@Mufti Menk gives honest advice to Muslims about marriage

welcome to the marriage conversation with naima b robert this is the last episode that i am recording but it's the first one that you guys are going to see and it is with somebody that i have so much love for the sake of allah and respect for and that is our brother mufti menk and he's joining us masha allah assalamu alaikum brother it's been subhanallah such a journey uh with these conversations that we've been having about marriage and i know how how many talks you've got out there on the topics of you know finding spouse marriage divorce just the whole range of it marriage is a big deal isn't it in our communities panella obviously they you know it is a deal and people make it sometimes a bigger deal in the sense that they make it difficult in the sense that they make it they create obstacles that are non-existent in if you look at the dean of allah but they become culturally there or just the norms of the time subhanallah yeah that makes so much sense and actually you know one of the things that um i mean okay like i said and i said this to you before if anybody wants to google advice on marriage from mufti bank they're going to find a ton of videos so in this conversation um you know i really would like to you know just have an honest open chit chat i guess about you know the reality on the ground and i am alhamdulillah familiar with your family i shot a lot about a color and from the outside you've encountered all the obstacles right that people put in the way uh when it comes to for example living with in-laws divorce polygyny all the things that people are so about and who feel that those things are of you know they basically are um i want to say challenges that are insurmountable right challenges that you you can't get over you can't have a successful marriage if any of those factors are present how have you made it work how have you guys and i'm gonna say everybody like the whole family how have you guys made it work subhanallah i don't usually discuss my own personal life but i think i will for people to actually perhaps take a page from before i even start i want to say that when it comes to marriage and divorce uh generic advice is not always applicable to everyone because situations can differ people's emotional levels there's you know psychologically emotionally uh mentally physically it depends on what level they are on and at times something that we might have said in our lectures uh as a point of advice might not be applicable in certain situations or they may only be applicable in some situations so it's it's very difficult to to speak in the public about issues where many people from different backgrounds different situations are going to be listening in sometimes what i say may not be applicable to everyone and one of the things that i always make clear is even though i may have more than one wife i i do want to make it clear that i i tell you some men that you know what i don't think you are a person who should be doing this because i can see they don't have the capacity i can tell you this person is not going to do justice uh to this to the situation so uh people say but how how could you say that when you're in this situation well it's a whole package it depends who you have with you and who you are and the situation around you all three things matter a lot when you have made a choice of a spouse if that choice was was meaning if allah had accepted you for an amazing choice that would look into certain things that might happen in in the future in your life and might be more accommodating if that spouse recognized you as a person who's upright a person who's fulfilling all the rights uh possible a person who's able and capable you know then you're you're just a fortunate person because you made a good decision but the problem is when we choose our spouses right at the beginning and the first time people sometimes haven't listened to advice uh and you know a lot of the times very unfortunately my dear sister they just go for the outward appearance it's very sad it's happening a lot and and i think we need to speak about it because uh i always believe it's a package it's a full package so subhanallah in my situation you know it's just allah almighty together with meaning who has granted us the the patience as well as the ability to a degree and and and and it's a whole team it's a whole team if any one of the people in that team is not in sync i think you would actually tip the boat uh yeah 100 agree and yeah it is a team effort isn't it i think um especially from the spouses and if you're taking into account sort of parents i think we take on a bit more of the work because we're younger and we're flexible masha'allah but um the the word that you mentioned there which i'd like to kind of explore a little bit more is patience and i i just think you know our generation it's one thing that we lack is patience you know um we we want what we want and we want it now we want the way that we want it and you know all these things that you've mentioned like you know duty to the parents you know duty to the husband duty to the wife all of these things dealing with them as human beings they just require so much patience yeah i think you know when when we're younger uh we we're spoiled to a degree by our parents in many cases uh in many instances and we as parents now spoil our children in as much as we can to the maximum without realizing that we need to give them chores we need to let them do things themselves we need to let them clean the house perhaps we need to let them assist in the cooking perhaps we need to let them get used to the ironing and the washing and so on because someone somewhere has to do that when you get married all along your mom might have done it your dad might have helped but did you actually get your children prepared for that no matter how wealthy you are you don't know whether that wealth is going to last you don't know you know your i always say that the choices that we have uh you know for a spouse are minimized when we only look at a certain level of people in terms of finance in terms of society yeah because they're always going to be the minority right that that top percent that can afford this and this and this and this they're always going to be fewer of those than average people you know with average income etc sorry go on yes and do you know yesterday i was communicating with someone and uh you know the argument was that in certain cultures