Navigating Marriage: What You Expect vs. What You Experience

Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.

First of all, after praising Allah Azza wa Jal, after asking Allah Azza wa Jal to exalt and mention and grant peace to our messenger Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and to his family and his companions, I would like to start by extending my thanks to the masjid, to Sheikh Muhammad, jazalallahu khairan. He came all the way to Burrus to invite me for this spare day that we had, this day that didn't fit on the timetable. And wallahi, the masjid made such a huge, huge, huge effort, a massive effort, which was at very, very short notice for me to be able to come here and to speak to you today. So I really want to extend my thanks to the masjid, the administration, and everyone, the volunteers who were involved. Wallahi, the efforts you made amaze me, to be honest with you.

And I ask Allah Azza wa Jal to make it heavy on the scale of your good deeds yawmul qiyamah. I would also like to extend my thanks to the brothers and sisters because we hoped to start earlier. We were hoping to start at 6 o'clock, Sweden time, but what happened is that the train was very badly delayed, so we got stuck. We got stuck actually in Erbru, where we were before.

So we got stuck there waiting for some time, and qadr Allah wa ma sha fa'il, it took until now. But alhamdulillah, we came, and it is a pleasure and a blessing from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to be able to speak to you here today, tonight. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allahumma a'allimna ma yunfa'una, wa infa'na bima a'allamtana, wa zidna ilma bi rahmatika ya abhamal rahimi.

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to teach us what benefits us. We ask Allah to benefit us with what He teaches us. We ask Allah azza wa jal to increase us in knowledge. We ask Allah azza wa jal to give us the ability to practice it.

My dear brothers and sisters, the topic that we have for tonight is the topic of marriage. And I was originally hoping to come to you and talk about before marriage and after marriage. But qadr Allah wa ma sha fa'il with the late time that we have, I think that we'll make this one and we'll focus on the topic of getting married insha'Allah ta'ala.

Out of interest among the shabab, the young guys, how many of you are married? How many of you are not married? How many of you don't know because a whole bunch of you didn't raise your hands in that question. No, no, that's very good. I think the majority of the people here tonight are not married. So insha'Allah ta'ala it would be a good opportunity for us to speak about the topic of getting married.

The brothers and sisters since I've been in this tour in Sweden and before that have been asking me about the problems they go through, you know, the issues like how do I get married? I want a solution for my situation, you know, whether I'm studying in university or I'm here in the masjid, how do I get married? And the way I want to do this is that I actually want to look at the evidences and from the evidences talk about modern day issues that people have getting married.

So I'm combining between two things. I'm not just going to come and sit and talk to you about the modern problems and the modern solutions. I want to talk to you about the Qur'an. I want to talk to you about the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. But insha'Allah ta'ala from there I would like our discussion tonight to be about something which you're really facing in your life. So we're going to look at the ayat, we're going to look at the ahadith and from it we're going to talk about how we apply these ayat and these hadith in this situation that we're in.

And Allah Azzawajal said, اليوم أكملت لكم دينكم و أتممت عليكم نعمتي و رضيت لكم الإسلام دينا. Today I have completed your religion for you and completed my favour upon you and chosen for you Islam as your religion. That means this religion is perfect. It works in the Middle East, it works in Sweden, it works in 600 years after the hijrah and it works in 1400 years after the hijrah. It works in 2024 and it will work in 2025 and beyond.

Our deen has got the solutions to the problems we face. In every single aspect there's a solution but we have to know our religion to know what that solution is. Marriage is something that affects everybody, everyone, even the ones who are not married because no doubt you are children that came out from a marriage and you when you get to a certain age want to get married or are looking to get married or have been married or are married.

The marriage is something that is important to every single person. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said, وَاللَّهُ جَعَلَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا وَجَعَلَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَزْوَاجِكُمْ بَنِينًا وَحَفَدًا وَرَزَقَكُمْ مِّنَ الطَّيِّبَاتِ أَفَى بِالْبَاطِي لِيُؤْمِنُونَ وَبِنِعْمَةِ اللَّهِ هُمْ يَكْفُرُونَ. Allah Azzawajal said Allah made for you, from you, your spouses. What does it mean from you? Any of your spouses, male and female. Allah didn't, you know, send you someone from, you know, like they say men are from, I don't know, Mars or something and women are from the other one. Venus or something. Allah didn't send someone from another planet.

Allah Azzawajal created among human beings, الذكر والأنثى male and female. And He made it that they can live together as spouses. And He made it that because of that marriage, there comes children and grandchildren. And Allah blessed you with wonderful things. And one of the wonderful things Allah blessed you with is He blessed you with this institution of marriage and being able to have kids and having families.

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسِ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ مِن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلًا لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ. Allah Azzawajal said, O people, we created you from male and female, a man and a woman, and we made you into tribes and nations so that you can know each other. We didn't make you into tribes and nations so you can be racist towards the other tribe or you can be racist towards the other colour or the other nation or the other people or the one that looks different to you. Allah made you into nations and tribes so that you can know each other. You can live together, you can be peaceful together, you can get on with people, you're like, I know this guy.

And where does it all start from? It starts from ذكر وأنثى, a male and a female, it starts from marriage. And Allah Azzawajal brings children and grandchildren, and then it becomes a tribe, and then it becomes a nation, and all of it starts from marriage. Every single one of us has a common ancestor. Wherever you're from. And that is Adam. كُلُّكُمْ مِّنْ آدَمْ وَآدَمْ مِّنْ تُرَابٍ. All of you came from Adam and Adam is from the dirt, from the dust of the earth.

So this is such a blessing from Allah Azzawajal. Our whole life that we live comes from this. أَفَ بِالْبَاطِلِ يُؤْمِنُونَ. How is it after you see this blessing, there are some people who believe in false things. They worship false things. وَبِنِعْمَةِ اللَّهِ هُمْ يَكْفُرُونَ. And they are disbelievers and ungrateful for the blessing of Allah.

And I'm going to start off talking about something very important which this ayah relates to. Look at what happens when the institution of marriage falls apart. Human beings can still procreate, I mean they still manage to have kids. But when the institution of marriage falls apart, what happens? It's chaos in the society. You've got kids, they don't know who their fathers are, they don't know who their mothers are. You've got kids that are separated from the people. You've got people growing up and the whole society breaks down.

When you have zina instead of marriage, when you have these short term relationships, long term relationships outside of marriage, the whole society breaks down. And you only have to open your eyes and look at how the non-Muslims live to see the result of that. You would think they would be happy. You would expect somebody to be happy. He can choose any partner, one week, two weeks, three weeks, leave her, take another one. She can drop him and go with another guy.

But in the end, you tell me what does it do to the society? It makes people miserable, it causes people to be broken. Broken families, broken homes, broken societies, kids get up to no good. And it's just a complete breakdown of what Allah Azzawajal, the blessing Allah gave you. The ni'mah that Allah gave you. So we should be grateful to Allah for the mahasin of Islam, the beautiful qualities of Islam that Allah Azzawajal gave us this beautiful system. A man and a woman get married. They have children. Their children get married to someone and then they have children and so it's grandchildren and great grandchildren. And this is how people live.

This is the way the messengers used to live. وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا رُسُلًا مِنْ قَبَلِكَ وَجَعَلْنَا لَهُمْ أَزْوَاجًا وَذُرِّيًّا. We have sent messengers before you and we gave them wives and children. Even Isa, alayhis salatu was salam, when he comes at the end of time, will marry.

