Before You Say I Do – EP22

But a companion and friend to stay in the Norway's be seen as man and wife, fulfilling the deen from this forever beach

or the Villa shaytani r rajim Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, The Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah and made his peace and blessings be upon our beloved prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. We begin by greeting our brothers, our sisters and our viewers saying As salam aleikum, wa rahmatullah wa barakato.

We are almost done talking about the time bombs, we said these are problems that do not present themselves immediately. But rather, they emerge over time. And they are not seen initially, simply sometimes, because we are blinded by love, or the problem is really not that big of a deal. However, over time, like a time bomb, they are going to explode. We spoke about significant age difference, we spoke about different cultural background, we spoke about different religious beliefs. And then we spoke about toxic in laws. And we had a lot of fun with that, I think, wouldn't you say that and now inshallah we come to the last time bomb. And this is what is deemed nowadays, as a long distance

relationship. This is happening more and more nowadays, especially with the advent of the Internet, people introducing each other, to one another. And also, it seems like the whole world is just becoming a smaller globe in a sense, where we are so easily able to connect with other people. And part of it is it made it possible for people to meet people way, far away from them. And that is really nice. But it also made relationships possible, in a way, but it also made it difficult in a way. I'll give an example. Nowadays, actually, there is a type of counseling that is done over the internet, where you see the person some people, you know, are what we call agoraphobics. They don't

want to leave their homes, they're too scared to leave their homes. So they actually make an appointment over the net, where you can chat with these people and try to counsel them initially. Well, that's really nice and hamdullah, you are able to make a difference with these people. But ultimately, counseling is about a personal touch. So you want to use this as as an initial as a beginning, but it cannot be the only way to do so. Likewise, we are able to have sometimes long distance relationships where people live in one part of the world, they're getting to know a person somewhere else in the world, they just met the person left for schooling, it's been four years, five

years. And that can really be a time bomb. What happens in a long distance relationship is that romance makes it easy for you to think that you know what things are very well, that the relationship is much better than it is. Because you really don't spend time together. People say that Oh, yeah. My fiance is doing his medical school somewhere in the world. Yes, my fiance, she is in this part of the world. And we've been together for the past five years. People like that. And they think that this is good. But it's only good because people are not spending time together, people will change. When 40 years, five years when time passes by, we change. Let me ask you this.

When was the last time you looked into the mirror? Probably this morning, before you left the house. But really, when was the last time you looked into the mirror, and you said oh my god, I really have changed. I see more gray hair. I see I am going bald. I say this every day, I look into myself into the mirror and say oh my god, look at this. And my wife reminds me every day too, by the way. Okay, so you look into this, and you say we really are changing. And sometimes because we are at such distance, we do not realize the change that isn't the people because we have that initial image above them. And we keep that initial image, you know, in the movies, when 10 years goes by, but

nothing has changed the person, there is still this at the beginning of the movie, they're 20 by the end of the movie, they're 50. And they're still looking as beautiful, they're still looking as young. And sometimes we tend to be thinking this way. And of course that does not work out. Most Dangerous about long distance relationship is what we call P is for image syndrome. For an image syndrome is because this is a long distance relationship. We start creating an image in our mind because we're not able to see that person and we fall in love of the image of our own creation. We're not really in love with the person. We are only in love with the image that we have created

about that person. And sometimes long distance relationship could be with the

question that we know, you know, close enough, for example, commonly, somebody would have a crush on their teacher, they would have a crush on. I know, some sports fan. And we really don't know them. But what we do is that people start creating an image in their mind about that individual, and they fall in love with the image of their own creation. And that is an invitation to disaster. Not saying that it does not work. But we say that a good number of the time, it is not practical, we live down. And we changed not only physically, but we see things that really impact us, we come in contact with other people, we come in contact with other cultures with other ideologies, we are exposed more, we

start having different experiences than the ones that we're allowed to ask in our own culture. So we ultimately change. And this change is not visible to the other person, simply because we are not in constant contact wisdom. And even when we are, you're just trying to keep it nice. You're just trying to keep it peaceful. You're just trying to keep it harmonious simply because we want to live in the illusion that you know what this relationship is really much better than what it really looks like. Like I said, there is nothing wrong with a long distance relationship. But what we are most concerned about is be careful about this, like with all other time bombs. This was the last of the

time bombs that we have chosen to speak about. Of course, there are many other time bombs other than this one, for example, it could be the professional of the individual, a person who is required to travel all the time, it may not be seen as a problem at this point. But what happens if you're traveling so much that it is raining the family? What happens at that point? Or for example? What happens if somebody is in such a profession where they constantly come into interaction with somebody from the opposite sex? How would that make you feel? How would you feel if you are married to a person where he does not have a set schedule where his schedule changes almost every other day,

every day, every hour. So you look into this, or they have to leave home for such a long time, he happens to be a sailor, where he has to leave the house for three, four months. These are all time bombs. So when we talk about time bombs, we are saying these are issues that can potentially become a problem. So your job is to identify them and say, Aha, now that we have identified such a thing, how am I going to deal with it? And chances are, you can say you know what, I don't think I can handle it. I do not think I can handle it. And I'm glad that you know what I am on the safe side, no marriage has taken place yet. So I would rather not to go for it. And I remember many times, people