and right now in certain countries as well when looking for a spouse for your daughters what they say is we want someone who has at least at least a house and a car and a good job and and whatever you know what i think that if you're prepared to sacrifice with a responsible human being who has deen and aflac i think you stand a better chance of raising a much better more responsible family than you would if you looked for a person at the age of 20 in their 20s who already has everything i it's problematic you've minimized your uh you know your numbers your the chances of you getting a spouse who's like you know amazing human being unless because you've just cut the numbers down and now you're looking for someone who has wealth already and this is the biggest difference i found with our generations and the ones of our fathers and and for perhaps grandfathers where when they married they actually built a life together and they actually started at zero because the mag was responsible the woman was responsible they fulfilled their roles they then uh got uh they lived in rented accommodation for for long some people die in rented accommodation the majority of the world doesn't mean don't they don't own a house so it's not like you need to own it but unfortunately parents are making a mistake and it's not like you need to have a car you need to have everything for as long as the youngster is responsible comes from a decent upbringing and he has dean and character and for as long as the the way of thinking is more or less in sync with your child i think that that would make a much better spouse than someone who might just have materialistic belongings and nothing beyond that it's almost as if i uh it's interesting that you mentioned the parents actually because this is something i've been saying uh quite a bit and i think that this there's been a glitch in the parenting model i think uh you know when it comes to muslim parents where like you said you know this maybe you can say uh the generation that had the millennials that brought them up not so much us although you know it can differ in different countries and i think different economic levels but i think there was a time when muslim parents as you said would bring their children up very much in the ways of their role right so mothers would teach their daughters how to make roti for example you know the father would give the son responsibilities right is that the same would you say that was the case in in like the indian community in southern africa for example yeah i think i think that is the case and as time passed let me tell you because we want to give our children the best according to us we end up messing their lives because we've taken away from them responsibility in the name of giving them the best so they've never cooked they've never cleaned they have no responsibility someone does things for them they're not ready to sacrifice they were never taught to sacrifice they didn't watch anyone sacrifice or be patient etc and so when they grew up they were spoiled rotten and unfortunately i'm just gonna say it that way and and then when they marry they expect everything on a platter and they wouldn't even lift a spoon literally and that's not what it should be there is a lot of patience required you're gonna have to make the bed in the morning you're gonna have to do so many things you might be privileged to have someone helping you like a helping hand in the home but in most cases if you'd like to get a brilliant spouse he might not have all of that at once i've known of youngsters who started at zero i mean i started at absolutely zero and i think that people who say oh mufti menken we'd like you know he's such a good guy and so on now i think that the same people when i was ready to get married at a point would never have even considered a guy like that never i agree with you 100 somebody needs to clip this because that is 100 i agree with you because on paper you know so many things no no oh in-laws this that this that i know you know it would be like nah this guy is i can give you an example sorry to interject when i got married i didn't have a proper income at all i didn't have a proper job at all i was just an imam in fact i was still a student i was relying totally on my parents i would live with my parents uh i i i didn't come from a wealthy background whatsoever no one knew which way we were going to head allah alone knows and subhanallah i remember asking my my my wife i mean you know her quite well and i asked her i said you know what what makes you want to marry a man who's already divorced with two children what makes you want to marry a man who's divorced with two children and has almost nothing and she says well i this was her answer she says you know my brother told me this guy is a really good guy and he's very intelligent and you know what inshallah it things will head in the right direction and my father told me this guy's a really amazing guy and so on so i'm just taking their word for it i've met you i think you're a good person and there goes and guess what i met her once that's it and i met her once in the sense that with the idea of marriage and i spoke to her properly for an hour and today that's the mother of my children for example and i wouldn't trade her for the whole world you know that yes she's a gem she's a gem listen sisters uh mashaallah uh you know mufti's uh initial wife is not on social media but she could teach us a thing or two about holding it down i think that's that's what i think that's what i would say about the sister masha allah she holds it down and she holds it down beautifully mashallah so it's that that the credit if i can just to give her the credit today i'm able to do what i can do because my family supports me today i'm able to do what i can do because they believe in the sacrifice they believe in perhaps not being able to be with me all the time although we try but you know how it is in the field uh people don't don't recognize your wife so much so that i feel so bad sometimes when we're all maybe in a supermarket or a mall or in a public place and and people men and women would come and women even women would come and greet me and ignore my family completely whereas the etiquette would be if you're a female you start off with the wife to say oh masha allah salaam alaikum my sister i just noticed you know so and that's how it would be but unfortunately people ignore the power behind the man in actual facts and and it's because of their sacrifice