Marriage in Islam (The Deen Show)

Opening

Peace be upon you, and the mercy and blessings of Allah.

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and companions.

Marriage in Islam - The Deen Show Interview

Introduction

Islam and Muslims, Bismillah, Alhamdulillah, Assalamu Alaikum and peace be unto you. Welcome to the Deen Show which is a way of life which we try to put out there for everyone to see helping you understand Islam and Muslims. What's a Muslim? A Muslim is one who does Islam.

What is Islam? It's an action, it's a verb. It's to submit and to surrender your will to the will of the Creator. You learned something already.

And you're gonna learn some more. We're bringing out our special guest this week. You can go on to the interview we did with him. We're covering the topic of marriage. You can learn more about him. We're gonna introduce him.

He's about to come out. Special guest, Sheikh Yasser Birjas. Greetings. Peace be unto you.

Welcome to the Deen Show. Alright Sheikh, thank you for coming out. We went over your formal background on the last show that we did.

Guest Introduction

But real quick, people can go back. We're gonna have all your topics under your care. Special guest, Yasser Birjas. You graduated with honors as a class victorian from the Yale of Islamic Universities in Medina. True. University of Medina. Medina, yes. And you're the imam spiritual leader in El Paso, Texas. Instructor of Al Maghrib Institute. Al Maghrib Institute.

The State of Marriage Today

Alright, now we're gonna get into the topic. Marriage. Today, it's become something that is not being held on to as it was back just, I don't know how many years ago, as something entrusted, something pure. Today, people are test driving in relationship, just like you test drive in a car.

People are living together. You know, this is my girlfriend, this is my boyfriend. You don't hear like, this is my husband, this is my wife. It's something that now has become a norm in society that people are

drifting away from marriage. Or even the youth that want to get married, some parents are even making it more difficult. They're saying, wait till you finish college.

Back then, you had people getting married at a younger age, preserving the family. But what's happening today, you know, I gotta finish, I gotta get my doctor's degree, I gotta get this PhD, and the woman's 30, she's independent now. There's nothing wrong with being independent, but she's 30 and still not married.

The boy, he wants to, you know, have his fun, test drive as many cars as he can, and then get married. We want you to go into this subject and tell us how Islam preserves marriage, what it says about marriage, what's the man's role, what's the woman's role, really clarify this in detail. Can you do that and show us?

Islamic Perspective on Marriage

Okay. All praise be to Allah, the most merciful, the compassionate, and may peace and blessing of Allah be upon his messenger Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم). Marriage in Islam.

Now, love is probably the most spoken about subject in life of men and women today. People they have this kind of feeling and passion to love each other, they would like to establish a relationship, they would like to have a happy life. And most men and women, they have their own ideas about the concept of relationship and the concept of love as well.

We see that in this century, the 21st century right now, most men and women are enjoying the companionship of one another without having any specific limits except for a few of course. So they have started their own ideology of love, their own ideology and culture of relationship and marriage as well.

Changes in Modern Society

It has changed a lot from the time when people they used to appreciate the concept of family, the concept of marital life, being a spouse, being someone who is caring for you and caring for someone else, having the concept of having children and raising up a solid foundation for the society in the future.

People have changed a lot and have changed a lot of these concepts as well. In Islam, the institution of marriage is still solid in theory and in application as much as possible, but we still see that so many people are also drifting from that mainstream of the culture of marriage and family life to something new in the society.

You see, we are seeing right now many young people, young men and young women are delaying their marriages. They don't have any interest, they don't even show that interest of even getting married. We see so many people, young men and women, they are pursuing their career, they want to find themselves, they want to define themselves, but most of them, not all of them right now are trying to

define themselves through individualism, means they want to be themselves, they want to build careers, they want to have degrees, they want to be successful in this life and so forth.

But, even the concept of success has drifted away from the concept of family and marriage to being a successful individual and unfortunately many people are falling short when it comes to their relationship with their spouse.

