Open the Doors to Marriage
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-09T14:18:06.18287+00:00 | Topic: Marriage
Open the Doors to Marriage - Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan
Opening Prayers and Supplications
"O Allah, make us among those who believe and do righteous deeds and advise one another to truth and advise one another to patience."
"O Allah, make us firm upon death with the testimony that there is no god but Allah."
"O Allah, expand for me my breast [with assurance] and ease for me my task and untie the knot from my tongue that they may understand my speech."
"Lord of the worlds."
Understanding Marriage Through Divine Guidance
The principles by which we should understand the institution not only of marriage but how to get people married in society - Allah is actually أَبْلَغُ ٱلْمُتَكَلِّمِينَ (the most eloquent of speakers). Nobody speaks more eloquently than Allah does, and in just a few words he's captured pretty much an entire world view of how Muslim community and Muslim families are supposed to think about getting their sons and daughters married.
It's not only about getting your own sons and daughters married. As a matter of fact, when these ayat were revealed there were a lot of people that had just become Muslim so they did not have Muslim families. There were women whose parents were not Muslim, they were not supportive of them. These are sahabiyat now and they're not married, or they came out of a marriage and they have a child, etc.
The Ummah as One Family
There are these situations that are conventional where you have a son or a daughter and they grow up and they're of age and you're thinking about getting them married. But our larger family is the ummah. Allah calls the entire ummah - the messenger will call it one body, the Quran will call it ikhwa (brothers) - blood brothers, pretty much. We're brethren among ourselves which means we're one large family.
So when people in our community, men and women, can't get married, that's also our problem. That's something that falls on all of our shoulders collectively.
The Divine Command on Marriage
So Allah says:
Get the unmarried among them married.
Where the statement begins, ayyam in the Arabic language can be used for a woman, it can be used for a man. More commonly actually it was used for women and less so it was used for men. It seems from the usage of the Arabs it indicates it's talking about men that are having a hard time finding a wife or men that are, in a sense, sometimes also refusing to get married, you know, for whatever reason - encourage them to get married, right.
But on the other hand it's actually - majority of the cases of the word, the use of the word - is talking about women. Women that have been previously married or divorced, women that were never married before, women that have come from other families and now become Muslim, etc. etc. Those are the women that are being talked about.
Preference for Previously Married Women
What's really interesting - the first thing I'd like to highlight here is often not talked about - Allah actually highlighted divorced women first. He highlighted divorced women first. And of the mothers of the believers, the wives of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) actually preference is given, and the sunnah of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is to marry divorced women or widows. That's actually a sunnah of our Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم).
A sunnah that is now almost become opposite - when somebody thinks about marrying somebody who's previously divorced or somebody who's widowed, it's like "what are you doing? Are you crazy?" you know. And this is the exact opposite of the legacy of our Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم)
As a matter of fact, in the ayah where Allah told his messenger that he may replace his wives with other wives, he mentioned:
He mentioned the women "I will get him married to other women that were previously married" - first he mentioned them, and then أَبْكَارًا and then the ones that are virgins, the ones that have never married before. So even in the sequencing of the Quran, many Mufassirun will highlight this, that Allah gave preference to those that were previously married because these are people that can become forgotten easily in a society, and in the Ummah we don't forget people, we don't leave people behind.
Breaking Economic Barriers to Marriage
Now, as an imperative, when Allah says get young people married or get non-married people married, allow them to get married, this is a broad commandment. And who does it apply to? You would think it applies to people - okay, once this boy has graduated from school, once he's got a good job, once he's got a good amount of savings, once he's got a little bit of the return on investment paid back to his parents, you know, once he's done this, this, this, this, and this, and once, you know, everybody else in the family is taken care of, then we'll think about getting him married.
Because if we get him married right now, all of his attention will go to his wife, we're not gonna get anything. So we need - this is our son, this is our investment - we need to get our money's worth first before we allow him to get married.
The Double Standard for Men and Women
And even when we do get married, this needs to not just be a matter of our material gain, this is a matter of family pride. We need to make sure that someone that we can show off, you know, someone that we can be proud of and take lots of pictures and invite, you know, have a huge gathering ceremony and be able to show that we married in an upper class family, etc. etc.
So the considerations for how you get somebody married - you put age restrictions on your men and your women. As a matter of fact, and for women it's the exact opposite in many families. The moment she turns into a teenager, they start getting like "I need to, you know, get rid of my responsibility, I need to just..." It's like a disease in your home that you want to just get rid of, that you want to throw this girl out.
