and educational or ethnic background. And we said, as much as we want to celebrate our diversity, as much as we say that all humans are equal, and Islam does preach this well apart. kahraman Avenue item, indeed, we have on all the children of Adam alayhis salam, and everybody qualifies to be a child of Adam alayhis salam. And we said, what might be problematic is that we may not have enough in common. And sometimes we

have less in common simply because of this significant difference in the educational background. It may be the case, and unfortunately, that is also common, where the man has gotten so much education, they have went all the way to get their masters and their PhDs, but the wife at home for whatever reason, she only has fourth grade education. hour, it could be we said that the fact that we come from different cultural background, and we gave the example, looking people in the eye showing the people the bottom of your feet, sometimes it's even the language that you use, what happens was this. And all of this creates tension. And tension is an invitation to travel to the marriage. And

it's an invitation to travel in the house. as well. Give an example here, we had a an Egyptian person that married a white girl, and the Tunisian person that made the Latina girl and these are all examples that I know of, personally, for example, people who are from that part of Africa, North Africa, we're talking about Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Tunisia, and somewhat Libya as well. They known for being very high temperate, and they're easily provoked. And all the time when they speak with a lot of passion, no matter what the subject is, they speak with passion. And if you do not know them, you say, Why are they fighting, they really not fighting, they just love to speak with

passion, they speak with lots and lots of passion. So this guy is married to this Latina girl. And also part of it is was the Arab culture, the Arab culture, for example, parts of it very difficult to speak about the culture and make general statements about the culture. But the Arab culture is very, it loves to exaggerate. There is a sense of exaggeration of the Arab culture. So this guy, every time they have an argument with his wife, and I remember I was doing their nikka. And I can see the problems. So I said, as you are getting, you know, was your lives on, please do me a favor, I want you to learn more about her cultural background. And I want you to learn more about his

cultural background. And they agreed that they were going to do so. So six months down the road, they called me and they said, we're having problems. So what happens to be the problem, we have a little argument, the guy gets up, he starts yelling, and he starts telling me to pack everything that I have, and go back to my family, he does not need me, he does not need my family, he can do without me and I can leave right now. And he will not miss me. He goes downstairs, and he relaxes for a while. And he comes back up and he says, Can you make a some tea and now he wants to drink tea with me as if nothing has happened.

And she said, I'll be crying. And I will be heard because of all the things that he has said to me, but the guy goes downstairs and to use her words is he smokes a cigarette, and he comes back and everything is fine right now. And I just cannot deal with this. And he does it every time. Now this person speaks with so much passion, he doesn't even remember what he said. But that is how he grew up. But now there is a difference that is emerging as a result of you know, people come in from different cultures. And sometimes when people different come from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds, they might even be a language barrier. Literally speaking, there might be a language

barrier, where people do not speak, the language that they speak is not their mother tongue English may not be the mother tongue, or Arabic may not be their mother tongue. So what happens is that people are not able to fully express themselves as much as they want to. So this is what you get. So this is a huge compatibility time bomb. And that is when people come from different ethnic from different educational or from a different socio economic background. We're not saying that you know what, it will not work, but we're saying that you have got to start paying attention to something like this, when there is this

significant difference in the level of education that these people have received, then that also that becomes problematic. Give me an example, a woman who is a doctor, marry somebody that did not finish high school. How do you think the man is going to be feeling her chances of making money are definitely more than the chances of him making money, the amount of money that she makes a so much that he cannot even, you know, what he brings in is nothing compared to what she brings it. How do you think a man is going to feel in a marriage like this, he will feel very intimidated. And he may even feel very inferior. And what am I bringing into this family? She is making all the money, she

is the one that is better educated than I am. And it could be that they got married because they were cousins. But she has educationally achieved, and he did not. Yet it does not negate the fact that that is very possible. And remember, even though we're speaking about compatibility, Taiwan, so the suggestion is that people are more compatible. When they become from the same cultural background. They're more compatible, when they come from the different when they have, you know, some sort of close range of educational level. Now, when we say this, we are not necessarily promoting racism here. Because the notion out there is that if you do not come back from my from my