Problems in Modern Marriages

So therefore, we see the other problem in marital relationships nowadays in this century is that people, they are getting married, but this marriage doesn't last too long. Many people, they end up their relationship with divorce, they end their relationship with estrangement and even sometimes they end with, unfortunately, like so many incidents we have been watching on the news, with a murder. Just simply they snap out from that kind of relationship and they end up so violent in dealing with their spouses.

What is going on? What exactly is happening to people in their relationship? What is happening to the concept of marriage and family life?

The Quranic Foundation

And I would like briefly to talk about the concept of marriage and the concept of love and relationship from an Islamic perspective. It has been summarized in one simple verse and ayah in the Qur'an, where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, God is saying in the Qur'an, in Surah Ar-Rum, verse number 21:

In the English translation, that amongst His sign is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquillity with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): verily in that are Signs for those who would like to reflect.

Two Essential Elements of Marriage

This is what summarizes the concept of marriage in Islam. We see that living in the 21st century, it has become the body culture, means everything is about beauty. People, they would like to marry someone because of their physical characteristics, nothing about what is beyond that actual image.

There's nothing wrong, of course, of pursuing something beautiful because this is now signs of perfection in mankind as well. As Muslims, we believe that marriage is a sign of perfection in the life of man. So therefore, it is something virtuous to go and pursue in this life, in the legal way, of course.

And in this ayah, in this verse in the Qur'an, our ulema, the commentators in the Qur'an, what they said, they based that the marriage itself, the successful marriage is based on two elements or two factors for a successful marriage. Number one, to have love, and number two, to have mercy.

Love and Its Transformation

So if you have love, that's one thing, that's something very important in a marital relationship. But number two, you also have the mercy. Most marriages, they start with a loving relationship. Specifically living in this culture, you have so many people who go with these kind of test driving marriages, or sometimes even drive-thru marriage.

They just meet each other in a club, or in some kind of casual event, and all of a sudden they are in love and they want to get married. Where do you get any ideas for marriage from? Nothing really probably significant or serious, except what they see on TV, what they read in fairy tales, and so on.

So it starts with love, and then, like what we see in many, many relationships, specifically in the life of celebrities, this kind of loving so-called relationship ends up with divorce quickly after they get married.

So what happened to that love that they enjoyed before? What exactly has happened? What's going on with love? People, they have that feeling that love is something permanent. When they fall in love, they think that it's going to be for granted forever. But once they start their marital relationship, that's when they realize that love is more than just a mere thought, or just a passion, or even a lust.

The Evolution of Love in Marriage

It's even more than that. And that's when mercy comes in. So we believe that love, during that marital relationship, transforms itself to different degrees, and different, also, shapes.

It starts with this passionate love, and then, when the spouse, when the wife, she becomes pregnant, now they're expecting a child very soon, the husband and wife, they become more merciful to each other, more loving in a different way, of course, because there's something else that they're going to share together in this life.

And then, even when you have that child, now that love will be split between you, all of you, as a family. And now the father has another purpose of life, besides, you know, just being so loving to his wife, he also needs to be so loving to his family, sacrifice.

And the wife will do the same thing. It's all about mercy, and it's all about love transforming itself from one level to the other.

The Reality of Marriage

Unfortunately, most people, they're still living these kind of idealistic dreams about a perfect relationship.

And contemporary studies just confirmed and proved that this perfect relationship is almost an illusion. There is nothing perfect about a marital relationship, except to expect to have everything in your marital relationship.

You have the ups and downs, you have the good times and the bad times. You have the times when you're upset and angry, and when you have the time when you're very happy and you're laughing and so on, expecting a natural, a natural marital relationship.

But if you expect to have that perfect relationship, means it's all about love, that's when people, when they start seeing that love is not there anymore, they start going for divorce, because there's no purpose anymore for this relationship.

But if you think of love as an action that you need also to do, and a way of transforming that love to a merciful relationship as well, that's when love, when marriage actually starts prolonging and takes even a longer time, of course, between a husband and wife.