And there are young women that are depressed because their fathers and their mothers - all they talk about is "you're still sitting at home, you're not getting married, you're still sitting at home." And on the other hand, the opposite is these young men that want to get married and their parents say "no, not yet, you're not ready, you're not ready."
Allah's Solution: Remove Economic Prerequisites
Look at what the ayah does:
Even get - good, the good among your slave men and women - back then there was a slave society too, and the people that are making virtually no money are the slaves. Allah says get them married too!
So the rationale that somebody has to be at a certain economic status before you think about marriage was crushed by one statement, removed from the equation. The only thing mentioned in the equation is: are they of the age? Should they be married? And the second is they're salihin - they're good people. Good means they're good with Allah, also means they're mature, they're ready, they're of the age.
Allah's Promise of Provision
And then Allah adds to that - because there are people who still consider these matters:
If they are bankrupt, if they don't have a lot of money, don't worry, that's not your problem. Allah will give them wealth from His own blessing.
Because bankruptcy to Allah is a lesser problem, but أَيْمَة - أَيْمَةِ means lots of people in society that are not married - that's a much bigger problem. Not having money is a less problem, but not having people tied down in healthy relationships, that's a much, much bigger problem to Allah.
The Prophet's Concern About Single Society
You know, when I was studying this word, I even found a narration:
That the Messenger of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) used to actually seek refuge from a society with a lot of single people. He used to be worried about the single people just happy the way they are, and they're not happy the way they are. It's just that their families kept pushing them candidates that they're not interested in, and the one they wanted to marry they're not allowed to marry, and so they say "whatever, I'll just stay single."
The Reality of Temptation in Modern Times
And you know, when somebody says "I stay single" doesn't mean "I stay an angel." Let's be very clear what that means. If there's a 30 year old and he's a professional and he's making good money, and she's 29 years old or 28 years old and she's graduated from school and she's not married, that does not mean temptation hasn't come to them, sin hasn't come their way, that they've just lived this pious life like they're living in the city of Medina back in the day.
And by the way, even the city of Medina had its issues. The city of Medina had pretty crazy situations if you study the life of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) carefully and what happened with the companions around. Stuff happened.
Historical Context from Medina
I mean, just this morning I was reading about the narration of a sahabi who went back to Mecca and he used to have literally a girlfriend - the words in the narration are خليلة girlfriend - back before he became Muslim. And she saw him and she goes "(ما لك؟ - ma lak?)" (what's wrong with you?) "Don't you want to be alone with me again?" - literally is what she said.
And he said "Well, there's Islam between you and me now," that's what he said. And she got mad at him and she got her brothers and friends to beat him up. And he says "Fine, okay, the only way for us now is I have to marry you." And she says "Fine, marry me." He goes "I have to ask the Prophet first" because he doesn't know if he can marry someone who's a non-Muslim.
So he goes back to the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) and he asks him, and then the ayat came down:
You know, don't marry mushrik women until they believe. If she wants to accept Islam, fine. If not, then no. You know, if she wants to leave her pagan ways, then fine.
Making Halal Easy, Not Haram
But I digress from the point. The point - the first point I wanted to make is: how do we make marriage easy? Because this is something - this is the way of shaytan. You know what the way of shaytan - the shaytan put it so brilliantly - the way of shaytan in a society is you make the haram easy and you make the halal difficult. And when that happens in a society, shaytan is won, because people will gravitate towards what is easy.
So today, if you want pleasure for your eyes, what can you capture on a screen? Where the places you can go? The access that you have at your workplace, at your campuses, you know, on your mobile devices, on social media platforms, on dating apps - you name it - all of that has become easy.
The Crisis of Easy Haram and Difficult Halal
And while the door to haram to fulfill - because human beings, men will have desire for women - that's something Allah put inside them, it's not gonna go away. Women will want companionship - it's something Allah put inside, it's in their nature. That's why families come together anyway.
When that is - the door to the unhealthy, the filthy, the impermissible is wide open - and then that young man comes to his parents and says "I think I need to get married. I know I'm only in my third year of college, but this is getting out of hand, mom, this is getting out of hand, dad, I think..." And he doesn't say "Dad, my hormones are driving me crazy, man, the girls on campus, I don't even know what to tell you, seriously, though, you know this one girl keeps texting me" - he's not gonna talk like that to his dad or his mom.
He's just gonna say "Mom, I think I need to get married." He's gonna code it in a nice way. And then what the parents do? They humiliate this young man. "Oh, can't hold it in, huh? Can't control yourself? Well, I was 40 when I got married." And then your father starts giving you lectures. "You know, how are you 40? You're 50 now," you know.