if she said for example listen i can't i i won't i won't tolerate you traveling or i won't tolerate you speaking to xyz or doing this what would i have done i probably would have said well that's it the shop is closed but she believed in me she understood this guy you know uh this is what he needs at this time she lived with my folks for 22 years with my parents serving them stop stop stop stop roll the tape back roll the tape back this is a sister who was born and bred in the uk am i correct yes born and bred in london in london okay and then she moved to zimbabwe and 20 how many years please say that again she she lived with my parents serving them for 22 years like i said guys mashaallah the sister you know really it's it's it's humbling it's a lot the whole unit but it's humbling to be in her presence mashallah because i think you know what this demonstrates to me and i hope what the viewers are getting from this is that marriage is is part of building this institution right this family this uh illa and it's it's a it's a legacy project you know it's not about it's um and again i've said this before it's not just about me and my feelings and what i want and my version of the future and my vision when you join with a man there is there is a joint project that you're working on and investing in and subhanallah you know mashallah when i was in zimbabwe earlier this year i got to to meet the sister again mashallah and you know meet the family and obviously your daughter is now married martial also to a student in fact three of the daughters are married is that right that's right uh which is something that many people are struggling with as well today you know this and the thing is what i what i really i want to lean into this thing because like you said you know people will see multi-million and they think this and they think that they don't understand that the sacrifice behind this man and the the the really the patience and strength of the family behind what you're able to do but also you know satanic i have to just interject because i wouldn't like to uh i wouldn't like to ignore the sacrifices of the rest of my family yes everyone yes and you know for example i give you an example when the issue of polygyny came in i remember what my wife told me she said i'd be happier if you didn't do this but if you did i would not be an obstacle and i was thinking to myself you know what nobody would tell you this you know especially coming from a western background coming from i mean muslim it's got to be someone who believes in you they trust you they know you won't harm them you won't oppress them none of the rights that you have would actually be taken away in any way whatsoever and therefore it's a sacrifice from all from both and it's actually something that i owe them i owe them in a big way mashallah masha'allah and thing is i you know many i'm sure there are many sisters guys if we're honest okay if you had been serving your husband's family for however long and dealing with him traveling and being away if he came to you and he said oh by the way i'm thinking of marrying again i think you'd have something to say about that and it would be kind of like you made to tell me i've been doing x y z and now you're going to go and do such and such subhan a lot of vladimir putin just to disclaim uh i i'm not saying you should do it or you shouldn't do it i'm just mentioning what happened yeah it's just what it is but again you know uh you know mashallah i've met your your daughter you know lovely girl mashallah and people would assume mufti meg's daughter ha raleigh you know she's gonna be expensive like it's gonna be tough to marry her you're gonna have to have this and have that and have this how did you decide who you would marry your daughter off to how did you choose how did you make that decision do you really want to know somebody sent me an sms and told me that you know i'm keen on this and what do you think about it and i and because i i knew the person and i'm giving you one example one of them right because i knew the person and i knew what uh what it was i responded say look let me get back to my let me speak to my family think about it and get back to you and guess what it started from a little sms and then i i asked around and the next thing is uh i ended up meeting him and and then i i brought him home to meet her and then and then i and then i told him i wouldn't like to delay this and then it happened uh very quickly and you know people say at what age should your child be married uh i think that you should plan your you should plan for what's in your hands and in the process if allah throws at you something grand you can change your plan because of something that allah has sent you for example we all want to our kids to study to qualify to get a degree to do this to do that and to be able to be self-sufficient to be able to work and earn and be on their own two feet male and female but while we have that plan and while we are working on it in the process you might have someone who's keen on something like marriage who is an amazing option and because i'm a counselor for so many years just like you are i think i've seen a lot of people who've delayed things and regretted the delay and and sometimes i always believe and i even have a video on this to say that proposal doesn't come back that's standard off that quality of that that you know maybe the first or second or third one you you you can't say no for as long as there's grounds to say no i think if the dean is lacking that is lacking you don't really like what the guy looks like oh you haven't skipped a beat because of this person for example so you could and this goes either way boys or girls males or females well i might be addressing it one way because we're talking of my own my own child for example but uh sometimes you have to adjust a little bit it doesn't mean you're not going to pursue your studies but it does mean that you might want to get into something amazing that would be more uh you know more meaningful for the rest of your short life on earth than if you were just to throw it aside and say listen i'm not interested because i'm studying your studies are important but you know what this is something allah sent you a risk allah sent you sustenance and you know risk spouse is part of your risk and when allah sends risk don't just kick it because subhanallah it's something that you have to think about i'm not saying accept it always and i'm not saying reject it always