And Allah Azzawajal said, وَأَنكِحُوا الْأَيَامَ مِنكُمْ وَالصَّالِحِينَ مِنْ عِبَادِكُمْ وَإِمَاءِكُمْ يَكُونُوا فُقَرًا أَيُغْنِهُمْ وَاللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ وَاللَّهُ وَاسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ. Get the unmarried people married. Even the slaves, the male and female slaves, allow them to marry. If they are poor, Allah will make them rich from His bounty. And Allah is وَاسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ. What we understood from this is Allah is telling us to facilitate for people to get married. وَأَنكِحُوا الْأَيَامَ. Find the unmarried people and help them to get married. Facilitate for them to get married.

And Allah Azzawajal told us something powerful. What's the main reason people don't get married? قَوْلًا وَاحِدًا. There's only one main reason why... Ok, we talk about the brothers mostly. What's the number one reason people, not everyone in this room raised their hand and said I'm not married? It's the money. And Allah Azzawajal addresses this issue directly. يَكُونُوا فُقَرًا أَيُغْنِهِمْ وَاللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ. If they are poor people, Allah is gonna make them rich. In other words, don't allow yourself... Don't allow yourself to make this issue of not having much money to be the reason why no one is getting married.

No doubt. No doubt the Prophet ﷺ encouraged us to get married if we have the ability to do so. No doubt. The hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud. رضي الله عنه He said, كُنَّ مَعَ النَّبِيِّ صَلَى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ شَبَابًا لَا نَجِدُ شَيْءًا. Allahu Akbar. He said, we were with the Prophet ﷺ, we were young men and we didn't have any money. We were young men and we were broke. فَقَالَ لَنَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَمَعْشَرَ الشَّبَابَ مَنْ اِسْتَطَاعَ مِنْكُمُ الْبَاءَ أَوْ قَالَ مَنْ اِسْتَطَاعَ الْبَاءَةَ فَلْ يَتَزَوَّجَ. He said, all group of young boys, young men, whoever of you finds الباء let him get married. And the scholars differed about the meaning of الباء. Some of them said it means the physical ability to get married. He's physically able to be intimate with his wife. And the other view is that الباء is the financial ability. And I believe the second view is الراجح, is the stronger view. And I'll tell you why for two reasons.

Number one, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم يخاطب الشباب. He's speaking to the young boys. Generally speaking, it's not the physical side that is the problem. I mean I never met a young guy who the problem is physical. That's not the problem, the problem is money. So it's غير متوقع that he's addressing them about physical health problems. But he's addressing them about financial. But there's even a clear example in a riwayah of this hadith من كان منكم ذا طول. Whoever of you has enough wealth فليتزوج, let him get married. That's a command from the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. And normally we say الامر يفيد الوجوب. That means it's obligatory. Except here the ulema say that the general standard of marriage is that it is مستحب. And it's only obligatory on the one who would feel that they're gonna fall into haram.

لكن I want to talk about modern day issues. Many people come and say I, my parents think it's not my time to get married because I don't have much money and I haven't finished my degree and all of that stuff, I don't have a house and all of that. لكن that brother knows that he is falling into haram every day. Every day. He's يعني falling into أنواع الزنا والعياذ بالله بأسرها. All of the types of zina, of the eye, the hand, the foot. All the types the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم mentioned. Here it's wajib upon him to strive to get married. It's obligatory upon him. It's not an option anymore. You can't just say that it would be a good thing if I could get married.

So here we say that the normal ruling of marriage is الاستحباب. It is highly recommended. And from here is the hadith of Aisha رضي الله عنها that the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said, النكاح من سنتي فمن لم يعمل بسنتي فليس مني. Nikah is from my sunnah. So whoever doesn't practice my sunnah is not one of me. But I just said to you nikah is مستحب. So how do you reconcile that with the statement of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم? Whoever does not implement my sunnah is not one of us. And it's a major sin ليس منا كبير من كبير الذنوب. It's a major sin. So how do you reconcile those two? Do you have an answer? Could you be referring to the fact that having a relationship outside of nikah? No, it's not a relationship outside of nikah. But it's a good idea. A very good idea. That's not the meaning of it. You can both answer. But even those who are capable of marriage. You're right, those who are capable of marriage. But those who are capable of marriage, I said to you the statement is مستحب. But the hadith indicates that it's wajib. And in fact that it's a major sin.

So how do we reconcile? Very good, excellent. It's for the one who is practicing celibacy. He says I don't want to get married to get close to Allah. I don't want to get married. And he believes that more religious people don't get married. So the Prophet ﷺ is saying if you think that religious people don't get married, getting married is my sunnah. And At Tabatul this issue of celibacy. And he's saying that you're not going to get married to get close to Allah. It's not him. As for the one who says I don't have time at the moment, I didn't find the right person, I don't have enough money, that doesn't fall under the hadith. And Allah Azzawajal knows best. Whoever of you is able, financially able, let him get married فَإِنَّهُ أَغَضُّ لِلْبَصَرِ وَأَحْسَنُ لِلْفَرَجِ. Because this is going to be better in lowering his gaze and protecting his chastity.

So it's about what? It's to help him to keep away from haram. That's one of the reasons. What's the other reason we mentioned? The one in the ayah البنين والحفدة. To have kids and grandkids. So we learnt two reasons. It's not the only two, we're going to learn more. But so far we learnt two of the purposes, the maqasid of nikah in the sharia. One is to give that brother and that sister chastity, to keep them away from looking at the haram and keep them away from doing the haram. And the second thing is to have kids.

Then the Prophet s.a.w. said, وَمَن لَمْ يَسْتَطِعُ فَعَلَيْهِ بِالصَّومِ فَإِنَّهُ لَهُ وِجَابٌ. As for the one who's not able and he's not able to get married because right now he doesn't have anything. And this is from the excellence of the teaching of the Prophet s.a.w. It's amazing and he didn't just leave it and say, you know, get married. He said look, some of you are not going to be able to get married today. So what does he have to do? A soul. He has to fast. And if he fasts, it will cut off his desire completely. He won't have that desire to do the haram.

The problem is that we are neither implementing either of these two rules today. Does that make sense? It's the musibah we have in our time. We're not trying to get married. And parents are not making it easy for their kids to get married. We're not finding it easy to get married, nor are we fasting either. And then we say why is it that the people are involved in all of this haram? To get people out of the haram they're in today, all of the types of zina. Because zina is many types. The zina of the eye and all of that. The zina of the hand, the zina of the foot. The zina which is يعني a major sin. All of these problems we have today, we need to find the solutions in the Qur'an and the sunnah. And the first solution is تيسير الزواج. Making marriage easy for people. And that has many elements. You're going to hear these as we go through the talk today.

Making it easy for people, helping people. First of all, so many problems. The amount of money that the guy thinks he needs to have and the amount of money that the girl's family is asking for, it becomes very hard. Like high maha, that's one problem. One problem is this whole issue of the tribes and racism and all of that. No, you're not the right colour for my daughter. You're not the right tribe for my daughter. And then my daughter only she can marry someone who is from our family or our tribe. This makes also, if it was one person it wouldn't matter. But when you apply this to the whole, everybody, and it's a major problem, you're going to find that it's a huge problem for people.

And you're going to see more. What you're going to see is that you're going to see that there are so many things we're doing today. The way people اختلعت with free mixing, relationships develop and break up. How people get married after that, it's harder. So the whole thing we need to do to fix this problem is to make it easy for people to get married with the rules of the Qur'an and the Sunnah.

But my brothers and sisters, I have some good news for you. The hadith of Abu Huraira رضي الله عنه حق على الله عون من نكح التماس العفاف عما حرم الله. Abu Huraira narrated the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said it is a right that Allah will help the person to get married who wants to keep himself or herself away from the haram. And if that's your intention, if you say I want to get married, I want to keep myself away from the haram, then Allah promises you to help you. A promise حق على الله. It is a guaranteed promise from Allah that Allah will help a person who wants to keep themselves away from the haram.

