How to Love Relationships in Islam - Corrected Khutba by
By Abdul Nasir Jangda | 2026-01-03T22:58:19.172382+00:00 | Topic: Relationships
How to Love: Relationships in Islam
Shaykh Abdul Nasir Jangda
Opening
"[Peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you]"
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May peace and blessings be upon the noblest of prophets and messengers, our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his companions.
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Alhamdulillah, it's really really good to be here. And really so far we've been really enjoying our time here in Knoxville.
Introduction: Witnessing Allah's Creation
It's a beautiful part of the country, mashallah, a lot of natural beauty, a lot of the wonders of Allah's creation are present here. We were up on the mountains yesterday, we took the motor hike up and subhanallah, it's just unbelievable, it's mind-blowing when you can witness Allah's creation, you can witness exactly what Allah points out as the reason to believe, as proof of why we believe and what we believe and who we believe in.
When you can drive 20 minutes, you can drive an hour out and see exactly why Allah told us to believe and you can witness that, it's really a huge blessing of Allah.
We got to witness that, I was able to take my kids up and you know, kind of give them a little basic lesson on iman. We don't learn, we don't teach iman often enough. And it's very easy, it's very simple, iman 101, it's from the Quran. Just simply went up there, made sure they looked around, they saw the mountains, they saw things they've never seen before in Dallas, Texas and then just ask them one simple question, who made all of this? Allah. That's it, that's iman 101.
So alhamdulillah, it's been a real blessing to be here and the hospitality, mashallah, in Knoxville is living up to the hype, mashallah. I was telling brother Nadim, I think I've eaten in three days more than I did in the last three months. But it's been good though, mashallah, Knoxville people know how to eat, alhamdulillah.
Building on Previous Discussion
Now, I have a talk but before I give a talk, I feel like I have to do like a little bit of damage control as to what's... I mean this situation deteriorated pretty badly here.
So a little bit I wanted to add on to what Hafidh Wissam talked about, amazing recitation, mashallah. He said something really interesting that, you know, he was crunched for time, so he kind of glossed over. He mentioned Allah's words:
"And He put between the two of you love and mercy."
So first Allah says, He created a spouse for you. And He said that, something very profound that you have to understand.
A Hadith About Maternal Love
And I actually have a hadith, I have a narration here, which might not seem like it's related to the topic but I want you to hear me out. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) it was a situation of war, there were some prisoners of war that were taken captive.
So the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) was walking around, kind of surveying the aftermath of the battle, and he saw a woman who was amongst the captives, the prisoners of war. And there was a small child that was kind of, little baby that was kind of crawling around, and the baby started to get a little fussy, and the woman, obviously being the mother, they didn't know before that she was that child's mother, she picked up the child and she hugged the child, and kind of took him inside of her clothing, and she began to feed the child, nurse the child. Like immediately.
I mean think about that, they've been through battle, they've been through war, they're prisoners right now, and all this is going on, but what is the mom doing? She's feeding the child. She's feeding the child. That's unbelievable, that's remarkable, that's amazing.
You know, it's just... We were leaving for the airport when we were coming here Wednesday morning, and I'm like, you know, we're going to be late, and we've got to go through security, and they make you fold up the stroller and put it through the scanner, and then they want to x-ray my babies, and they want to do all this crazy stuff, right? Like, go, go, we need to go. Uh-uh, not before my wife packs the baby's milk. She's like standing there microwaving milk. I'm like, we're going to miss our flight. "Babies need milk. So you be quiet," right? So that's remarkable, right? So the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) sees this mother in action.
And the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) says:
(Bukhari hadith 5999)
"Could you ever imagine this mother throwing her baby, throwing her child into the fire? Like flinging and tossing her child into a fire?"
The companions of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) were taught adab, were taught etiquette from the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم). And one of the things the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) taught them to do was to not very often, very frequently take oaths. Like don't walk around saying, Wallahi, Wallahi, right? To not walk around saying Wallahi all the time. But the sahaba would still use it if it was a serious situation.
So the sahaba actually respond to their teacher, the one who taught them not to be swearing all the time, not to be taking oaths all the time. They say:
والله لا "Absolutely not."
We swear by God, absolutely not. A mother would never throw her child. This mother could never throw her child into the fire.
She loves her child way too much. Look at her. And then the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said that:
(Bukhari hadith 5999)
"Allah is more merciful to His slaves than this woman, this mother is to her child."