but i am saying think about it consider it and then you may want to say no or you may want to say yes but to throw it away without even looking into it you might just have missed the diamond subhanallah that's so so true and i think you know like you like you said you may have a timeline in mind right you may have you know like you said you've got some things that you want to achieve and i'm going to say this especially to the sisters because i think sisters are more likely to get proposals when they're younger right when they're maybe just going into university or they're still in uni or whatever the case may be and i think again i was talking about you know that generation that i think really failed to prepare children um for responsible islamic life meaning you know how to how to be responsible as an adult and also to be responsible as a wife and responsible as a husband i think that spoiling that you mentioned i think it yeah it messed up a whole generation but going back to this point um the idea that you get a proposal that doesn't fit with your plans i think that we it's very easy for a lot of even women and families to throw it out and be like no you've got to get your degree you need to get your masters you need to do this you need to do that and i think that generation did do things like that and the thing is that for many of those sisters like you said that proposal didn't come again because that brother went and married somebody else who was ready to get married right um and then you know after the fact many of those sisters are now i hate to use the word but it's kind of like behind me like on the shelf just waiting because now they've got the degree maybe they've got you know a job or a career and they're like now i'm ready to settle down but like you said the proposal isn't there and it's it's something one of our other guests mentioned which is that if you insha allah and allah knows best okay this is a generalization but i believe it to be true if you invest in your family whether it's getting married younger whether it's having a lot of children you know whatever it is even if it entails looking after in-laws okay living within laws looking after indoors whatever when you invest in your family for the sake of allah even though it involves often a sacrifice for you personally as a woman let's let's be frank here as a woman there is a personal sacrifice that you put others before you for a certain period of time but what this guest said to me and what made so much sense to me was that near the end of your life those are the things that you will never regret like you will never regret having had those five children within seven years okay like something like that you know where at the time it was like but in 10 20 years time when those children are grown and they are now all around you masha'allah you know doing their thing raised getting married having their children you'll never regret that whereas when we make decisions that are more for dunya chasing money changing wealth chasing a degree chasing fame fortune whatever it is that people chase nowadays they are the ones who have regrets later on in life i know do you agree with that do you think they're off base with that well i think i agree with that and like uh you know the problems that we face on earth are very very uh known because there is a shortage of a good quality of person male or female but more so male there is a shortage of a good quality of person where because of so much that's happening across the globe people sway they tend to sway uh sometimes you know you have youngsters going into weed and going to the drugs and alcohol and so on and so they have a phase in their lives where they've dived into this many come out of that face but many don't as well so it's very important for us to to to know where to st you know where to uh pause and make a little change in our lives like you say sometimes allah almighty definitely definitely has this plan for us that we seem to be running away from and allah almighty says but i sent it to you you know like people say but i'm not getting any proposals for example but allah says but i sent you someone way back and you're the one who said no now what you know it's just an example however however i don't want those who may not have married early to lose hope because we need to strike that balance you know where now that we've now that we may have made a mistake and in some instances not a mistake it just didn't come because of society and community yes it brings me to another point i'd like to address but let me finish this one so so what happens is as you grow older still have hope and keep trying keep trying you know keep your eyes open speak to your folks speak to others and try and you don't have to compromise your standards because my experience is you'd rather you'd rather not be married than marrying a guy who's going to destroy your life and mess your mind and make you a a wreck you know an emotional wreck from my experience i've seen women suicidal you know because of someone who they they married and and i'd rather this person in fact they will tell you i wish i'd never ever married and i agree i wish you didn't but try saying that i'm not saying to them remain unmarried but if something's not opening perhaps allah is protecting you from from something great concentrate on yourself build yourself get to get things around you and you know mashallah try and invest a little bit for maybe your old age and so on and don't worry make the most of whatever allah has provided you with so that also needs to be said it's it's something that allah almighty knows best we're just in there we don't know the future but we have to keep trying yeah no subhanallah it's um it's it's a tough one it's a tough one isn't it because i think you know being single is something that's so normalized now isn't it in society and being single sometimes for the rest of your life and having a fantastic time being single as well um which i on the one hand i'll be honest on the one hand i understand why one needs to make the most of being single i get it um because you you know what's the alternative the alternative is to sit sad and lonely and depressed and not have a life right however i think again that need for balance where you don't have such a fantastic time being single that you couldn't possibly be married because marriage now is a downgrade from your fun lifestyle does that make sense did you do you see what i mean by that i think that is a