The hadith of Anas رضي الله عنه وفي إسناده يعني مقال. There's a question about its isnad وحسنه بعض أهل العلم. Some of the scholars said it's a hadith حسن and some said ضعيف. The meaning has, the general meaning of it is testified to من رزقه الله امرأة صالحة فقد أعانه على شطر دينه فليتق الله في الشطر الثاني. Whoever Allah gives a righteous wife, he's helped him in half of his religion. So let him have taqwa of Allah to complete the other half.

And from the hadith of Abdullah ibn Amr رضي الله عنه, the message of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said, الدنيا متاع وخير متاع الدنيا المرأة الصالحة. This whole world is a متاع. It's a temporary enjoyment. You eat, you enjoy yourself eating. You enjoy socializing. You go out, you see the nice scenery. The world is a place of temporary enjoyment. And the best thing you can have in this world to enjoy is a righteous wife. Notice the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم didn't say المرأة الجميلة. A beautiful wife. Or المرأة الشريفة. A noble wife from a noble lineage. Or المرأة الغنية. A rich wife. He said المرأة الصالحة. A righteous wife.

And you have to bear that in mind. Don't get me wrong. We're going to talk about compatibility. We're going to talk about beauty. We're going to talk about finding the right person for you, for the brothers, for the sisters. We're going to talk about both of them inshallah. But before anything else, someone who is righteous.

In the hadith of Thauban that Umar said, يا رسول الله اي المالي نتاخذ. Which wealth should we basically invest in? The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, ليتاخذ احدكم قلبا شاكرا ولسانا ذاكرا وزوجة تعينه على امر الاخرة. He said let one of you have a heart that is grateful and a tongue that remembers Allah and a wife that will help him as it relates to Jannah. Think about that. As it relates to the Akhira. Look at what he's saying.

Now we've came to the third purpose. The first purpose we said was to keep away from the haram. The second purpose we said was to have kids. The third purpose, to help each other to get the Akhira. To help each other to get Jannah. And she helps you and you help her. She's gonna be the closest of the people to you. She's gonna be closer than a garment. هُنَّ لِبَاسٌ لَهُمْ وَأَنتُمْ لِبَاسٌ لَهُمْ. They are a clothing for you and you're a clothing for them. The clothing has two meanings. One is the meaning of physically you're close, like you're closer than your clothing. But also the idea that you live together, your private life, your married life you have. This is the closest person to you. The person you see all the time and you're so close with them, physically and emotionally close to them.

So the whole thing is to help each other for the Akhira. And here we come to the ayah in Surah Ar-Raum. The statement of Allah Azawajal, وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُمْ مِنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ. From the signs of Allah is that He has created for you from yourselves spouses لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا. You can bring this as the fourth purpose لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا. So the word تَسْكُنُوا means to live together, right? But we don't say it like that. It's said differently. If we were going to say live together, we would say لِتَسْكُنُوا مَعَهَا. To live together. We wouldn't say لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا. So لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا. Now what it means is السَكَن والسَكينة. Living together and being peaceful together. Finding tranquility, happiness, comfort.

It should be that when that man opens the door, that girl, she is كُرَّةَ عَيْنٍ لَهُ. His eyes just, it's like his heart melts. And his eyes, he's just so happy. And when she sees him, he should be كُرَّةَ عَيْنٍ لَهَا. That she's just, she sees him and her face lights up. And she's so happy that he came through the door. And it should be that all the stress she had, she was stressed about her kids, she was stressed about the family, she was stressed about the guests and the house and studies and whatever. She was stressed. The minute her husband walked in, her stress just melted away. And he came in with all the work burdens on his back and stress with these people at work and my manager giving me a hard time and all of that. That when he sees his wife, all those سَكِنَة. Like now I'm happy.

How sad is it that a lot of marriages we lost this سَكِنَة? It became the other thing. The guy goes out of the house, I got out of it. When the husband comes home, the woman she says, she starts asking Allah for help. Refuge from him. أَعُوذُ بِالرَّحْمَانِ مِنكَ إِن كُنتَ تَقِيَّ. I seek refuge with الرَّحْمَان from you. Because he comes in angry and banging things around and shouting and all of that. She starts asking Allah that I wish he doesn't come home. And he wishes he doesn't come home. But what we should be aiming for is As سَكَنَة وَالسَّكِينَة. You live together, you find peace with each other. وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً. And he made between you love and mercy.

And there's two amazing things about the word مَوَدَّة. A lot of words for love in Arabic, right? مَحَبَّةً عِشْقًا مَوَدَّةً. Loads of different words for love in Arabic. But why the word مَوَدَّة? Two reasons. Number one, مَوَدَّة is a friendship and a love together. You're taking care of her and she's taking care of you. It's not just عِشْق. It's not just passion. Because even though passion is not a bad thing, I mean it's marriage, it's not حرام. I'm not talking about passion in terms of زِنَة. Passion is good. There's nothing wrong with a bit of spark. But at the same time, passion comes and goes. That's reality, right? Like the first thing is comes and goes. First few weeks of marriage, first few months of marriage. And after that maybe do another عَلِكَة. And then maybe again, you know, you go up and down.

The other thing is that you can be passionate about someone but not care about them. Like it's a physical relationship but there's no emotional relationship there. Does that make sense? Like physically they're together but emotionally there's nothing there. There's no connection. مَوَدَّة is an emotional connection, not just a physical connection. And the other amazing thing about مَوَدَّة is مَوَدَّة grows with time. Some of the ulema mentioned this about the word مَوَدَّة. المَوَدَّة تَزِيد يعني مع مرور الوقت. As the time goes by, مَوَدَّة goes up. And that's something a lot of people don't realize when they first get married. They think the best days you first get married should be the day you get married, right? Day you get married, next day, next day, next week, next week. And sometimes it is, sometimes it is. But not always. Sometimes it can be that, yeah, it's a little strange, right? Like you didn't know each other before that. It's a little bit strange and sometimes it takes time to get to know each other. But مَوَدَّة, the care for each other will grow as time goes on.

The second thing that Allah put is رحمة. And what is رحمة? The whole idea of رحمة is it's stepping down from your obligations, from your requirements. التنازل. You know that every time, not every time you have to demand everything. You know like it's not every time you open the door you have to demand the food should have been on the table before I opened the door. You have رحمة. Sometimes the husband gets busy, sometimes he stays late at work, sometimes he has to travel. But this girl, she has رحمة with him. She says I know it's hard for me and I had a lot of stuff to do and he's gone to travel or he's gone for work. But you know what it is? Let it go. And he lets it go and she lets it go. That would be such a happy marriage. There'll never be any big arguments in that marriage if there's مَوَدَّة and الرحمة. But that's a topic for another day. إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ. There are many signs in this for people who think.

So now let's talk about what kind of a spouse you should want to marry. Because Islam gave us a beautiful description and it's not, it's a serious detailed description for men and women. Don't just think it's not only for the brothers. If I'm talking to the brothers, sisters, it's only because the brothers in front of my eyes. So I'm talking to them but I'm talking to you as well. Islam gives such a detailed, beautiful explanation of the type of person you should want to marry. And it's very detailed, it's not just about religion. There's a lot of things going on here. One of them we've already mentioned. Does anyone know what have we already mentioned in terms of qualities of husband and wife? And I was very subtle so it would have been very hard to pick up on it.

In the previous ayah, وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُمْ مِن أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً. Righteousness we're going to come to, but it isn't in the ayah. The ayah, it's implied, but I wanted something in the ayah that people maybe don't see. There's a quality there. Patience is also there in terms of the مَوَدَّة, the رَحْمَة but there's something else there. Something in the ayah that you might not have thought about to do with tranquility. What quality does that require? Patience is there for sure. It requires compatibility because you can't have سَكِينَة, peace with someone that's fundamentally not compatible with you.