The Core Message: Allah's Love for Us
Now the reason why I mention this, it's not directly related to our topic here. But the reason why I mention this, that Allah is more merciful. Allah's mercy upon His slaves is greater than the mercy of this woman upon her child, this mother upon her baby.
The reason why I mention that is, Allah loves each and every single one of us in this room more than our mothers love us. Alright. And the reason why I want you to understand that is, because unfortunately, and this is where I get to the core of my session, my topic what I wanted to talk about, that there is an unbelievable amount of despair.
The Problem: Cynicism About Marriage
There is a cynicism that exists in our community, especially in our youth community today, about marriage and the prospect of marriage. Love and marriage is a very bleak topic in the minds of a lot of our youth today. And I'll tell you where this comes from.
And more importantly, especially our youngsters, our young brothers and sisters, who might be a little bit more concerned about their relationship with Allah, about their deen, about their spirituality. They, a lot of times, are very cynical, they're very pessimistic, they're very, you know, they're not very optimistic, they're not very hopeful about the prospect of getting married, and enjoying a loving relationship one day, and having a very fulfilling marriage one day. And let me talk about where this comes from.
Redefining Marriage in Our Minds
I kind of took upon myself to talk about some of the maybe heavier stuff today, like in the terms not so much fun stuff today. But I did think that it was necessary for us to go ahead and tackle it, because it gets at the core of some of the issues that we have. And that is, we need to redefine the idea of marriage in our heads.
Cultural Context and Generational Differences
You know, I'll talk about myself, and I think this goes for the majority of the younger folks in the room here today. We are the children of an immigrant generation. People who came from a very different place at a very different time, and a very different culture, completely different.
And today our culture, our environment, our time and our place is very, very different than from where our parents came from. Especially at the time when they got married. Alright, it's a very different world today.
It's a very different culture and environment today. And a lot of times, we base, you know, our expectations of marriage and married life off of what our parents maybe experienced, or what their situation, their scenario was.
The Problem of Bad Examples
At the same time, there's another major issue that we have in our communities. You know, may Allah protect everyone, and I hope this is not the situation, but a lot of times, maybe it's somebody's own parents. Maybe it is somebody has an uncle or an aunt, or someone in their family who did not have a very fulfilling happy marriage. And sometimes they're at a point in their life where for all intents and purposes, they're basically roommates at that point.
It's a very sad situation, but it happens, unfortunately. What a lot of times young people do is, they base their idea of marriage off of that one bad case that they have in front of them. That that's what marriage results in.
And I don't want to get married, or I don't want to take, like Abdurrahman and Hafidh Wissam were mentioning, I don't want to take this more Islamic route of getting married. Why? Because that's what it results in. That's what the consequence is.
The Distorted View of Islamic Marriage
That marriage basically means, I don't know who I'm marrying, I've never seen the person before, I don't know her name or his name, I don't know anything about them, and then randomly, some hairy guy is going to come up here, and he's going to read a bunch of Arabic stuff, and then pronounce us married, and then after that we're going to come face to face, and I'm going to realize, I don't like this person. Right? That's the idea. That's the very bleak picture.
That's the nightmare that's waiting for us on the other side, unfortunately. A lot of people think that way. What we have to do is, we have to reconstruct the idea of marriage that we have in our heads.
Avoiding Extremes
Because what happens is, one extreme breeds the other. So you have one extreme idea, or unfortunately maybe you do have certain extreme examples of bad, flawed, you know, relationships and marriages in the community, or even in your own family, extended family. So what do we do? We resort to the opposite extreme.
And the opposite extreme, unfortunately today for us, can be summarized into one word, and that one word is twilight. All right? That's the opposite extreme. All right? Yeah.
All right? That's the opposite extreme. Where it's like we feel like we have to explore, you know, whether it be dating, premarital relations, illicit relationships. We have to explore that, because if I don't do that, I'm not going to be happy.
Learning from Modern Examples
Because God knows Kim Kardashian was very happy for 72 days. Right? Right? Right? I mean, subhanAllah, you know, subhanAllah, I often wonder, I often think, you know, in our day and age, yes, with all the temptations and all the confusion that's out there, when you have such like glaring examples, you know, in front of you, where these people have failed marriage after failed marriage, after failed relationship, with these people become empty, hollow shells of themselves. When people will reconstruct, these people are like, pretty much like 80% plastic and 20% flesh at this point.