The Parental Oppression Problem
So what we've done as parents oftentimes is oppress and suppress what naturally Allah put inside of us, especially in a time when the haram is wide open. Then you have to go out of your way to make the halal easy. You have to go out of your way. And you can only battle the haram by opening the door to the
Adapting to a Changed World
Look, your family pride - you wanted your son or daughter to marry somebody within the race, within the city, within the village, you know, within the extended cousins, God knows what you had in mind for them. You had all these dreams for them. If you wanted to have them marry within the village, why didn't you stay in the village? Why did you bring them here? Why did you let them go to college? Why did you let them see the world?
You're trying to pretend that the world is still what it was. It's not. The world has changed. The world was even different from the Meccan sahaba when they moved to Medina. The sahaba noticed "these are not like women of Mecca, this is different" - society was different for them.
When people migrate, there's a new society, and we have to adapt to that. And to refuse to accept that is a form of oppression. It actually goes against the ayah that says "allow people to get married, open that door up."
The Right of Choice in Marriage
Which comes to the next point: when some proposal comes your way, you have daughters - like I have daughters, may Allah help all of us who have daughters, you know, and sons too, I'll throw them in the door, but you know like - but if you have daughters and some proposal comes, she's of the age, it's a good match, she likes him, it's okay to ask "do you like him?" It's not haram to ask, it's actually an important thing to ask: "do you like him?"
She says "I don't like how he looks." Done. Finished. You can't force them anymore. "I don't like... I'm not attracted to him." "Astaghfirullah, that will come, Allah will put it in your heart." No it won't. That's not how it works.
If she says "I don't like him, he's too fat, he's too short, he's ugly, I'm... you know, I don't like his personality," whatever she says, she doesn't even have to give you a reason. She doesn't. She could just say "no," that's it.
The Warning Against Forced Marriage
And by the way, later on in this ayah - I won't get time to get to it, but I'll just refer to the phrase:
Don't force your young girls to rebellion - that's the phrase in the Quran. Don't force your young girls to rebellion.
And the immediate interpretation actually of it was don't make young women go into prostitution, because in Medina that's what they did with slave women - they used them to make money off of them as pimps, and they used to literally pimp them in the streets, that's what they did. And Quran came and spoke against that.
But the phrasing Allah used wasn't just about prostitution - he made it wide open. Why is it wide open? When you force a woman to get married to someone she doesn't want to marry, when you put emotional pressure on her and say "if you don't marry him, nobody's gonna marry you, your family's gonna be humiliated, we've already printed the cards" - when you do this kind of thing to your girls and you get them married, and then emotionally they're not in that marriage, they're still human beings.
A human being still needs companionship. A human being still wants somebody who they can be attracted to, who they can find comfort in. That desire does not go away, and that desire will now be fulfilled by fantasy, by them thinking about things, by late nights going on social media, by other things. You forced them into rebelling against Allah because you forced them into a marriage they didn't want to begin with.
Young Men Must Stand Up for Themselves
This is also "don't push this on your daughters," but coming back, this is about men and about women. The young men of our community actually have to now stand up for themselves and have to say "I'm ready to get married, and I have somebody in mind," and that's the next thing I want to share with you.
Realistic Expectations About Marriage
You know, when it comes to you want a marriage that lasts forever, like we want our boy to have the perfect girl - good luck with that, by the way, because perfection is not going to happen in this. And your boy isn't perfect, let me tell you. If you don't know, let me tell you: we're all human beings, and human beings have flaws, and sometimes things work and sometimes things don't work.
But let me tell you: when a young man and a young woman are old enough to get married, that actually means they're old enough to make their own choice. Let me repeat myself: when they're old enough to get married, they're old enough to make their own choice.
And maybe you don't like their choice, and your job and my job as parents is to advise them and say "I don't think this is a good choice, I think that this is... you could do better." And you're, by the way, as a parent, I think I'm always going to say "you could do better." I'm always going to say that.
Halal Mistakes vs. Haram Choices
But maybe, and maybe you think this is a mistake, but if your son is 25 years old, your daughter is 30 years old, and she wants to make a mistake, that halal mistake is way better - that halal mistake is way,
way... And maybe things don't work out in 3 years, that's still better, that's still better than you refusing.
Because I have seen enough cases - I don't talk in theory, I'm talking based on what I've seen, the conversations I've had with people, with real Muslim families around the world, especially around the United States and Canada - where people are...
This man comes and says "I want to marry this girl." The father says "No, you're not from the same country, you're not from the same culture or whatever, you can't get married to my daughter," or the other way around. But these two are still already emotionally attached, so they're texting each other, talking to each other, hanging out with each other, having dinner with each other. Parents don't know. 5, 6 years go by, they're refusing other proposals, then the girl is forced to marry somebody else, and she's still talking to the guy.