We don't say you have to be the same. No one is saying that you have to be the same. No way. But you have to be compatible. Like the jigsaw puzzle, the pieces are different shape but they fit together. In subhanAllah, if I think, you know, spouses, different hobbies, different interests, different ethnic background, different everything. Sometimes different languages. But they fit together. There's a way that they come together. If you don't think about them fitting together like that, that's when you start to have problems in the marriage. So it's very important to think about compatibility in many ways to make sure that they are compatible with each other.

But we're going to come to that inshaAllah. Let's start with the hadith of Abu Hurayt. A woman is married for one of four things. So we're going to come to the men, don't worry. We're going to go talk about the qualities of the men. We're going to start with the hadith that a woman is married for four things: for her wealth, because she's wealthy; for her حَسَب. And the حَسَب really what it is, is the deeds of your ancestors, meaning your family background; and for her beauty; and for her religion. So if you want to be successful, choose the religious one. This is an expression. The Prophets are making dua for them, for their success. So for you to be successful, you've got to choose the one for religion.

Now here I'm going to talk about a few things. The first thing is, are the other ones important or not? They could be. Like for example, الجمال, beauty. It is important that you like the way your wife looks and the wife likes the way her husband looks. That's مُعْتَبَر, it's given account in the sharia. It's not something which is unheard of, right? It's something which has a place in the sharia that the husband likes the look of his wife and the wife likes the look of her husband. But ultimately, does it last? Is it a true measure of whether you're going to love that person or not? It doesn't last. That's why there's a whole cosmetic surgery industry that exists in the world because it doesn't last.

And it doesn't matter how much Botox they use and how many operations they get, it doesn't last, it's going to go. So should the marriage go as well? Should the love go as well? She's going to have kids. The body changes, the physique changes. How is she supposed to look like the most beautiful woman in the world? She's busy with her own responsibilities as well. What about wealth? Comes and goes, right? She might be rich today, she might be poor tomorrow. She might be rich and not let you spend any of the money because the money is hers, not yours. So she might be rich but she doesn't let you spend any of the money, so you don't really benefit from it.

Also, the thing about family. A lot of people say, should we check her family background? So no doubt, the family background is an indicator. Obviously not for a revert. For a revert, you can't look at the family background because they're a revert. But generally, family background is, look at where they came from. But you're not marrying the family, you're marrying her. So you need to look at who she is, not who her family is. The family is important. It's good to have a good family. If she comes from a broken home, divorces, bad treatment, everyone's treating each other badly, so you have to think about it. But if you're looking at the family and thinking that because her dad is righteous, she'll be righteous, or because her mum has a soft character, she'll have a soft character, that's not true.

What is the one thing that will stay? Not only in this dunya but it'll even stay in the akhirah. It is a deen, the religion. And people ask, have you ever heard non-Muslims ask the question, how do you guys get married to someone you don't know? Big question, huh? Like how do you guys get married without dating? I mean, I don't know how it's like in Sweden, but in the UK, I don't know what the average time between starting the relationship and marriage is. Maybe 10 years? They all spend living together as husband and wife with everything except a piece of paper that says nikah. Everything except the nikah. How strange is that? And they say to you, how do you know that you're actually going to get on?

We say, you see, we're cheating a bit. And the reason we're cheating a bit is we already know two things or three things. Like we know them already. Number one, we know the religion. So we know how she's going to be in terms of her deen. And the deen affects everything, right? Our religion goes into every aspect of your life. So if I know how she's going to be in her deen, that solves for me 60-70% of my expectations. What do I expect from her? What does she expect from me? We're not going to have arguments over the joint bank account, who spends the money, who pays for the rent, because our religion tells us who pays for the rent. The guy does, unless the woman makes تَنَازُل. Unless she says I don't want it. We're not going to have that discussion over issues of intimacy and what have you. That Islam already tells us what to do.

So we already have a base to build on. On top of that, on top of the issue of the deen, we've also looked at the other areas of compatibility, which we're going to speak about. The people, the girl has seen the guy, the guy has seen the girl, so they're physically attracted to them. They know that they're physically attracted to them. They know the religion and they have checked the compatibility between each other. For this is actually more accurate than just meeting someone in a bar and then going off with them and ten years later getting married. Of course it is. It's a hundred times more accurate because you know the religious expectations.

On top of that, you know that you are compatible. You want the same kind of things. You have the same kind of expectations. And on top of that, you're physically attracted to each other. For the issue is much, much better. Now comes the question, how do we know someone's deen? Brothers and sisters ask this question. How do I find out about that person's deen? What kind of questions do I ask to find out about the deen of a person? Because it's not like asking, I'm not going to ask, do you want to travel or something? It's not these basic questions. It's a serious question.

The first thing is, what is known about that person in the society? That's the first point. So for example, we are all part of this jama'a, this masjid, and we see the brothers day in, day out. That brother comes to the masjid, the sister attends the duroos and so on. So the first thing is, what is known about them in the society? But that's not really going to give you a lot of detail. It looks like a good brother comes to the masjid. Yeah, she's a good sister. We met her in this gathering, in this house, in this halqa, whatever.

The second thing is, what your friends, links that you have through your friends or your family members. So for example, let's just say that someone is getting married to a girl and his sister knows her or his, for example, one of his family members knows her or he knows her brother, for example. How are they? And that's why in Islam, it is not allowed when someone asks you about someone for marriage to lie. You have to tell the truth. You can't say that lovely brother, Allah bless him, and you're thinking that alhamdulillah he's not coming for my sister. No, no, not like this. You have to be honest.

Like the Prophet ﷺ said, as for he doesn't leave his stick and his stick is always out, he hits his women. And as for Muawiyah, he's a poor man and he doesn't have any money. Marry Usama bin Zayd. You should marry Usama bin Zayd. For from this we understood that you tell the truth in what happens. If we don't have those two options, that we can't find out from the society, friends, and we can't observe that person very well because, I mean, how is the sister meant to see? She can, the brother's there in front of her. I can see him, he's sitting in the dust. That's possible.

But to get that knowledge of religion, it's about asking really good questions. Now obviously the basic questions, do you pray? That was never a question before in the time of the Prophet ﷺ and the Sahaba. No one asked the question, do you pray? Even the Munafiqeen prayed. Everybody prayed. But even today, the prayer, the hijab, you know, the things that we ask about, but that's kind of a default. That's kind of a basic expectation you have to ask about it because these days people have gone far away from where they should be. But you do, you have expectations. The person prays, the sister wears hijab, and so on.

One question that is really good, just as an example, is which Islamic lectures do you listen to? What was the last Islamic lecture you listened to? Which books do you read? Which speakers do you like? Which authors do you like? How much Qur'an have you memorized? Are you attending any duroos or halaqat? Or are you learning your religion regularly? These kind of open, it's nice to ask open questions as well, not just closed ones, yes, no, but open questions like which Islamic speakers do you like? Because when the person gives you a list, you know about that person. I'll be honest, if you give me three speakers you listen to, I know exactly what kind of person you are. And 90% I can put you in a box. If you give me three speakers, three Islamic speakers you listen to, I can just go, yeah, you're one of them, like that.

If you give me five, like I can really narrow it down. Tell me the last book you read apart from the Qur'an. If someone says I haven't read any, okay, it doesn't mean they're a bad person, but you know, it gives you an idea about the person. What is your daily routine like? Tell me your daily routine. So if the daily routine is full of Islamic activities, obviously people don't want to boast about their Islamic activities. So I prayed tahajjud for three hours last night. But generally, the person's routine is good. The brother comes to the masjid as much as possible. He attends some duroos, halaqat, he's trying to seek knowledge, memorizing some Qur'an. Those can be the kind of questions.