Like, when we have these glaring like examples in front of us today, we have to employ enough common sense to be able to see the truth playing out in front of our own eyes.
The Prophet's Beautiful Example with Khadijah
You know, and so, Abdur Rahman talked about the amazing, beautiful relationship that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) had with Aisha radiallahu anha. And at the expense of, you know, bringing up one of the most feared question by all Muslim speakers of all time, I'm going to go ahead and present another example, alright, from the life of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم).
And that was the first marriage of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم). Right? The first love of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم)'s life. Who was Khadija radiallahu anha? The mother of the believers.
Khadijah: The Ideal Partnership
It was a woman by the name of Khadija. An honorable, dignified, strong woman. Alright? Who was the Prophet's best friend literally? When he received revelation, when the most amazing thing that's ever happened to any human being on the face of this earth, that occurred with the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) who was the first person who he spoke to? Khadija.
She was his best friend. They were married for over 25 years. She was the mother of his children.
And the amount of love, you know, what always gets to me, what always gets me, you know, stories of young love and young marriage and all these things, it's beautiful. Recently, you know, I've actually started to get old enough to the point where I've actually now began to witness my own students getting married. And it's a beautiful thing.
It's an amazing thing. It just makes you so happy. It's the closest thing to experiencing maybe like your own children getting married.
Oh, thanks man. So, it's amazing. But one of the things that always gets to me personally is like when you hear an amazing story, like you made the reference in notebook, right? When you hear stories about like people growing old and growing stronger and stronger, deeper and deeper in their love and their affection and their mercy, like Allah said.
Love, Compassion, and Mercy in Marriage
So, what Hafidh Wissam was talking about, Allah has put love, compassion and mercy. Because when the compassion and the love begins to wear thin, when a very serious situation arrives, when a couple of situations come back to back to back, and the love and the compassion begins to kind of wear off and you kind of forget why you love each other. Why should you have compassion with each other? That's when mercy kicks in.
And when you practice mercy with each other, it brings you full circle right back and it reminds you why you love each other. So, when you grow old together and you grow deeper and deeper in love, those stories always get me.
The Prophet's Deep Love for Khadijah
The Prophet of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) Khadijah radiallahu anha, had one of those types of relationship.
It was amazing, it was beautiful. She literally spent 25 years of her life aiding, supporting her husband and fulfilling the mission of his life. He sat by her bedside as she breathed her last.
He wept and he cried after she passed. You know that the pain that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) felt at the passing of the death of Khadijah was so severe that the only thing that could heal that pain was Allah calling him above the heavens, near him and personally talking and speaking to him. That is the only thing that could take away, that could slightly diminish the pain that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) felt at the passing of Khadijah.
Al-Isra wal-Mi'raj happened after the death of Khadijah. He had to talk to the most beloved in order to get over his worldly beloved. So that's that type of relationship.
The True Image of Marriage
That's the image, that's the impression along with what brother Abdul Rahman and Hafidh Wissam talked about. That should define love and marriage in your minds and in your hearts. It's not a hopeless prospect.
It's not some major compromise that you make. It's not some miserable like, you know, future in existence or it doesn't demand. It doesn't require you.
It doesn't ask you to live a life that is displeasing to Allah. Love and marriage is a part of the package, part of the deal.
Allah Will Not Leave You Hanging
And now I want to go back to where I started off. So when I read you that narration where the Prophet of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is saying that Allah is more merciful, Allah's mercy upon His slaves is greater than the mercy of a mother to her child. The reason why I brought that up is realize and understand and believe Allah will not leave you hanging. Allah will not leave you hanging.
Allah will give you love. And Allah will give you a companion to spend this life with. And Allah will give you the most amazing partner in life who will be your best friend in this world.
Who will be your best friend in this world. And so you have to believe that. Allah loves you.
Allah has so much mercy on you. He takes care of you. He's given you everything that you have.
From the roof over your head to the car that you came in here, to the food that you eat, to the eyes and the ears and the nose and the arms and the legs and the functioning body and organs. Allah has given you everything. And Allah will give you this.
The Example of Musa (عليه السلام)
So young people have to learn to believe that. Allah will take care of me and Allah will not make me live life without experiencing love. Believe that.
And make dua for that and Allah will give it to you. Musa (عليه السلام) was sitting under a tree all by himself. He had to run away from his home.
He had to run away from his family. He didn't know anybody there. And he looked up at the sky and he said, "Oh Allah, I know you're gonna take care of me."