Marriage as a Contract with Rights and Obligations

We believe that family life should be all about love and mercy. It's not just solely about love, the passion of love, it's not solely just a mercy, it's a combination between love and mercy. And we believe that the best solution for the passions of people in this life is to respect this value, the value of family and the value of marriage.

As Muslims, we do believe that there are certain guidelines that people need to observe in their marital relationship. When we say marriage, we're talking about contract, and a contract has its own provisions that both parties should honor and should also observe. You have things we call them rights, and also we have things we call them obligations.

What men and women share together in marital life, it's all about their rights and their obligations, and hopefully we will have an opportunity to discuss the meaning of rights and obligations between a husband and wife in Islam.

The Prophet's Example

It has all been regulated in the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad himself, peace be upon him, and by studying the best examples for mankind, we'll see how a marital relationship will go so smooth and so loving and happy marital life. It is he, himself, Muhammad, peace be upon him, the Prophet of Islam, who said:

(Sunan at-Tirmidhi Hadith 3895)

The best of you are those who are best to their families.

"The best amongst you are those who are the best to their families," and then he said that "I am the best to my family," in order of course to a recommendation for us to follow his perfect example as a role model for mankind.

Marriage Completes Half the Faith

Question: Tell us, is it true that when a Muslim completes marriage, this is like completing half of his faith?

It's a very common concept in the Muslim culture that indeed, when someone gets married, they complete half of their faith, because most people, they have this kind of wild dreams and wild life and so forth, but once they get married, that's when they start settling down and they start becoming more focused on their goals in this life, and they understand themselves in the society in general.

Is there something, is it true that now, once a man is married, he like psychologically, physically, he becomes like balanced?

He should be. I mean, people, they should be. Why? Because now, it's no longer about yourself, it's about us. So when people, they start, they have their own wild dream again, they want life to be such and such, do all these kind of things and so on, and now when they get married, they have someone else in their life that when they think, they think jointly, of course.

So it's all about us, it's no longer about me personally or you personally. That doesn't mean that marriage will limit your personal dreams and goals as well. You can still achieve great goals in this life as an individual, but at the same time with the assistance of your family, that would be a plus to you.

And then usually if you're not married, you have, I mean it's not everybody, but I know people it's like, you're kind of like a wild animal sometimes.

The Body Culture of the 21st Century

Well, it depends of course on the environment and how much they let it go loose. Yes, indeed. Because you got your, you can't, your desires run wild, you get heat, you're full of this heat and this passion, and you're doing, you're getting a chance of getting some real trouble.

You live in the 21st century. And when you go around walking in America, walking in the West in general, you would see that again, it's all about body culture. Even right now in almost everywhere in the world. Body culture. Body culture. It's all, wherever you go.

It's all about men getting in shape, muscles, whatever actually they try to do, be strong, something like that. Flexing how I look. Exactly.

Women, the same thing. They would like, of course, to lose weight. They want to be in shape, and plus, now even in fashion industry and so on, it's all about revealing more parts of the body than, you know, covering and concealing that.

Just like in the past, it was about, you know, being so modest, covering yourself, being so respectful when you walk out into the street. We lost that now. We lost that right now. But Islam preserves it. It still preserves that. It brings it back.

We don't compromise this in Islam. We don't compromise that in Islam. Unfortunately, Muslims are doing that. Muslims are compromising. But Islam, it doesn't. Islam keeps that, of course, intact as one of the main regulations of the relationship between a man and a woman.

The Right Age for Marriage

Question: So at what age, because you see nowadays, many parents are saying, and even individuals are saying, you know, I got to finish college, I got this doctor's degree. At what age should a youth get married? Because we've gone away so far saying, ah, 18, 19 is too young, it's too young. 30, even people 40 years old waiting to get married. What age should someone get married?