And you can't ask enough. You have to keep asking, asking, asking to find until you get a picture of that person's religion. You understand? And if you have some fitan in your country or society that you think are affecting people's deen, ask about it. For example, you see that there's a, you know, some problem going on, something that's corrupting the people. You ask like, have you heard about this? And so on. Ask them about what they want to do in the future because you get to know a person's religious commitment. What do you want to do in the future? The person says I want to finish the Qur'an, I want to study. Or a person says I want to get promotion in my job. It's not haram, but at the end of the day, it tells you about the person.

Five to ten good questions, you can find out a lot about the person's religion. But you do need to verify it because it's not enough from just that person directly. Does that make sense? You need to bring some external validation. So here's where you go and you ask friends. And he told me that he's memorizing the Qur'an with the shaykh. I mean, to be honest, sometimes we have this issue. People come and say this brother says he's a very close student of yours and that he's learnt this and this from you and you've given him ijazat in this and that. I'm like, how do I say I don't know this brother? I have no idea who this brother is. And I'm bad. Maybe he's sat in front of me, I don't know him. But I check and I double check. I'm like, I don't know this brother at all. And I definitely haven't given anyone ijazat.

So that's for sure. So you verify. He says I come to the jama'ah, I pray five times a day in the masjid. Ask the people now in the masjid. The sister can contact via the imam, via the other sisters in the masjid. Five times a day and he prays. He told us five times a day he's in the masjid. If they say we don't know who he is, we've never seen him, he doesn't come, okay, now go back and ask why. There's no ghibah in marriage. There's no rule about ghibah in marriage. In fact, it is obligatory for you to say everything, everything about the person. That's why the Prophet said, as for Abu Jahm, he doesn't stop hating his women. And as for Muawiyah, he's a pauper, he's got no money. He said that's ghibah, right? But it's not ghibah here. It's not ghibah here because it's for that woman's life, her whole life. It's like the court. Are you allowed to make ghib ah if the judge asks you to testify to a case? You are right. If the judge says, did you see him do it? No, don't say that. You're making ghibah. No, no, in the court you're allowed to say. There's examples. And now Muawiyah mentions them in another narration of this hadith. Sorry, in another hadith of Abu Sa'id, the same wording. The Prophet s.a.w. said he added something, not just beauty and family and wealth. He added, take the one of religion and manners. Religion and manners. Because religion on its own, and this is true for brothers and sisters, religion by itself is beautiful. But someone could be a religious person but still have bad characteristics.

So always I look and say to the young brothers, I want to see how does the brother treat his mum first of all. If he knows how to treat his mum well, does he even know how to treat a woman well at all? How does he treat his sisters? You see, how does he know how to treat a woman well? And I would say to a young brother, if you don't know how to treat your mum properly, you don't know how to treat your sisters properly, you need to ask yourself if you're going to make this woman's life a misery when you get married. If you can't have sabr with her, honestly, women can be difficult at times. If you didn't realize that by now, Khud min yifaid. That women can be difficult at times, that's the truth. We men find it difficult, but if you can't learn to have sabr with your mum, with your sisters, with your the women that you're mahram for them, and you can't learn to have sabr with them, honestly, you're going to find it very, very difficult.

The same thing with the women. She can be mutadayyina, she can be so religious, but she's cold. Cold. You know, there's no spark, there's no care, there's no love. But mashallah, she reads the Quran, she makes khatma every three days, she finishes the Quran. And every three days she finishes the Quran, but there's no, she's just cold with you. Or she's got a harsh tongue. You know, she's always having a go at you. That's going to make a man miserable. So you have to look for the religion, you have to look for good manners. And sometimes you have to look at your situation that is unique to you.

I give an example. The hadith of Jabir r.a. He said, my dad died and I had, he left behind seven or nine daughters. So Jabir had seven sisters or nine sisters unmarried. He said, I married a woman who had been previously married and she's a divorcee. She's already been married or her husband died. She's already been married and he married her and she's older, an older woman. He said, oh Jabir, did you get married? I said, yes. He said, was she a virgin or was she someone who's already been married before? He said, no, I married an older woman. She's already been married before. He said, why did you not marry a young girl? So you can play with her and she can play with you and you can make her laugh and she can make you laugh and you're having a great time together. She's an older lady, mature lady. So why did you not marry a young girl? He said, oh messenger of Allah, my father Abdullah died and he left daughters. I didn't want to bring another girl like them. Allahu Akbar. Look at his thinking. He said, I don't, I've got little girls in the house. I don't want to bring another young girl. You know, I've got like say teenage girls in the house or whatever. I don't want to bring another girl like them. I want to bring a woman who will look after them and will be an example for them to follow. The Prophet ﷺ said, Barakallahu laka alqara khaira. And he said to him, may Allah bless you, oh Jabir. And he approved of his decision.

So that shows that even though the Prophet ﷺ encouraged to marry a young girl, she's not been married before. Why did he encourage that? It's mentioned in some of the Ahadith. The Prophet ﷺ said, Tazawwajul abkar. Fa innahuna a'zabu athwahan. Wa antaqu arhaman wa arda bil yaseer. The Hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud. He said, you should marry a woman that's never been married before because her mouth will be sweeter. She's going to have sweet words to say to you and she's more likely to have lots of kids and she'll be happy with a little bit. So what did he say? He said, you know, she's going to have sweet words to say. She's going to be like all in love with you and romantic with you because she's a young girl and for her, this is like her dream. And she's more likely to have many kids because she's young, right? So she's going to have more kids and she's going to be happy with very simple life. She's not going to have too many expectations. But this woman, if you've married her, she's a divorcee, she's a mature lady. For sure she's going to have expectations. Like I know how my husband treated me before, how much money he spent upon me. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't get married, not at all.

Rather, the difference, subhanallah, between that time and this time, wallahi, if you look at the divorcees, what did Allah say? People were competing with each other to marry the woman who got divorced. They were like, who's going to propose to her? They were keen to get married, they were desperate. When is the iddah finish? I need to quickly propose to her. Don't speak to her before the iddah finishes. You're not allowed to say propose to her before the iddah finishes. But that's how it used to be. People wanted to get married to the woman who's been married before.

Like in the Prophet s.a.w. said, If you marry a young girl, she'll be sweet with you, she'll have kids, and she will be happy with just a little bit, low expectations, low maintenance. That's another quality the Prophet s.a.w. mentioned, Ardha bil yaseeri. And she should be low maintenance. Don't marry a woman who is high maintenance. And if she wants to have, or you bring by me all this expensive stuff, and I want this car and this house, and I want, and she's, every time they're increasing, and this is, marry someone who is happy with what you have, wa ardha bil yaseer.

But when Jabir had a reason for it, and Jabir was thinking about it, I want someone who fits into my family. The Prophet s.a.w. approved of his decision to look after his little sisters. And the Prophet s.a.w. said, Tazawwajul wadood al walood. Fa inni mukathirun bikumul uman. Marry a woman who is loving and she's going to have a lot of children, for I am going to compete most of your numbers to the nations. I'm going to compete that my nation has got more Muslims than your nation.

How do you know that a woman is going to have a lot of children? Because you can't know. You're not married. How would you know she's going to have a lot of children? They say there's two things. The first one is she should want to have kids, right? She should not be one of these women who says, yeah, after my career, when I'm 35, I might have a child, maybe just one. Or like two. In the UK, it's like two children and a dog. You know, it's like standard family. You should have two children and a dog. Now it's become one child and two dogs.