I know you're gonna take care of me. Next thing you know, couple of young girls who he had helped get some water out of a well, come together and say, "Our father is asking for you." He goes over to this
elder's house and the elder says, "I'd like to give you a job and I'd like to marry one of my daughters to you."
A job and a wife. Because what? Two thumbs up. All right.
Because why? Because he looked up at the sky and he said, "Oh Allah, you'll take care of me. I know, I believe you'll take care of me." So Allah will take care of us.
You have to believe that. You have to know that.
Removing the Guilt
The next thing that I wanted to mention and I'll kind of somewhat conclude with this. Is that removing the guilt. See, I'm basically trying to do away with some of the key misunderstandings, misconceptions that we have regarding this topic. All right.
So the first one is to do away with the negativity. It is a beautiful thing and Allah will bless you with that beautiful thing if he hasn't already. Number two is removing the guilt.
The Confusion of Our Environment
All right. A lot of times in the confusion that comes from the environment, the world that we live in today, where we are constantly trying to find spirituality, iman, a relationship with Allah. And trying to balance and temper that out with the world of temptation, the environment, the culture of temptation that we live in today.
And all the lines get crossed. All the wires get crossed. Right.
So when you're told that something is wrong and something is bad, you can accidentally, you know, misappropriate it. You can wrongly apply it somewhere else. And everything ends up all mixed and jumbled and crossed.
Redefining Fun and Pleasure
Like a lot of the work brother Abdur Rahman does here in Knoxville. I mean, I feel like one of the most amazing things that he does, like just part of who he is and what he does and what Alhamdulillah he's been able to accomplish and he's doing that here for you guys now, is trying to again deconstruct this misconception, this misnomer that fun is bad. That there is a such thing as good fun.
Because a lot of people like to have fun in a bad way. And so there's been so much discourse that when you start to get a little bit more religious, and I put that in quotation marks because again it's really funny how we apply that term. But nevertheless, when you decide that you want to start to go closer to Allah, you want to develop a relationship with Allah, when the first thing that hits home is, "Oh! Fun is bad."
Right? Fun equals bad. Fun is not good. There's no room for fun.
So what he does, a huge part of what he does, as simple as it might seem, as basic as it might seem, but it's profound, and that is no, fun is good. It's just you have to figure out what is the nature of the activity that you are deriving pleasure from. So similarly, here removing the guilt.
Attraction is Natural
Love itself, and forget about love, I'll take it down to even a more basic level. I want to talk about something. It might raise some eyebrows with some of the older folks, but hear me out.
Attraction. Attraction. Feeling attracted to someone.
Right? That is not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. Now where do we get this from? Again, I won't give you any logical proof on my part.
I'll follow Hafidh Wissam's lead, and just read the book of Allah. Surah number 3, surah Ali'lmran, in the very beginning of the surah, ayah number 14. Allah says:
"It has been beautified for the people."
It has been made beautiful for the people. It has been made attractive for the people. What has been beautified, what has been made attractive, what has been made appealing for the people?
"The love, the desire, the inclination to fulfill your lust and your desires. Attraction from women."
حُبُّ الشَّهَوَاتِ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ And not only that, but Allah mentions the opposite gender, because Allah is saying that feeling attracted to the opposite gender is something that Allah has programmed inside of you. I go as far as saying that, you know, feeling attraction for the opposite gender means that you're okay.
It's actually like, relief. No. And I know, we're laughing and joking, but seriously, it means that you're happy and you're healthy.
Clap your hands. I have my kids. You know, you don't have kids when I do that.
So, it means that you're okay. Now of course, the crux of the conversation is what? What do you do with that? How do you react to that? How do you go about in now trying to fulfill those desires, trying to act on that attraction that you felt. That is what makes you or breaks you.
Spiritually. In this world and in the next. That's what's gonna make you or break you.
So of course, we go about the appropriate means. And that's where marriage comes into play. Right? That's why we've been talking about marriage.
That's why we've been talking about this key relationship of marriage. But I wanted to take it down to a more basic level, because we need to remove the guilt. We live with guilt.
We walk around with guilt for stuff we don't need to be guilty about. You know, subhanAllah, our deen is so amazing that even in regards to sin, there's supposed to be remorse and there's supposed to be repentance, but you're not supposed to live like a life of guilt. Uh-uh.
That's why we have the concept of... That's why they like to do this stuff. So that's why we have the concept of tauba. That's why we have the concept of tauba, repentance.
