Nature has so arranged that man and woman are attracted to each other. This natural attraction binds them together, and they lead a common life and form a family. This natural tendency, the instinct of sex, should be guided to the right direction so that it may be utilised in the service of humanity. Though the common life of husband and wife originates from the sexual instinct, it gradually develops into a deep, spiritual, sentimental, social and economic relationship. That is what Islam calls matrimony.
But today marriage has become the biggest challenge of our times. It has become one of the most difficult tasks. Islam makes marriage very easy but we have made it rather difficult. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) rightly said, “Make Marriage easy and Zina Difficult” (Tirmidhi). But in the current scenario we have turned the hadith the other way round. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) always emphasised to make marriage very simple but in today’s world fornication is easy and marriage difficult. In this situation many youth fall prey to wrong traps; in order to fulfil their desires, they fall in love, become slave of masturbation, and porn movies become their companion. A lot of pre- and post-marriage events have also started, making marriage a costly affair.
The challenge becomes much more troublesome when the boy is religious and the parents are not. When we try to follow Islam, in some cases the first obstacle in today’s time is not the society but our parents. The whole problem starts with a clash – a clash between self-made principles and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him), a clash between the society’s culture and tradition and the life of our Final Messenger. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) said, “When a person gets married, he has completed half of his religion, so let him fear Allah with regard to the other half” (Al-Bayhaqi). What we need to think here is that the Holy Prophet Muhammad did not tell that Salah or Fasting or Zakat or Hajj completes half your religion but he said marriage is half of the religion. Thus we can understand the importance the Holy Prophet gave to this Sunnah.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad said, “Take benefit of five before five, your youth before your old age, your health before your sickness, your wealth before your poverty, your free time before you are preoccupied and your life before your death” (Al-Hakim). And if a person truly wants to make use of his youth, health, wealth, free time and life in an effective way, his life partner will play a very important role in it. The Holy Prophet also said, “O you young men! Whoever is able to marry should marry, for that will help him lower his gaze and guard his modesty” (Bukhari). This hadith motivates the individuals to get married keeping in view the advantages marriage offers.
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) said, “Any of you who can afford it should marry. It lowers the eyes and preserves the genitals. Anyone who is unable to should fast. It restrains the appetite” (Bukhari). With this hadith we understand that the two conditions required for a person to get married is the physical maturity and the financial capacity to run the family.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) said, “A woman is normally sought as a wife for her wealth, her beauty, her nobility, or her Deen (religiousness), so choose a religious woman and you will prosper” (Muslim). The Holy Prophet also said, “One who marries for status, Allah will lower it; one who marries for money, Allah will decrease it; but one who marries to lower one’s gaze, protect one’s private parts, join relatives, then Allah will bless them.” (Tibrani). The Holy Prophet once said, “Don’t marry girls for their beauty, don’t marry girls for their wealth; beauty and wealth are not everlasting; marry women for their religion and good conduct.” (Ibn Majah)
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) enjoined Muslims to select the partners who are best in religion (Deen) and character. This is a very strong hadith wherein the Holy Prophet says that a person who chooses a woman on the basis of her Deen (religiousness) will prosper. What is a bigger success than becoming prosperous both in this life and in the hereafter? Why not take a wise decision which will help us in all our future endeavours. And the irony is that when this hadith is presented to the parents – of course in some cases – they ask, ‘what do you mean by a religious girl’, ‘will it be written on her forehead that she is religious’? This question reminds me of the story of Prophet Moosa; when he asked his people to slaughter a cow, they started asking him silly questions like how the cow should look like, yellow or bright? Only their weak intention to follow the commandment of Allah the Exalted led them to ask such questions.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) said, “When someone with whose religion and character you are satisfied, asks to marry your daughter, agree to his request. If you do not do so, there will be corruption and great evil on earth” (Tirmidhi). With this we also learn that the condition which has to be considered for a girl to select her spouse is Deen (religiousness). But most of us want to marry her to a boy for his profession, money and status. We are concerned more about his salary than his salah; we are concerned more about his property than his piousness.
Parents go on to reject many alliances because they are not in line with their self-made principles. They reject the alliance on silly reason such as, their house is not situated in a posh locality, the girl is not from a well to do family, the father of the girl has two wives, the girl is a revert, the girl is not from the local city, and what not. Some people also reject girls based of their physical appearance with comments such as, the girl is short, the girl is not very fair, she does not have the looks, etc. But we need to seriously realise that when we comment on the physical appearance of a girl such as her colour, beauty and height, we are commenting on Allah, for He is the one who has given it all. When parents search a girl for their son, they need to search for a wife, but the parents search for a daughter-in-law. From this observation, a person can derive only one result; the people are becoming more and more materialistic day by day. I just need to ask one question. Are these material things so very important when compared to a religious spouse?
Some families do not get their elder son married only because they want to get their younger daughter married first. What sort of logic is this? When trying to understand the logic behind this, they don’t get their son married because of two reasons; one that it is not the culture what the society follows and the other that they feel that two girls (daughter and daughter-in-law) will not be able to stay together and it will create fight and misunderstanding between the two. My question is: if we follow the Qur’ān and Sunnah in every aspect of our lives, will we still have fights and misunderstandings?
Few parents say, when we get our daughter married, we need to get her married in a bigger family, and when we get our son married, we need to bring a girl from a smaller family. Some parents also say that we are happy when our children are happy, but do they remember all this when they select spouses for them.
The Walima reception has also become a modern fitna among the so-called religious class. Many people have stopped giving a reception after the Nikah ceremony as we do not find anything like this from the Seerah of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) and have restricted themselves only to one grand and lavish Walima reception which involves huge wastage of food and extravagant spending. And in many cases the expenses of the Walima reception are shared both by the bride’s and the bridegroom’s sides. The question is: Who should bear the expenses and who should host the Walima, the bridegroom’s or the bride’s family?
Remember, a true Muslim is one who loves Allah and Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) and then his mother and then his father. Many youth do get emotionally blackmailed by their parents and indulge into all types of acts while getting married while they have a desire to get married as per the Qur’ān and the Sunnah. Allah says in the Qur’ān, “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, and be witness for the sake of Allah even if it is against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin.” (The Qur’ān 4:135) Among the rights of Allah’s creatures is the greatest right of the parents. But according to the Qur’ān, the demand of truthfulness is that no concession or leniency should be shown even in the case of giving evidence even against our parents! Even Prophet Ibrahim went against his father as he was on the wrong path.
Please don’t get me wrong. This article is not meant to motivate the youth to go against their parents but to highlight the problems which practising Muslim youths are facing and to motivate them to select their spouse and perform the pre and post activities of marriage as per the guidelines of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him). The Qur’ān rightly says, “In the Prophet is the best Example” (The Qur’ān 33:21). This message is for the youth, mainly the boys who are yet to get married.
I have also heard many parents saying, “Once we get our children married, our responsibility is over.” Is our responsibility only to get our children married? Don’t we have another objective in life? The sole objective of life of many parents is to get their children married, especially their daughters, so they spend their whole life in earning money so that they can get their daughters married to rich persons.
Today marriage is all filled with all sorts of disobedience to Allah the Exalted. Extravagance, show-off and intermingling of sexes are the features of today’s marriage functions. Just imagine, if Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) would have been with us today, would he like and appreciate the way we perform our marriage ceremonies today? If our answer is ‘no’ then why do we perform such acts? May Allah the Exalted guide the parents and families to live their lives as per the Qur’ān and Sunnah. Islam is simple and it promotes simplicity in every act we perform. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) said, “Simplicity is a part of faith.” (Abu Dawood).