So she should want to have kids. And if you look at her family, they've got a history that they have children. For example, her mom's sisters, they're having kids. And she should be wadood, loving, a caring personality. You have the most beautiful woman in the whole world, but she can just be rough and tough with you. You won't like her. And that's why, have you ever thought that beauty, so much of beauty for men and women depends on, after you open your mouth, you can see this guy, Allahumma barik, he's from the most handsome, good-looking guys, Allahumma barik. But he opens his mouth and you're like, Allahumma barik.

And you can have a woman, the most beautiful woman you can imagine, but honestly, the behavior and everything, you're like, no, I would never marry. That's, no, I couldn't marry a woman like that. And maybe this woman, very simple, she's not the most beautiful in the whole world, but she's got a very sweet personality. And this attracts people.

The Prophet also mentioned the one who's comforting and tolerant. She puts up with you, she's easy-going. If they fear Allah, he said the worst woman you can marry is the one who doesn't cover properly. She goes showing off, like she doesn't wear proper, she doesn't cover properly, and she's arrogant. These are the Munafiqat, these are the hypocrites. They're not gonna go to Jannah except like the red crow. You know the crow with the red beak and the red legs? Have you ever seen a red crow? No, crows are usually black, right? You've never seen a red crow. That's how rare it will be that an arrogant woman who doesn't wear hijab will go to Jannah.

Notice it's not about the hijab. It's combining between not covering properly and arrogance. She's got a mouth on her, she's got attitude on her, and she doesn't wear proper hijab. These are the Munafiqat. So this is the one you should avoid. And the Prophet was asked, which women are the best? He said, The best woman is the one when you look at her, she makes you happy, and she listens to you when you tell her to do something, and she doesn't go against you either about herself or your money. Not her money, her money is her money, your money, like she doesn't waste your money and she doesn't go against you about what you told her to do in herself.

It doesn't say beauty here. It says when you look at her, you're happy. You're happy with her. She keeps herself nicely. She takes care of herself because we said this issue of beauty, I mean beauty is something that depends on three things. There's a natural element of beauty, there's also what? The effort that the person makes. Brothers and sisters, we're talking about sisters here, so we're talking about sisters. The effort she makes, had she done her hair, makeup, nice clothes, she puts a perfume for her husband, she makes an effort. This increases the beauty many times over, right? She might be an average looking, let's be honest, all these celebrities and models or whatever, they're average looking women. If they didn't wear makeup and you saw them in the street, you wouldn't look twice at them. They're average looking people, they're not amazing looking people.

But what happens is they get the makeup and the hair and the clothes and all that, and then people are like, whoa, look at this, she's so beautiful. But the reality is they're average looking, they're nothing special without the makeup and the hair and all of that. But my point is part of beauty is the effort. If the guy comes and his beard is all over the place and his clothes are all ragged and he's just like, you know, he smells of the sweat from his work, it doesn't matter how good looking he is. If you look in the mirror and he doesn't look good like that, the third thing, so we said that one is the natural beauty, the second thing is the effort, and the third thing is the personality. Personality, your personality, the way you behave, the sweet words you say to your wife, what she says to you, it makes you see beauty even if the person might not be the most naturally beautiful person.

And when we talked about compatibility, the hadith of Aisha RadhiAllahu Anha, she said, تَخَيَّرُوا لِنُطَ فِيكُمْ وَلَا تَضَعُوهَا إِلَّا فِي الْأَكْثَاءِ. The hadith of Prophet Isa from Aisha, it's a hadith of Marfu. From the hadith of Prophet Isa, he said, تَخَيَّرُوا لِنُطَ فِيكُمْ وَلَا تَضَعُوهَا إِلَّا فِي الْأَكْثَاءِ. Be careful where you put your seed. Be careful who you're going to be the mother of your children. Think about who the mother of your children is going to be because she's not, okay, she might be beautiful, she might be the most beautiful woman that you can see, but ask yourself the question, is she going to be a good mum for your kids? A lot of times, that's why the relationships, they say he's not husband material, he's not husband material. Like, okay, guy looks good, but you wouldn't want him to be the father of your kids. She's not wife material. She might be beautiful, but I wouldn't want her to be the mother of my kids.

تَخَيَّرُوا لِنُطَ فِيكُمْ وَلَا تَضَعُوهَا إِلَّا فِي الْأَكْثَاءِ. And here he said, only put it in, only put it for the one who is the one that is compatible with you. Compatible in your deen, compatible in manners, compatible in your goals in life. You know, for example, a sister complained to me. She said, I was thinking of marrying this brother, and he's mutadeen, religious, but he's lazy. Like he's mutadeen and a very religious brother and very nice, but he's lazy. He just, he's very, very lazy, very like, you know, he doesn't really want to do anything. He doesn't have any himmah, any big goals or dreams. And she's like, I have ulul himmah. I want to achieve this and this and this, and he doesn't want to achieve anything. He's just like, I just want to live my life here in the same place and, you know, go to work, come home. Yeah, make sure it's someone who’s on the same level as you, who’s going to be the mother of your kids, the father of your kids. Make sure that this is someone who is compatible with you in terms of your deen, manners, and everything else.

Now we come to the brothers. I'm not going to take a long time; I know it's late. We started late, and it's already getting late. Give me another 20 minutes also; I'll try. By quarter past 9, we'll finish, inshaAllah ta'ala, and questions, you know, stuff like that. But it's late already, but we'll try our best, inshaAllah.

Abu Huraira r.a narrated the message of Allah s.a.w. said, إذا خطب إليكم من ترضون دينه وخلقه فزوجوا إلا تفعلوا تكون فتنة في الأرض وفساد العريض. He said, if a man comes to you to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage and you're happy with his religion and his character, he didn't say looks, he didn't say money, he didn't say job, he didn't say education. He said, if you're happy with his religion and you're happy with his character. Does that mean there's no role for the job? No, because the Prophet s.a.w. spoke about the money you need to get married. But ultimately, that should not be the deciding factor.

If they're poor, Allah will give them money. It shouldn't be the deciding. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Sahih? I'm going to ask him if he says I haven't got a job and I'm taking the, I don't know, do you guys have unemployment benefit here in Sweden? Like job seekers benefit, like small money for not having a job? Of course, I'm going to say to him, Allah bless you, you're a good brother, but you have to, you know, I'm going to give my daughter, you're going to have to take care of her. But if he says, I'm looking for a job, I'm trying, but I'm not quite there yet, but he's got excellent religion and excellent character, that's what matters, right?

Otherwise, if he's got good religion and good character, he'll never mistreat that woman. Even if he doesn't really like her, even if they're not getting on, even if they start arguing, even if they go through a rough patch, he's not, even if they have a rough patch, he's never, ever, ever going to mistreat her. He's always going to treat her well because he's scared of Allah. وَأَخَذْنَ مِنكُمْ مِثَاقًا قَلِيضًا. We took from you, took from those women a heavy oath. So he needs religion, but he also needs to have good character. He can't be someone who gets angry too quickly. He can't be someone who demands everything all the time because if you demand everything all the time, what will happen? You're going to break the rib, you're going to divorce her because you're just saying to her all the time, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me, and you're going to end up breaking the rib.

You expect perfection. If you're rude and angry and always demanding and always, and you know what the sad thing is? There's a lot of brothers or good brothers in the masjid, but the guy goes home and he's a tyrant. I see, I do a lot of marriage counseling and, you know, counseling for people, and I see it all the time. The brother is a beautiful brother in the masjid, from the brothers that wallahi, he'll kiss his head, beautiful brother. But he goes home and he's just a tyrant. He's just screaming and shouting and swearing and throwing things around with his family. You gotta have the deen is nice, mashaAllah, you're in the masjid, you're in the row, the first saf, Allahumma barik. But you have to have the manners to go with your family.