And all of this was - that evil, that evil that whoever she married didn't deserve this, he didn't deserve this. But all of that evil was created by the stubbornness of parents who didn't realize that their children live in a different time where allowing marriage first is a bigger priority than anything else.
Historical Context: Breaking Tribal Barriers
You have to understand: when these ayat came down, they came down in Medina, and the Arab people of the time especially were very tribal. They wanted to maintain their nasab at all cost - you maintain your lineage. Lineage is a very, very big deal. So marrying outside your tribe was not a common thing.
But now the sahaba are in Medina and they're outcasts from their own city anyway, and a lot of the people that were in Medina they've accepted Islam, so they're outcasts from their own tribes. So they're going to be marriages outside of their culture.
You have to understand, it's not just an Arab marrying an Arab - this is a Hudhali marrying someone from Taif, or somebody, you know, there's all this intertribal marriage happening, which is a big deal to them. It's as big a deal today than a Pakistani marrying a Bangladeshi - "astaghfirullah al-azeem," you know, or a Lebanese marrying an Egyptian - "how can that be?" you know.
This was a big deal to them, but Allah said "No, forget all of that. Just make sure that marriage itself becomes easy, just that much, and Allah will take care of the rest."
The Command for Patience and Self-Control
And before I conclude this khutbah, just one phrase from the next ayah:
This is a tough ayah for all the young men and women that are here, especially the women. So men Allah says you better try to hold on as best as you can away from the haram. اِسْتِعْفًاف comes from .عفّة
عِفَّة is الْكَفُّ عَنِ الْحَرَامِ وَلَوْ كَانَ يَجْمَّلٌ - they say to stay away from haram even haram is really beautiful, really tempting. That's called اِسْتِعْفَاف. عفّة is مُبَالَغَة of it.
Do your hardest, do your best to stay away from the impermissible, no matter how tempting, how beautiful, how emotionally attractive it becomes, how justified it becomes in your mind. Stay away from it as best you can - those of you that cannot find a means to get married - لا يَجِدُونَ النِّكَاحًا - because that temptation is gonna eat up, eat away at you, and you'll be a believer on the outside, and when it comes to this kind of behavior, Iman is out the window.
The Prophet's Warning About Adultery
Remember the words of your Prophet:
(Bukhari hadith 2475)
When somebody commits adultery, when somebody does the ultimate shameless act, at the time they're doing it they're no longer a believer, they're no longer a believer. This is the words of our Prophet صلی الله عليه وسلم
You better hold on and protect yourself from the road to haram. The first moment you find the opportunity to take the halal option, you take it, you take it.
The Role of the Masjid in Facilitating Marriage
And the first notice in these ayahs - the first conversation was actually to the community and to the society. They were supposed to make things easier. And by the way, today in our times, that is the role of the masjid. Where are good Muslims going to meet other good Muslims? You tell me. At the mall? Where are they gonna meet? At the hookah place? Where are they gonna find each other?
If our families - families, men, women, children - if they start coming to the masajid, then families start getting to know each other and connections start forming. That is actually one of the fundamental roles of the masjid, especially in a society where the majority of the people are not believers. That's what's supposed to happen.
It's okay if somebody saw - outside after Jummah somebody was going to park their car and some young man saw some woman and said "Oh mom, can you find out about her?" It's completely fine, actually. It's better. It's better that happens here than anywhere else, that's actually the case.
Historical Example: The Orphan Girls Strategy
You know, you find in our history there were women that used to run orphanages in Medina - women muhaddithat would run orphanages, and they would take these orphan girls. It's a girls' orphanage. There
are no fathers, nobody's gonna go look for a nikah for them or a possible match for them or a proposal for them. Nobody knows they exist, they're orphans.
So this muhaddithah, this scholar, used to take - in Medina she used to take all these orphan girls, 18, 19, 20 year old girls - she'd take them out shopping everyday to get groceries. You don't need 20 girls to go groceries, but she would. Why would she do that?
And people started complaining "there's fitna in the street, in the market, all these young girls outside." You know, people say this nowadays: "there's a big fitna at the Islamic convention, all these young girls in the bazaar. Istaghfirullah al-azeem."
You don't complain fitna in the movie theater, you've never complained fitna in the mall, you've never complained fitna on campus. At the Islamic convention there's fitna? Everywhere else is, you know, Allah just opened the blessings for you, mashallah, they went shopping, you know.