You turn it around to make a U-turn. To make a U-turn. That's it.
Right? So I wanted to talk about a little bit. I wanted to at least briefly address this. And that was removing the guilt from this entire discussion, this entire conversation.
The Source of Love and Blessing
And lastly, I'm just gonna end up concluding here with where I started from and understand one thing. A lot of this talk has been kind of geared towards maybe some of the younger people and people who aren't married yet and kind of giving them a better perspective as to what is love, what is marriage, what are relationships in Islam. But I want to give something even to the young ones.
Alright? But this is also a little bit of maybe, you know, advice, a little bit of a... Just, you know, just a little tidbit I'd like to share with even some of the older folks who are married here with us today in the masjid. And that is understand one basic principle, one basic rule. Abdur Rahman hit the nail on the head when he said, who create... I'm gonna ask you some Sunday school... I like to call them Sunday school questions.
Who created us? Who puts love in our hearts? That's it. That's all you have to know, that's all you have to understand.
Maintaining Your Relationship with Allah
So if Allah is the one that created all of us, He created you and your spouse or your future spouse, inshaAllah.
And Allah is the one who has put love in your hearts or will put love in your hearts if you're not married yet. Then that means, who should you... What should you make sure? Who should you maintain a very strong relationship with if you want to maintain love in your marriage and in your spousal relationship? Allah. You gotta stay good with Allah if you want to stay good with your other relationships.
Because that's where barakah, that's where blessing comes from. Allah is a source of barakah, Allah is a source of blessing and Allah is a source of love. Allah is a source of mercy and rahmah.
So if you want to maintain love, mercy, rahmah, blessing, barakah in your marriage, in your personal relationship, you will maintain your relationship with Allah and you will make sure that your relationship with Allah stays strong and it stays sound.
The Connection Between Prayer and Marriage
We don't have enough time to talk about it. Maybe this will make for a good topic in the future, inshaAllah, when we have another conversation.
But there's a very powerful ayah in the Quran in surah al-Baqarah, ayah number 238, where Allah says:
"Very carefully, very cautiously, very diligently, watch over the prayers. Watch over the prayers."
But what's very interesting about that, it sounds like very straightforward advice, right? Take care of the prayers.
Got it. But what's interesting is that that ayah is in the middle of a passage which talks about divorce. Ten ayahs before that start talking about divorce and the next three, four ayahs continue talking about divorce or marriage ending and things like that.
Now, the question begs, what does watch your prayers all of a sudden have to do with the topic at hand? It's almost like an interjection, it's like a tangent. But the problem is Allah doesn't have tangents. It's the Quran, everything is divine and precise.
Why did Allah bring up the prayers in the middle of a conversation about divorce? Well, because the scholars, the mufassirun, the scholars of tafsir, they explained to us that Allah is reminding us about the prayers because when a couple is going through a rough patch and they're at the brink of divorce, maybe what they need to do in order to start fixing their relationship is go back and look at their relationship with Allah. Maybe they're struggling in their relationship with Allah and that has stripped their home, that has stripped their marriage, that has stripped their relationship of its barakah and its blessing and its love and its compassion and mercy. So go back and inject some love and compassion and mercy and barakah from Allah back into your home, back into your relationship by fixing your relationship with Allah.
Spirituality strengthens relationships. Pray, make dua, connect with Allah and that will help you in your personal relationships. It's something really, really important to think about.
Final Hadith: Spouses Helping Each Other in Worship
And I'll leave you with this last hadith of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) that emphasizes this point. It's like all in one. Beautiful.
The wisdom of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم). Everyone say, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. The wisdom and the depth of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is unbelievable. His words are profound, they're deep.
They've been studied for 1400 years and we're not done. We haven't even gotten started. Alright.
The Prophet of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) says:
(Abu Dawud hadith 1308)
"May Allah have mercy, may Allah bless, may Allah shower and rain His mercy down upon a husband who when he wakes up for fajr, to pray in the early morning, and he finds his wife still asleep, having difficulty waking up, he goes ahead and helps her out and wakes her up to pray with him. And then he turns around and he says, May Allah bless, may Allah have mercy, may Allah rain and shower down His blessings and His mercy upon the wife who wakes up to pray and she finds her husband having a little bit of trouble waking up. And she helps him up and she wakes him up to pray with her."
That's marriage. That's this topic. And that's something we really have to understand.
We have to wrap our heads around.
Closing
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