who come from different cultural backgrounds, because that was one of the time bombs that we spoke about. They went and they met the families and they said, You know what, I just met your family today. And something just felt weird. They spoke a language that is very different than my language, people who say I married into this family. And every time I am sitting there, the entire family is speaking in their own language and they laughing, some of them will be nice, and they will translate for me every now and then. But they cannot translate every single thing. And not everybody in that family speaks English. And every time I go there, I feel like I am out of place. Okay, that's a

potential time bomb. And what happens is that now you really dread going and visiting that family, you don't like them to come over because they don't speak your language, you do not speak their language, you feel that you have very little in common. So these are time bombs that we can identify and say, I really don't know about this, I need to give it more thinking. And maybe I need to be more practical and realistic in my expectations of a relationship that has all these elements. Of all the time bombs that I spoke about. I would say that the one that really has most impact on our families at this point is really the issue of you guess it in laws that, you know, I really don't

mean to call them toxic in laws. It's just a fun way of saying how terrible life can be when they are impacting our lives so negatively, but they happen to really be draining and sucking the life out of our families. Next thing that I would say based on what I have seen in the US, it is people who become or who come from different religious backgrounds, where the husband happens to be Muslim, and the girl is an a Muslim, and then they experience some sort of spiritual awakening as children are involved, then that is catastrophic. Let me give you an example. We do have a weekend school on Saturday on Sunday. And there was this particular girl that would come to my class one Sunday. So

one Sunday, she

They're on Sunday. She's not there. So I asked her, I said, You know what, how come you're here one Sunday, but then you're absent for the next Sunday. I said, Well, my mom is, you know, white American, she's Christian, and my parents got a divorce. So the agreement between them is that one Sunday, I come to the masjid. And the next Sunday, I go to church, okay? She comes with a message. And I say, nobody can pay for your salvation, but your deeds and your beliefs. She goes to church and she's taught Jesus Christ, if you take Him as your Lord and Savior, he will be your way to salvation. Can you imagine what will be happening in the mind of that young boy or that young girl.

So these are all things that would make a person say, wait a minute, I really need to think about this. In fact, just talking more about this point, some of the scholars have said, a Muslim man is allowed to marry. And the people of the book, as the majority of the people around them are Muslims, simply because they're talking about in case divorce takes place is still the influence of the greater society is that of the Muslims. Another problem also that stems out of this is that you have got many Muslim men who are marrying to people who are not Muslims. And that leaves many Muslim women going unmarried, because these Muslim men are going outside, and they are marrying from

outside the Muslim community. And that can be what we call, it's a social time bomb. Meaning that what happened was all these women that really want to get married, but now all these Muslim men are going out and getting married. So that becomes a difficulty as well. There is an incident about amarula house, he was a member of the army when they went and they invaded some place. And it happened to be that he made it one of the Roman girls and Ameren hottap sent him a letter saying divorce her at once. And he said, Why do you ask me to divorce her at once, even though Allah subhanho wa Taala has made it hard for us. And I'm gonna hottub wrote back saying, I know that Allah

has made it halal for us. But here you are. amarula as he said, Here, you are the leader of that army. If you as a leader, marry a Roman woman, then the rest of the army is going to marry the rest of the Roman women who is going to marry the Muslim women. So we do not tell people that it is haram Of course because Allah Subhana Allah has made it halal, but the point remains and that is an exception. And it is not the norm should be in an exceptional circumstances and not necessarily the norm that people do every time. So with this, we conclude the part on the blue column compatibility time bombs, it means that you two are good, but you know, there are issues that you need to

reconsider. We are going to take a quick break in sha Allah and we will be back so please do stay tuned with us.

Always be seen as man and wife, fulfilling Bismillah R Rahman Rahim In the name of Allah compassionate, the Most Merciful. Assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.

And thank you for joining us back again, we just finished speaking about the compatibility time bombs, we said that these are general speaking good people that we've just met, and we feel that we're compatible with However, there are red flags that we need to pay attention to. And we just finished the last one about them. And now we come into what do we look for? What kind of a person do we want in our lives? All the stuff that we spoken about is important. However, the most important aspect is, what kind of person do I want to spend? The rest of my life was? If you were to just use one word, as to the kind of a person that you would want to spend the rest of your life was? What

would it be? One word that represents them? What would it be?

What would it be?

loving and caring? We said one word, one word wise, piety, Muslim, Mormon, Muslim, anybody? Okay? Huh? A wife. That's a good start, what else you can trust, understanding homemaker committed, we cannot really say that one particular adjective is good enough to describe the person that we want. So what we want is usually a collective, a collection of traits, a collection of characters, but before we look into the characters and all that stuff, we must initially be what we will be compatible with that individual. What's compatibility? What does it mean that you know what I am compatible with this person? If there is compatibility there will be no negative reaction is this

what compatibility means? Hmm. I read it somewhere where it says that do not marry a person

In spite of differences, marry him for differences. It depends on what kind of differences we will run in Who's that? Who's that person. But when we speak about compatibility, what are we really saying, in essence, we're saying that this is the person with whom I am most likely going to be happy. And what makes us as such, is the fact that we are compatible. Okay? What do we need compatibility in? What part of us? Do we need to be compatible in with the other person?