major problem we're facing right now where people they think that they're going to lose their independence and they're not prepared to tie down but you know what you have to to a degree you have to tie down to a degree and then we address the spouses and say make it easy for your spouse don't be too demanding don't be don't expect too much one of the root causes of divorce today is expectation where we expect so many things and we actually don't realize this is not going to come from this guy or from this girl you know i for one in my family they know that i am very predictable in the answers of what they're going to ask me when they ask me for something because my rule is if it is permissible and i can do it and we can do it let it be done i'm not going to say no because they should i'm not too hard on my own family members because i know that if it's okay and permissible let them have a little bit of fun let them for example do this thing i don't want them tomorrow to say oh we were unable to do it and i'm not we should not be we should not be you know typical men of yesterday where you just want to see how this woman is going to obey your instruction so you say sit down okay now you move there you're not going to go there and there's no reasoning behind it there's no rationale there's no there's no system of thought where they could predict you they wouldn't even ask you if you were a person who was disciplined enough to to be predictable you know so if for example a child wanted to go to a rave party or something and they knew that this is not something that my family would accept they wouldn't even ask they would probably just say look you know what i'm not going to go because i don't want to create a problem here but if you're a person who does one thing and does another thing without making any sense i mean why did you just say no for nothing just like a power play kind of thing just to show that i can i said no because yes when we try to be very hard especially in this day and age we end up creating hypocrites we end up creating those who are never satisfied and then those subhanallah who actually create hardship for others one day later on because they watched you do it now they're going to do it to others it's a big work it's a big work yanny um i uh you know we've been talking a lot you know on the you know various different places and we will continue to talk about you know the the role of the wife the role of the husband and i think one of the one of the areas that we haven't really touched on is this area of leadership um of being the amir of being the leader of the family right i think uh often when we have these discussions about sort of men's role women's role you know husband's rights you know wife's rights etc um it's almost like the man can do anything and can can can have everything his way right like everything is in his favor um and one of the things that that that i always think about is the heavy weight you know of the responsibility on the the husband the man of the house and i don't know whether we think about it that way enough but what would you say you wished wives understood about what it means to be a husband and to be a leader you know allah says the term is interpreted differently by different people the best interpretation that i've come across is the word responsible men are responsible for their spouses their family members and the evidence of it is what allah says later on that uh you know because they are the breadwinners they are supposed to be in the ideal islamic way and it's not wrong for the for for earnings to to come from more than one angle in the home but allah says the ideal way would have been if the man would provide for the female and that's how it should have been so because of that allah says you are responsible you should be spending you should be guiding you should be a source of protection for your family members you know people look at you and they and they wouldn't dare say your wife's name with me i would go to war i would literally go to war if someone had to mess with my family it took me to be honest with you it's something it's like a no-go area and and they would know don't you dare say her name you know what i mean keep her name out of your mouth it's a feeling you have and this is a one this is the responsibility any woman would be so proud of a man who's ready to defend her come what may sacrifice his life in order to ensure she's okay i mean which woman wouldn't be so excited with such a spouse but the thing is the the the men sometimes feel like this is uh i'm the leader of the house so therefore you're going to do what i'm going to say i'm not allowing you to do this i'm allowing it that's where the problem comes you know it's allah doesn't call you an emir in order for you to just uh dish instructions that don't even make sense and and and be unreasonable and not listen to the people what you must do as a leader is listen if the prophet sallam listened to the sahaba and he did i mean if he could do that who are we not to listen to our own family members and we're not even on that level of leadership that he was on this is totally different it's a small level it's a very low level but it's still there where you should listen to your family members listen to your children befriend them so that they can open up to you but still have the slight arms length so that they can respect you and at the same time you must try to accommodate what they they would like to achieve because at the end of the day they are independent uh worshipers of allah they are independent they belong to allah before they came to you and so your duty as a parent or as you know as a person responsible is to to fulfill what allah told you to fulfill with regards to the this amana this uh trust that's entrusted to you if you are going to you know not consider their thoughts their feelings their situation their emotions uh perhaps other factors that are affecting them you're not a good leader you're not a good leader you're not a good amir so sometimes your children go to a school they're out in the environment and they're facing things that you don't even know about because you don't participate in their lives and and you're trying to uh impose upon them something that's completely contradictory to what they're exposed to every single day what do you expect i mean this is why the advice would actually uh differ that based on the exact environment you're living in if you were a parent towards your children if i'm