cultural background, or ethnic background, it is an absolute No, no, and we will never consider you and that can sound very, very racist. And many times it is very racist. Give you an example. We have people in the US who have never been to Pakistan or India or Palestine before in their lives. Their parents have never been to Pakistan, India, or Palestine in their life. They come in and they want to get married to somebody from the US because that is their culture. Now, the culture is they are Muslims who happen to be from the US, somebody from the same background comes to them. And they say no, that is not the case. One of the cases, this is a funny one that I was involved in a young

Lebanese girl. She was actually not fully Lebanese, but she was half Lebanese and half white. She came into the message and she was asking to get married to this person who happened to be an African American, on who was accepted Islam, and her parents refused the marriage. On what basis? Are they refusing the marriage? They said, Well, our daughter is studying to become a medical doctor. And we don't know anything about that guy. Turned out that he's also student of medicine in the same school was their daughter. So that is not an issue. So they said that, well, he is not a Muslim. He really came to the masjid and he did become a Muslim. And then they said, Well, he was not born a Muslim.

Well, he was really born a Muslim, because every child is born a Muslim, they said, Well, he was not raised in a Muslim family. But you know what's funny about that story, the mother is Christian, the mother of this girl is still Christian. And they're making a big deal saying that, oh, we cannot have this because he was not born, or he was not raised into a Muslim family. That is nothing but racist. And this is not what we're talking about. When people come from the similar or the same background, cultural, educational, and socio economic, it just provides more room for interaction, it provides people with that, which is more in common, so that they are able to relate to each other

better. And it provides beautiful ground for people to talk about things that they both enjoy and half. And inshallah, who is this, we will open the floor for questions and answers and comments in Sharla, preferably about this topic. I really like to ask you this question that, you know, yesterday, I was having a little talk to my friends there. And I was talking about your lecture now. And they said that women are inferior to men, because they said that Allah has said, you know, it takes two women to, you know, justify a thing and only one man. So we shouldn't be marrying women who are equally qualified as we are. Because you may fall. I mean, she may just walk out sometimes

when she feels like she thinks she's financially independent. And she can walk she can, you know, so what would you have to say about this? Are they saying that as a husband, your job is to prevent your mind from walking out? Well, I mean, they if they think that it's better, you get a lesser defeated wife, who can stick around with you and who can take care of your children. And you know, who can cook food for you? Yeah, spicy food for you. Okay, remember, this is the point that we just pointed out a little while ago, and that is some men are intimidated. When there is a woman that happens to be more educated than they are, or professional, she has achieved more than they have. So

to these men, they're being very honest with themselves from the very beginning and they're saying I will

not try to get a woman that is equally qualified as I am, because that is a source of threat for them. So they will choose to get somebody who is less educated than they are simply because they feel that this gives them the upper hand in the relationship. But also, you know, when people say that, you know, women are inferior to men. Now, if that's what they believe, personally, I would just be dismissive of this. Now to actually say that these are the teachings of Islam. Now, that's where I have a problem with it. Because clearly in the Quran, Allah Subhana, Allah does not differentiate between men and women. And in fact, Allah asserts our equality in three different

areas. Allah asserts our equality as far as where it is, that we come from, we all come from Adam alayhis salaam, Allah asserts our equality as far as our responsibility is concerned, what unless it is insanity Illa Massa and man and in this case means man and woman, they will only be judged by what it is that they have done by the kind of deeds that they have done, no woman is preferred over man or no man is preferred over a woman. So where do we come from, as far as our obligations as far as reward and punishment, we are all equal in this and this is really where we cannot say one is inferior to other and was this inshallah we come to the conclusion of this part of our program, very

grateful that you have joined us and inshallah he will join us next time we are on. We look forward to your comments and queries and questions, and you may do so by emailing it to Yasser faza at peace tv.org until we meet next time, we say so long and Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.