So people complained "there's fitna," and what did she say? Why do you do this? She said:
So I can hunt down the young men of Medina, because when she goes shopping for carrots, the guy at the cash register is gonna fall in love and say "I wanna find out about her," and he's gonna marry - who's gonna marry these orphan girls? Who's gonna marry them if nobody's even seen them? Nobody's ever even been interested in them?
Finding the Middle Path
There are legitimate ways by people getting introduced to each other. Some of us are so conservative, we're so protective of our women, that we want them to become invisible. That is not the way Medina operated.
And some of us are so liberal and so open - "Oh yeah, they wanna go out to dinner? Go ahead. Oh, just come back before midnight." Really? That's insane. What are you thinking? What are you doing? This is not the - khalwah is open doors for shaytan.
So we've got these two extremes, and now we've gotta come back to the middle. Allow young people to meet in a dignified fashion with the knowledge of their families, and if there is mutual interest, then it's okay, they can express it.
The Example of Musa's Marriage
I wanna leave you with one last thing, even though I've talked about it many times before, just as a reminder for myself and for all of you. The only marriage proceedings mentioned in the Quran are that of
Musa (عليه السلام) - like from 0 to 100, like finding a girl and getting married to a girl, you know, that whole spectrum is captured in the story of Musa (عليه السلام)
Just a few things about that: first and foremost, he's from Banu Israel - yes, he's an Israelite, and he is homeless, he's a fugitive from the law. He ran from Egypt because he accidentally killed someone, so he's homeless, he's an Israelite, he's a fugitive. He ends up in an Arab tribe - Medina - he ends up in Arab land where he finds a couple of girls, and he helps them, and one of the girls indirectly told her father she's interested in him, and the father immediately said yes, and they got married.
So an Israeli got married to an Arab in the Quran, and the one from Israel was also homeless and a fugitive from the law.
The Three Essential Qualities
The only thing the father needed to see was three things:
One: The girl's interested - that was number one. She liked him.
Number two: He's strong, he's got good character, good qualities in him. He can do a job, he can make money, he can defend my family.
And then: He's trustworthy. He had plenty of opportunity to do the wrong thing, he did no such thing. He carried himself with dignity.
When you have these three qualities, ethnicity didn't matter, financial status didn't matter. None of that mattered, none of that mattered.
Living with In-Laws: A Prophetic Example
As a matter of fact, in this case - if nowadays when you say this, it sounds suicidal - for 10 years, between 8 and 10 years, Musa (عليه السلام) lived with his in-laws and worked for his father-in-law, and his paycheck came from his in-laws.
Today when you say to somebody "Hey, where do you work?" "Oh, I work for my father-in-law, and I live with them too." "What a guy, this is a real man, this is a man - even he lives with his in-laws." You want to question the manhood of Musa (عليه السلام) Try and see what happens to you. You don't want to get punched by that man (عليه السلام).
Embracing Unusual Circumstances
What I'm saying is there are sometimes unusual situations, and Allah mentions them on purpose in the Quran because sometimes the marriage is going to be under unusual situations. Not every situation can
be ideal, and in your family if there's an unusual situation, don't sit there and cry "why couldn't we have a normal kind of situation?" That's okay.
Life is not about normal, actually. When you dig deep in every family, there's no such thing as normal. Every one of us is weird, every one of us has strange situations in their family.
So we have to adapt, and we have to be flexible, and we have to be merciful to our coming generation, allowing them to get married in a healthy way and having that open conversation with our sons and with our daughters.
Closing Prayers
May Allah (عز وجل) bless this community with healthy marriages. May Allah (عز وجل) allow us to do right by our children and our children to do right by their children in raising children on Islam. May Allah (عز وجل) bless you and me in the wise Quran, and may Allah (عز وجل) help me and you in the verses and the wise dhikr.
All praise is due to Allah and peace and blessings be upon His chosen servants, especially upon the best of them and the Seal of the Prophets Muhammad Al-Ameen, and upon his family and all his companions.
Allah (عز وجل) says in His Noble Book, after I say I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan:
That Allah and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet. O you who have believed, send blessings upon him and send blessings.
O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad as you have sent blessings upon Ibrahim and upon the family of Ibrahim in all the worlds. You are the Praiseworthy, the Glorious.
O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad as you have sent blessings upon Ibrahim and upon the family of Ibrahim in all the worlds. You are the Praiseworthy, the Glorious.
O servants of Allah, may Allah have mercy on you, fear Allah:
Allah commands justice, goodness, and giving to relatives, and forbids immorality, wrongdoing, and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded.
And the remembrance of Allah is greater, and Allah knows what you do.
And establish prayer. Indeed, prayer prohibits immorality and wrongdoing.
Indeed, prayer has been decreed upon the believers a decree of specified times.