a parent for example living in the middle of makkah and another parent living in the middle of new york the advice this parent is going to be giving the child and that one's going to be giving the child would probably differ because of the environment i mean what this one may or may not do will be different from what this one may or may not do this is just an example i mean i don't mean it exactly but this is the thing that that we're lacking now before i forget there was a point i said i'll mention i just remembered it now that was do you know when living in an extended family people actually today uh say that i don't want to live with your with your folks oh it's a deal breaker you know for people nowadays it's actually a deal breaker like the guy could be perfect in every other way but you live with your parents or you need me there no no no no no no yes no no now i just want to put things into perspective i understand why it's a deal breaker but i would suggest and this is what i did yesterday to someone i told him look i think meet your in-laws see what they're like and you could say look i'd like my separate accommodation i can give it a try but you have to promise me that if i can't manage then we would actually get our own rented apartment or whatever else it may be because i need my independence because i want to tell you the perks of living in an extended family far outweigh a lot of the negatives in many cases especially when you have children you know i know a lot of people want to dump their kids with the grandparents but then you are the ones who didn't even want to live with those grandparents you are the ones who didn't even want to see them and now you want to dump them there and there they are you know when you have the grandparents around a lot of the children grow up you know now the talking of the grandchildren that a lot of the grandchildren grow up in a more beautiful way without that much of an effort from the parents and the deficit of maybe the parental presence because of work and what or what other you know the other responsibilities these parents have is not that is not felt that much because of the extended family so this whole extended family everyone happens to be a responsible person looking out for your child looking out for so there are perks they are definitely perks but everything comes at a price you need to decide which one you want sometimes you're unwell and you and you're you know you're not bedridden but you're in bed you can't really get up and so on those times it's it's very interesting if you had uh the helping hand perhaps you would be able to go through that with the greater ease so if you do have toxic in-laws then yes i agree you can say you know i had i had a a condition that i laid with my spouses when i was getting married to say listen my parents are amazing people i mean you know them as well right my parents are amazing people mashallah if at all the situation gets toxic and you feel that you'd like to shift out give me three months and inshallah within within 90 days within the 90 days we'll get an apartment or we'll do something and so on i promise you you know what that day never came that day never came and we thank allah for that you know i we my my decision to actually shift out was made for for other reasons you know the number of children perhaps the house we needed our own place and so on but it was never because of a war that i mean no war took place and we thank allah for that so that was a point i thought was very important to say that if we are uh just going to come in and say no way you can't live with your parents sometimes it's an only child sometimes the parents are amazing people sometimes they will work in blessings they will be better than your own parents towards you sometimes they i know of in-laws who don't allow the daughter-in-law or at times even the son-in-law to do anything they actually serve them wow life is made so easy is that there are people like that so as much as i understand why people say i don't want to live together because they hear of the bad experiences of others and there is a stigma by the way attached to the term mother-in-law there is a stigma that's unfair because not all of them are like that i mean all of all women on earth at some point if they've got sons would probably have their sons married and become mothers in law so the same people who who claim that oh mothers-in-law are bad are going to be mothers-in-law and then someone else will claim that they're bad and in our hearts we always feel i feel i want to be the best father-in-law i want to be my wife would feel they want to be the best mothers-in-law for example and and because of the stigma attached you already on a back foot yeah no it's true it's true and i think this is an issue that i think we have in the community which is that horror stories abound about all the things we talked about you know divorce horror stories we've got plenty of them polygamy horror stories so many of them in-law horror stories so many of them and it's they dominate the narrative so that as you said now when you think of in-laws it's an immediate negative reaction because you've only ever heard bad stories so maybe guys if you're listening to this inshaallah maybe this might shift your perspective just a little bit i wanted to just uh talk about the issue of children and dumping them with grandparents um and i think that yeah we you know we do it and and everybody's probably guilty of doing it but the difference between children who stay with grandparents for a weekend for example and children who grow up in a multi-generational household i think is very very very big because when the children are there just for a weekend often the grandparents spoil them right uh because they just just want them to be happy you know they they and you know grandparents you know you're guilty of this you know if the child grandchildren are there it's yes yes to everything give them everything because they're going home to their parents aslan right they're not your responsibility but what i've noticed in multi-generational households is that the children learn that they are not the center of the universe because there are other people in the household that maybe even require more care and concern than they do at times so you see this this humility almost in the children this kind of respect as you said but also this idea that i'm part of a whole right and i also need to accommodate somebody else whereas when children grow