Khairukum Khairukum li ahlihi Wa ana khairukum li ahlihi. The best of you are the ones who are best to your families. If you know a man is good by how good he is to his wife. And the Prophet said, I'm the best of you to my family. And that's why what people think is a good man doesn't always make a good man. Sahal ibn Sa'din r.a said, Marra rajulun Ala rasoolillahi Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Fa qala ma takuluna. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was sitting one day and a man walked past. This man was rich, wealthy, good family. They said, Hariyun In khataba An yunkah Wa in shafa'a An yushafa'a Wa in qala An yustama'a. They said this is someone that if he proposes any woman, they'll accept, and if he asks for something to intercede, they'll accept his intercession, and if he speaks, people will listen. Qala thumma sakat. The Prophet didn't say anything. So I said, Marra rajulun Min fuqara'il muslimeen. A poor Muslim walked past. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, ma takuluna Fi hadha. What do you say about this man? They said, hariyun In khataba An yunkah Wa in shafa'a An yushafa'a Wa in qala An yustama'a. They said he's a person if he goes to any family to marry, they're not gonna let him get married. And if he tries to intercede, they're not gonna accept the intercession. And if he speaks, nobody's gonna listen.

The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Hadha khayrun Min mil'il ardi Misla hadha. He said this one here is better than the whole earth full of the other one because what we have, the wrong measure. Our measure is nice car, nice house, good salary, good family. That's our measure. That's what the sahaba did in this hadith. They said, yeah, this is the type of guy we would accept his proposal for marriage. Look at him, he's wealthy, he's got everything. But the person who had the deen and the taqwa, they said, yeah, I don't think nobody would really marry that person. Nobody would let him get married. This is the one that's better. The whole earth of the other one doesn't even equal that one man.

Okay, now we come to, I'll make this the last little part, but it's quite a big part, 15 minutes or so. How do we go about getting actually getting this person? Now we know the virtue of marriage, the purpose of marriage, and we know who are we looking for. We know who we are looking for, men and women. We know what kind of guy we're looking for, what kind of girl we're looking for. We know we've understood how do we go about it.

First of all, the statement of Allah Azawajal, وَأْتُوا الْبُيُوتَ مِنْ أَبْوَابِهَا وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُوا. Go to the house through the front door and have taqwa of Allah so you can be successful. Here the generic meaning of this, apart from the specific meaning, the generic meaning of وَأْتُوا الْبُيُوتَ مِنْ أَبْوَابِهَا. Do things properly. Don't go around the back. None of this, we met, we dated, and now I think I'm going to ask her dad to marry her. Or she's run off and gone to the qadi to get married. I don't know if you have this issue here, but we have this in the UK. It's prolific that these young girls, Muslim girls, hijab and everything, she's got hijab, she finds a guy she likes, she says to dad, dad, I'm going to marry this guy. The dad says, no, Allah, you're not. So she packs her bag, she walks out of the house, she goes to the local masjid, she says, my father doesn't let me get married. The imam says, no problem, bring that guy, I'll marry you to him. And it's an absolutely disgusting thing that they do. The imam is not the in the qada, the so-called qada, and it's a very terrible thing they do. They don't check with the father, they don't find the story. More likely they were boyfriend and girlfriend before. They don't check, they don't ask the father. They automatically, just the girl comes, I want to marry, married, go. They break her from her father, break her from her mother, take her out of the house because of what? Because he says Adl. He stopped his wife from, he stopped his daughter from getting married. But he didn't, you have to, if you're going to give a ruling of that, you have to know what's the situation, right? You have to actually know that this guy is sahih.

Sometimes there are fathers who stop their daughters getting married, and the daughter does have the right to go to the qadi. That's for sure. But the qadi has to check the situation, not just give straight away marriage to this guy that he doesn't even know that most of them were boyfriend and girlfriend before. Do things properly, my brothers and sisters. I know it's easy to do things the wrong way. It's so easy. You want to do things the wrong way, you'll find a spouse. If not today, tomorrow. It's so easy to do things the wrong way. And I don't just mean zina. I mean to do things the wrong way, like meet the girl, talk to the girl, start chatting, you know, start communicating with each other, go for coffee together, spend some time together, then try to figure out how to tell her father.

You know, it's easy to do things the wrong way. It's very, very easy. But wallahi, it doesn't bring barakah. It doesn't bring khair. It doesn't bring blessing in your marriage. And ultimately, especially this whole thing of boyfriend and girlfriend, in the end, this marriage, Allahumma, if there is no tawbah, it will break. If it doesn't break in divorce, it will just break by the two of them just not, there's no love, there's no nothing in the marriage anymore. There's no barakah in it.

Do things properly. I know it's hard. I know the dad can be stubborn. Sometimes the dads, Allah bless them, I tell you why they're stubborn. Sometimes Allah bless them. For them, it's hard to give your daughter. It's not easy. One brother came to me, Allah bless him. He said, this brother came to marry my daughter. He says, I wanna kill him. But he seems like a nice brother. He said, he seems like a nice brother, but I just wanna kill him. And he didn't do anything wrong, Allah bless him. Allah honor him. He didn't do anything wrong, but it just, do you know what I mean? He's just like, my reaction is he came and said, would it be possible I'll be considered for your daughter? And he's like, the only thing in front of my eyes, I just wanna kill him.

But sahih, that's a natural reaction from a father. The father loves his daughter. He doesn't wanna give her to anybody. If you see the father just giving her to anybody, that's a sign he doesn't love his daughter. So you do have to understand. He says, you're not good enough. Who are you? Some things I don't tolerate. I do not tolerate the issues of jahiliyyah, like just racism and ignorance and stupidity like that. No, we don't tolerate this. However, sometimes people claim that it's racism, but actually it isn't. And I'm gonna be honest about that.

Even when people come to me and say, the father is racist. He says, you can't marry him because you're not from my country, you're not from my whatever tribe, you're not the right colour skin, whatever it is. Sometimes when you look at that, that's not the reason. Actually, what the father is worried about is what we mentioned in the hadith about Al-Akfah, being the same as each other, like being on the same level. Like he said, look, for example, you're gonna marry into that family. Let's say, for example, like Southeast Asian families where you go and live with the mother and everything. Like he's like, you're not gonna be able to do that. You're racist, you just don't like those people from that country. No, it's not like that. He might have a reason for it.

If he has a reason, that's why if someone says he's racist, I'm gonna say, okay, bring him. I'm gonna say, I've heard you're not letting your daughter to marry this man. What's the reason? He's not, he can't marry him because he's... Okay, why? If it's just racism, number one, we're gonna say, fear Allah. But if it is something justified, like he says, look, the way they live, the families live together, my daughter, she never lived like that, she won't be able to have sabr with it. She can't, like my daughter doesn't know the language, doesn't know the culture, doesn't know the custom. That's not racism, that's just compatibility. There's nothing wrong with that. But racism is not acceptable, and it's too much. You should speak to the reverts. It doesn't matter, black, white, doesn't matter. Speak to reverts about getting married. I mean, whatever skin color they have, but trust me, they'll tell you about some stories. People come say, someone like you, I will never marry my daughter to someone like you. You people, like he's a Muslim. There's someone said, La ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasulullah. He comes to the Salah more than you do, ya Raakallah.