Well, the instruction of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam) is that when a person, when a man, a person is capable, means physically and financially capable of getting married, they should not spare a moment. They shouldn't spare a moment? They shouldn't spare a moment. They should do that.

However, of course, there are other instructions as well. It means that sometimes it becomes compulsory. It means obligatory on a person to get married. If they have that capability, financially, physically, and at the same time, they fear strongly that they might go into something haram, prohibited.

Meaning like fornication? Fornication or adultery. In this case, they are obligated to go and get married.

Because there's nothing really preventive from this. Because there's no, is there a boyfriend, girlfriend in Islam? We don't have that concept in Islam at all.

How about if we're just holding hands, boy and girl? The same thing. Can't do none of that. Don't touch her, none of this playing around. She's got to be your wife. She's got to be your wife. As clear as day.

Dating vs. Islamic Courtship

Question: And then in this case though, what about dating? How would people know each other?

Yeah, how about that? That's a relevant question. It's a very important question. Specifically living in this society, you know, where you don't have that much access maybe in Islamic environment. So how would go about it?

Still, the family plays a major role in presenting, you know, the youth to each other. Plus, we have a lot of Islamic centers where they can, should facilitate this for the young people and families to come all together.

Living in a multicultural society, it's very important to start tolerating interracial marriages and mixed marriages and so forth. Instead of having only one particular culture. That puts too much pressure on some of those young people.

We're talking about probably the culture of Muslim youth who are growing up in this society. Now they're developing their own culture. They're American Muslims. They're no longer, for example, Arab Muslims or even Indo-Pakistani Muslims or Bosnian Muslims and so on. They're American Muslims.

It means they all come together from different backgrounds and they're building their own culture. So people, they need to start, you know, breaking the ice and tolerating these kind of mixed, you know, cultures between the Muslim youth.

Advice to Parents

Question: What do you got to say to the parents who are restricting? Say the youth now, he's got this urge, right? And he wants to get married. He fears his creator because he knows, if I fall into the fornication, I'll get in some big trouble, right? True. Is that one of the major sins? Absolutely. Major sins. Major sins. One of the major sins. Punishable.

So you have this fear of your creator and love. You don't want to displease him. Now you want to get married. You've come to that. But your parents are giving you a hard time. Now they're like, you know what? We've got to wait till you finish school and, you know, we've got to get this $25,000 wedding. What do you got to say to the parents?

Well, my advice to the parents, my advice to the parents is that they need to make it easier for their children. Their children are living a different culture right now, a different society. I know most parents, they have that claim that, you see, we have gone through this ourselves.

We have went to universities, we have went to colleges, and we survived the aftermath of these, you know, kind of experiences. So watching our kids also bear, you know, the responsibility and also then be more patient until they finish their school.

I would say the culture has changed. The circumstances are changing. And your kids, they have that stronger urge, of course, to preserve themselves. And they have the full right to say that.

Parental Support Options

However, I also send the advice to the young kids, young men and women, who would like to get married, that your parents, they need to see some responsibility from you. You know, teaching the class

myself, teaching a class with the Al Maghrib Institute called Love Marriage. And sometimes in our activities, we ask parents and we ask also young adults to give their perspective about why they're delaying their marriages and why parents are saying no for these early marriages.

Unfortunately, it is understandable that parents, they look at their kids as still young and they're not ready for it. How do they define someone to be ready? When they see someone that he is right now responsible, means they have stable jobs, when they talk, they talk in a respectful manner, they have defined goals in their life and so on. That's when they start seeing that their children are ready for marriage.

Question: Let's say now we have a situation where the kid, he's not financially stable, but he's still in the heat. You know, we're talking about heat. We're men now. Absolutely. Can the parents even help out with financially supporting and even letting them live in the house? Getting a room in the house and preserving that child rather than taking a chance and now he slips up and he goes and starts dating and fornicating and, you know, doing the zina and adultery, whatever. What do you think about that?