up just with their parents especially in the modern day it's like the whole world revolves around the children right the needs of the children the wants of the children the timetable of the children they are the center of the parents universe but when the grandparents are are living there even if they live there just for like a few weeks at a time you start to see the children realize that it's not just about me it's not just about what i want and how loud i want to shout and what i want to watch on tv for example i you know grandpa's here granny's there you know we have to be quiet it's grandma's nap time you know did you just see i don't know whether you've noticed that with your own children actually but i i definitely have seen it with mine it happened with me as well when i was young and then later on with my kids definitely and i think that that the character is refined a little bit more and i don't want to take away from those who might not have had the situation but there's a greater effort required so for example if you have a single child and like you rightly said the world rotates around this child as they grow up and get married they'd like the spouse to do everything to make them continue feeling the same or more and then your the spouse's entire life must rotate around this particular spouse because they grew up alone spoiled rotten i've known of cases where the mothers have not let go of their children male or female later on after marriage and they keep on interfering they keep on you know living i've even heard of people you know older men not being able to sleep on on a bedding with their spouses but rather with their mothers i mean it's sickening sometimes what you hear because from when they were young that's what's been happening and it's a fact people complain to us look my husband he sleeps on the same page with his mother i mean are you okay is your mind fine you know this is this is something unacceptable uh even if it's just whatever you have a spouse you need to make sure that you fulfill their rights so there are a lot of things that happen so subhanallah you know talk about horror stories the horror stories regarding divorce have actually made it such that the minute the term divorce uh is is uh heard people develop hate in islam it doesn't need to be hate with divorce and this is something unfortunately the muslims are struggling with because of culture you have you have if you look at the non-muslims sometimes they've divorced for a while but they're very uh they're very okay they they live with each meaning they respect each other because of the children or because of whatever they wouldn't do the mudslinging and go back and start uh speaking bad about the other one because you know what it's okay it does happen divorces do happen i think it's because of all these horror stories and you know whatever we've heard from society as well as the cultural uh taboo and that perhaps people might have developed regarding divorce has made them develop a hate hate as soon as you hear divorce you're supposed to cut them out talk bad about them never let them see the kids punish them by by this way that way make sure if they want to get married again make it difficult these are all the the food the footprints of the devil shaytan we as muslims need to make sure that we realize divorce can happen it shouldn't come about with hate we might have disliked the person perhaps maybe we just didn't get along leave them pray for them and allah will grant you goodness as well for that advice i think it's very very apt in it you know to round off i just want to share something that just occurred to me as we're speaking we know that our time on earth is finite you know as you said it's this short time that we have and we we know that we will return to allah and allah will question us about what we did and we also know that the people in our lives are amen whether it's our spouses or our children you know and all of these people that we are privileged to to to care for and have responsibility towards and have some kind of duty towards it's an amana and i think i wish that we leaned more into these relationships as acts of the a better rather than making it personal all the time because when it's personal and it's emotional and it's this individual i want i don't like i hate this and all of that we end up compromising these duties that we have compromising the responsibilities that we have because of a personal issue right um and i wonder whether you can speak maybe to this idea that these are actively better you know if you have a mother-in-law or a father-in-law or you have a co-wife or you have an ex-husband in the mix somewhere if there's an ex-wife in the mix if they are step children um you know if they are you know all of these relationships around you that your good treatment of them is a burden and is is is from a place of this is a manner allah has put me in relationship with this person then i have a duty to to to be the best person that i can be and give this person their rights etc i don't know do you think that that that could be an answer to maybe getting rid of some of all of this that we have so much in these different relationships i think you put it very beautifully in fact it's it's the topic that could uh be uh of a whole lecture and subhanallah definitely we owe them the respect and the fulfillment of their rights and so on because i i can tell you in islam to be kind to a stranger is so rewarding what about those who are closer you know what about those who are right there they say to smile at the face of someone is an act of charity imagine if that someone was your spouse your child your parent it's a double triple charity because that's how islam works you know they say the rights of a neighbor and then if the neighbor happens to be a muslim there's a double right and if they happen to be a muslim and a relative it's a triple right and so on so the same would apply here that someone you've been with someone in your family or even if it's an ex like allah addresses some of this in the quran and he says he's speaking about something else but he says that the point being raised is you know you've been intimate with one another you've actually lived with one another and and you you got to each other with the name of allah and you took you made all your promises and your oaths so if you were in such a relationship with someone the day that that might break for example it doesn't mean that your ibadah or your act of worship