Okay, understanding likes and dislikes What else? thought process, feelings, emotions, goals, temperament. Both of us are very, very cold. Nothing moves us. Okay. But when we speak about compatibility, are we saying that we are looking for sameness? That's not what we're looking for. So that is not the type of compatibility that we're looking for. What do we want compatibility in? These are five main areas, major areas that we want to be compatible in? attraction, religion, personality, education, age, and cultural background? What is wrong with this order? By the way? Why is attraction coming before religion?

Why is that?

Did y'all hear that? Why is attraction coming before religion? Why do we have attraction before religion? We have to be first what attracted to them? And then we would consider the other things as well. And you know, there is actually a narration that comes from him. And

they said that when you hear about a person and he was he was talking to a group of men. He said, What do you hear about a woman? He said, before you ask about her religion? What do you do?

Go and see her? And then and then do what? And then ask about her Deen? Why? If the story is sound about Imam Ahmed, why would a man make such a statement? When you hear about a good woman? before you ask about her Deen, go and see her? Why is that? Let's say you went and you saw her. And you really, really liked her. And then you asked about her Dean, and her Dean is not good. What do you do?

You will no longer consider her. You may believe that she's attractive. But you know what, because of the lack of the dean, I will no longer consider that person. Now imagine that you ask about the Dean of the person. And they tell you she is a strong believer. She's just an excellent Muslim. So you go and you see her, and you are disappointed by her looks. Now what happens? What happens at this point? Well, you're going to refuse, but what are you also saying in your refusal, religion is not important. So that you do not put yourself in that situation, what do you do, I said, established the very first important component of romantic love what is the very first component of

romantic love attraction. If it is not there, then the rest really does not matter. What happens to people who marry people that they are not attracted to?

Their marriage is dead. Their marriage is like a burden. Their marriage is like an obligation. They just do it simply because they have to do it. There is really no heart into it. And many times people would tell me, no, I married this person will lie. I was not attracted to her from day one. In fact, somebody told me that from day one, they knew that this is not the person that they want to be with. But they had to do it. They live together. They have children together. But they told me and I remember this was so sad when they said it. They said, I don't even know what love means that I don't know what love means. People see us and they consider us to be an ideal family. But I am

telling you right now, I would be lying to you. If I told you that I love my wife.

Would we want to stay with a person that cannot say about us that they love us. I mean, remember about the needs that we spoke about few episodes ago about our need, to love and to be loved. So we will get into these types of relationships, especially these types of marriages. And there is not even a single iota of attraction there. And they just married the person. So they end up 20s I know this person has been married over 25 years. And they came to me and he said, You know, I've really I have really not felt love in my life before. And had it not been for my children who gave me a sense of what love means. He said, I'll probably have never experienced it in my life. But our children

give us a different type of love. But we're looking for that romantic love that can only come from a wife or that can come from a

Husband, and that is why we have attraction before religion, sometimes brothers and sisters, there is an attitude amongst, you know, practicing Muslims and Muslims. And that is Dean is what is really important to me. And I really like that. I love the attitude that you know what how important Deen is to us. But they really don't care much for the attraction part they really don't care much for, you know what that person looks like. And they may get involved into this. But I can tell you, based on experience based on observation, based on what people have said, they usually end up in some very sad marriages is a loveless marriage. It's a very dead marriage. So attraction is a must. So is the

religion. So his personality, so his education, so his age, and so his cultural background, but what is attraction? attraction is what we refer to as a positive response to a person beyond friendship. Okay, sometimes we do meet people, and you know what, they're really nice, I would love to have this person as a friend, I would love to, you know, we work in with this person, but there is some kind of people, it goes beyond the desire of a friendship, we want to be wisdom, you know, in a much closer relationship than just them being our friends or us being their friends. We want more from that. And that's what we say that is attraction. There are two types of attraction. And this will be

in sha Allah the topic of our program next time, but for right now inshallah, we will entertain some questions regarding this topic or the previous time bombs that we have spoken about. I know that some of you had questions about this. Go ahead. She have a question about the possibility of the wife's in laws being toxic? And secondly, shake. Why do we have to assume that attraction has to have a physical factor alone? It can happen that the overall personality can attract a person eventually. Yes, other than in first class? Yes, that's an excellent question. And the next slide is going to be explained in this is going to be explaining the types of attraction. Remember what I

said about toxic and last toxic influence does not only come from the sun side, they also come from the wife's side as well. And in either case, if they're toxic, they're toxic, they're not less toxic, because it's the mother side or it's the father side, and the toxic, they're toxic, and the same way that we would want boundaries on the part of the husband, we would say also to the wife, to please put boundaries between your family and the family that you have just decided to join was your husband. And with this, we come to the conclusion of this part of our program. Very glad that you have joined us and inshallah he will join us again when we are on. And as always, we look forward to

your comments, questions and critiques about this. Email us at the acid faza at peace tv.org until we meet next time we say so long and Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.