I absolutely agree that if the parents would have the financial ability to support their children before even they finish school, that would be a great help.

I'm not saying that the kids right now, they're going to be living in that perfect environment for a husband and wife, but at least that's better than doing something wrong. They're still at least doing it in a lawful way, a lawful manner.

I would also suggest at least to make things easier for the children. If you know that your son or your daughter, they would like to get married and they still didn't finish their school, why not then at least facilitate the marriage for them by having the marriage contract done, which means they become Islamically and legally husband and wife, but still they delay what we call the consummation of marriage until a more appropriate time.

During that time, they have the liberty to stay together, to have dinner together, to come and visit at home, because Islamically and legally considered husband and wife. The only thing that we are now deferring and delaying is the consummation of marriage until we think that they are completely ready for that.

So they could move to their own individual premises, they have their own apartment and they have finished their studies and the guy has even a stable job and so on. But parents, they should try to help as much as possible in such a heated culture like this in the 21st century.

Marriage as Protection from Hellfire

Question: How could marriage save one actually from the hellfire?

Oh, it saves them a lot. I mean, it's enough for the person when they really fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when they fear God, and they go and they just pursue this relationship in a lawful manner, lawful way to avoid, of course, committing the haram, that's part of an act of worship. It's an act of worship. You're getting rewarded for that.

You're getting rewarded for that if you're doing it lawfully. Even the Prophet Muhammad himself, when he was suggesting the acts of charity a person would do, the Prophet Muhammad, he mentioned things about marital relationships. Things like, for example, feeding your spouse with your own hand, that's an act of charity.

And even someone approaching his desire in a lawful manner, it's an act of charity.

Question: So you're telling me that in marriage, lawful marriage, you having relations with your wife, you're getting rewarded for that?

Absolutely. The Prophet Muhammad himself, he suggested, he said that:

Sahih Muslim Hadith 1006

Someone approaches his spouse, of course, with intimacy and pleasure, they will be rewarded for that.

Even his companions, they got shocked by that news. They said, Ya Rasulullah, O Messenger of Allah, someone is going after his desire and he goes and he gets rewarded? I mean, just satisfying his desire is a rewarding thing by itself. So do you get also a heavenly reward for that?

He gave them now the rationale for that. He said, what if this person does that in an unlawful way? Wouldn't they be held accountable for that? Wouldn't they be punished for that? He said, Yes, Ya Rasulullah. He said, O Messenger of Allah. He said, so the same thing. If he does that in a lawful way, he should be rewarded for that.

So for a Muslim, seeking, of course, a marital relationship and maintaining the marital relationship in a healthy way. The struggle itself, which is called Jihad al-Nafs, means just self-education. It's self-struggle against the hardships of marriage, the hardship of raising a family. It's all rewarding.

Everything that you do in that same understanding of getting the reward from God, you will get that. That's the beautiful thing in Islam that all these acts, all these little things you do, they're considered acts of worship. Exactly. And the angels writing down these deeds.

Everything, including your regular work, when you go out and work and earning for a living in order to feed your family, so that you don't go and beg other people for that. You will get a reward for that.

and one night and people probably they will regret that night for the rest of their lives so make it easier for our kids and make it easier for them.

I understand that you would like them to be responsible and they should be responsible and I also recommend that you don't really help anyone who is completely irresponsible but we need to help them to understand the concept of responsibility the concept of in-house and to be a family person make things easier for them and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will put barakah in their marriages.

He was the one the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said:

(Sunan Ibn Majah Hadith 1887)

Means the less the mahr the more barakah blessing you will find in this marital relationship.

Closing

Sheikh thank you so much for coming out thank you thank you (الْحَمْدُ لِلهِ) like to thank all our viewers who tuned in for another episode on the Deen Show trying to help you understand and see how Muslims tackle these very important issues today we covered marriage Inshallah we'll have the Sheikh back again for another hot topic please visit the website check out our video page other topics that we've covered until then we'll see you.

Peace be unto you