of uh maintaining that the respect of this person uh should stop it should still continue subhanallah i think you worded it very beautifully and in fact i it was a reminder for me too to say we should look at these things as acts of worship i'm doing it for the pleasure of allah and and this reminds me of something beautiful where you know when you read the quran allah says allah loves those who do good allah loves those who are kind allah loves those who are truthful and so on from those verses what we learn is when we are doing good to someone when we are kind towards a person a true believer will not just be kind because he or she thinks that that person deserves my kindness but they would be kind because they believe that allah loves those who are kind hence i am kind to those who are kind to me or not kind to me because i'm not doing it for them and i i i'm doing it for allah they change the whole picture because if you are kind to those who are kind to you that's a small number of people and it's going to be limited to yeah that's easy yeah if you're kind to everyone because allah loves those who are kind you begin to become kind even to those who are unkind because your smiling is with allah and you tell allah kind the person is unkind i'm kind because you said i should be did you see this oh allah i hope you love me as a result of this and he would because he promises it and he is the fulfilling he is the most you know up honest in fulfilling his promise allah so if he says i love those who are kind we do it for him and we're not doing it because we think it's only the people who deserve our kindness that i think that that gives us more than enough food for thought um for just uh making this time for being my first and last guest on the uh marriage conversation with naomi robert um inshallah many many more opportunities for us to the ethnilla benefit uh our families benefit this this ummah insha'allah leave a sadhaka for for that will benefit us i don't have to ask where people should find you i don't have to ask how they can reach you guys you already know this information but inshallah we'll put the links below um but do you have a piece of parting advice or do you feel like no we've we've wrapped it up quite nicely uh i think you know what uh perhaps i could say a word or two you know like i said right at the beginning that when we speak on a platform like this sometimes not all the advice would be applicable in every single circumstance and situation it's general and when there is general advice there is oh there are always exceptions sometimes people take snippets out of what is said and they say you see this and you see that i give you a little example one day i got a call from from someone saying you know it's very bad what you said and what you did you know my husband wants to follow you in this and that i said listen i just want to tell you something if he wants to follow me let him go and study for 14 years let him serve the community for another 20 years and then he can do what i did so she was like oh i didn't look at it that way yeah you're right that's a good one you know so i i was just trying to learn him saying you burned him you burned him you burned him hard the sister to say listen i didn't tell him to do this i mean if i did something it's not like i told him maybe in his circumstance it wouldn't fit and so on so sometimes we talk about things and people listen to it with a different ear some people listen to it in order to criticize someone else if that's the case we're not going to benefit when you hear what we say think about how it applies to you that's when you will benefit when you listen to something with the ear of trying to pick points where you can bash someone else you're never going to benefit from something like this so that that's a very interesting point i think uh towards the end of this program 100 and i remember as well everybody who's watching this and every other episode of the marriage conversation we all we all perceive with our own lens so as you said uh mufti some advice will make so much sense to you because have how you are processing it and other pieces of advice they will make it will make no sense to you because of your your own perception so insha'allah let's have husna done of our brothers and sisters and let's you know take the what did they say eat the meat spit out the bones something like that but then there's one more thing that just came to my mind now for example when you have uh questions on marriage and so on you know different people answer it differently you have some some men who are hardcore you know and they they have this uh mentality that might not be wrong but it's very different based on their culture and their experiences so they might come up with something very difficult and then you find someone who's extremely soft in nature coming with the the other side of it and perhaps someone in the middle who's a little bit balanced but it's interesting to listen to all of them in order to be able to see what goodness you can take from each one and and that's also a very interesting point people look at me as a very soft natured person trust me when you're talking to people in dawa you've got to be a little bit you know more easy going with the guys but in your own life you can be hard on yourself and and that's how i have taken it some don't like that approach at all and you know what they're not wrong but it's just a different approach so perhaps some might benefit from that approach may allah bless them thank you so much uh guys you know what to do like comment subscribe share this with somebody else that would benefit inshallah and don't forget to tune in for the next episode of the marriage conversation with naima b robert and may allah bless every single one of you in your families in your endeavors and we'll see you on the next one inshallah

Channel: Na’ima B. Robert

Views: 34,955

Keywords: Na’ima B. Robert, Marriage Advice to Muslim Couples, secret to a successful marriage, keys to a happy marriage, marriage advice islam, muslim marriage education, how to be a good Muslim wife, happy muslim marriage, arranged Muslim marriage, compatibility, spouse, expectations, islamic marriage, muslim relationship, muslim couple, mufti menk, Muslim divorce, living with in-laws, mufti menk wife, polygamy, polygyny, Muslim man, Muslim husband, marriage in islam, ismail menk

Id: 7yMEKvxglb4

Length: 54min 11sec (3251 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 01 2022