So honestly, that is not, we don't tolerate that. And we come down hard on it. But at the same time, I'm now gonna be brutally honest with you. Let's just say the father is being completely stubborn and racist and ignorant, jahil. Is it worth taking his daughter from him? Not always. And I know that might sound harsh and that might sound hard to people, but it's not always worth it. Sometimes you might just say, you know what it is, there's plenty more fish in the sea, like they say. Let it go, money. You really wanna fight for that long? Like some people get into the Hollywood mode, I'll fight for her. I'll take, I'll fight him now in front of his door, tell him come out, I'm ready. It's not like that, your money. It's not like that. Sometimes you honestly say maybe it's better just to let this go. He wants her to marry dot dot dot, race, country, ethnic background. Let him do what he wants. Is it really worth you? Because I see brothers four or five years, this brother has been, he's torturing himself over this. Three, four, five years, my dad's not gonna accept. Sahih, give it some time. Speak to the dad, let the imam speak to the dad, let the person's community leader speak to the dad, let the dad's friends tell him to, you know, no doubt, let there be some effort and attempt. But honestly, if he's gonna remain like that, is it really worth taking her from a family? Sahih, as a qadi, I can take her out. The father is being extremely ignorant and he's preventing her from what is good for her. I can say you're no longer in charge of this girl. There you go, here's the paper. She can get married. You no longer have the right because you are behaving in an un-Islamic, ignorant manner which is harming your daughter.

But honestly, do you understand the consequences of that? He took her from a house, broke her from her father, from her mother, from her siblings. Is it really worth it? Maybe it's not. Maybe it's many times, it's maybe better just to say, you know what it is, we try. If he doesn't accept in a certain time, let him answer to Allah. As long as what? One condition, as long as he's not stopping her from getting married to a good person. He might be stopping her from marrying you, but he's not stopping her from marrying, let's say for example, let's say a certain country. He says you can only marry from this country, but he's allowing her to marry a religious, practicing man from that country. I would just say leave it, even though it's wrong because the pain is sometimes worse than the benefit you get out of it.

These are the realities of the issues that we're dealing with. So how are the ways to propose? Number one, go to the father and ask the father directly. From this is the hadith of Ali ibn Abi Talib. He came and he knocked on the door of the Prophet and the Prophet said, what did you come for? What did you come for? He said, O Messenger of Allah, I mentioned Fatima, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah. Even his words are very gentle. He said, I've come about Fatima. The Prophet said to him, Marhaban wa Ahla. He said to him, welcome and your family. Ali didn't understand. He went out and he said to his friends, I don't know what he said to me. Like I don't know whether he said yes or no because he didn't say yes or no. He said, Marhaban wa Ahla. And they said to him, O Ali, if he had just said one of those words, it would have been enough. But he said to you too, Marhaban. You can Ar-Rahab that you can be, you're welcome and you're comfortable and you're, and he said, your family.

Ali didn't understand. He went out and he said to his friends, I don't know what he said to me. Like I don't know whether he said yes or no because he didn't say yes or no. He said, Marhaban wa Ahla. And they said to him, O Ali, if he had just said one of those words, it would have been enough. But he said to you too, Marhaban. You can Ar-Rahab that you can be, you're welcome and you're comfortable and you're, and he said, your family.

The other is for the father to offer his daughter in marriage to someone. The evidence for that is the story of Musa when the girl's father, the two girls at the well, he said, I want to marry one of these daughters to you if you work for me for eight years or ten years. And Musa completed ten years. Also from the evidence of that is that Umar, he said when Hafsa, when she lost her husband, Umar went to Abu Bakr and said, do you want to marry Hafsa? And he went to Uthman and said, do you want to marry Hafsa? And when they said no, he was really upset. He said, what's wrong with Hafsa? And they knew that the Prophet s.a.w. wanted to marry her, and she married the Prophet s.a.w.

This now is a hadith very important, the Athar of Ibn Umar, and that is the permissibility of sending someone else to ask for the marriage on your behalf. You need to get someone else to propose for you, and this can be better because it's less embarrassing and it's a bit less direct, is that you send someone else. Ibn Umar used to say when he was called to get people married, from that which he used to say, Alhamdulillah Wa Sallallahu Ala Muhammad Inna Fulanan Khataba Ilaykum Fulana In Antahtumuhu Falhamdulillah Wa In Radadtumuhu Fa Subhanallah. He said he used to go and say, Alhamdulillah and Salat and Salam upon the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. He used to say, this man has come to propose for your daughter. Ibn Umar came by himself. The man's not there. The man wants to propose to your daughter. So if you accept him, Alhamdulillah, and if you reject him, Subhanallah.

So he used to go like that. He used to go and ask like that. From the things that I personally think in our time that is very, very beneficial and important is to prepare a bit of information about yourself and who you're looking for, like a profile or like what they call a marriage CV. No pictures and no pictures. None of this like dating apps and all that, but like just a simple profile. You write your name, your age, your details, where you live, maybe job, you know, a little bit about yourself, and then you write who you're looking for. I'm looking for a woman between this age and this age, this background, this kind of family, and so on.

Why? Because it's quite, our society in these days is quite broken and separate. It's quite difficult to get that kind of situation where everyone knows each other or you have a daughter to get married. Okay, there's this guy here, this guy for this one, and it's a bit hard. But especially people come and say, I'm looking to get married, and I mean, it's hard to remember people. But a profile is nice because you can send it out to people. Then your imam can send it to like a few families, then they can, you know, like that. So that could be a good way of doing it.

I personally think if there's a nice website or app which doesn't have any dating, doesn't have pictures, doesn't have chatting, that just allows people to share their profile, very good. There's some good ones in the UK. I don't know about here, but there's some very good ones in the UK whereby you put your profile, you fill in like the app or the website, you put your profile, and you put who you're looking for. And then if they like you, you like the ticket, and if you like them, and then basically you get contact with the father, you get to speak to the father, and you know, you get to basically propose.

So at the end of the day, these are all options that follow the same rule, and there's nothing wrong with them at all, inshaAllah. In fact, you can reach a lot more people that way because the difficulty is you're gonna speak to who? You're gonna speak to your imam, you're gonna speak to your friends, you're gonna speak to an uncle, an auntie here and there. But to get a wide range of people, it would be better if you had written something down to give to them that they can send the other reason is when they actually make the proposal, they often mix up the people's details. Like I know when I went for proposals when I got married, the details that they had was completely wrong. Like the auntie who set up the marriage, she gave information about me that was totally opposite to what it was. Like ethnicity, everything was not what it is. So they were expecting someone totally different to come and someone totally different came there because the information wasn't right.

So having just like a little thing, you know, people share it or they put it on their WhatsApp profile or whatever it is, you know, and they say that basically I'm looking to get married, it's my profile. And subhanAllah, somebody sees and says, oh, you know what it is, my sister's looking to get married, this information about her, and like that. But to do this, Ikhwani, you have to get rid of one thing. You have to get rid of this false Hayat. Not hayat, Hayat you never get rid of. Hayat is beautiful, shyness is always beautiful. But this false Hayat, which is where people hide behind it when actually it's not really shyness at all.

For example, when I was looking to get married, when I first became Muslim and I was looking to get married, there were a lot of brothers who had sisters, like blood sisters, who were of a suitable age for me to get married. A lot of my friends had sisters of a similar age. But it could not be, that discussion could not happen. It was like, Akhi, I'm looking to get married, do you know anyone? Who's like, no. Like I'm looking for a girl, like between say, you know, I don't know, at that time, like 19 to 22. He's got a sister who's 20. He's like, no, like no one. He's like, not a family member. No, it's false. It's not like this foolishness of putting these barriers that doesn't help anything. It just makes it hard for people.

Let people say, look, you know, I've got a sister, but her situation is difficult. She's not looking to get married right now. Or my dad is insisting she gets married someone from this country or whatever. No problem. But this whole false shyness that's not real, it's just actually obstruction, it's no good. Let me say I'm happy, I'm not happy, no, I'm not interested. Yeah, inshaAllah, look at the example of Hafsa. He went to Abu Bakr, he said, do you want to marry Hafsa? He said, no, I'm not looking to get married. He went to Uthman, he said, Uthman, do you want to marry Hafsa? He said, no, I'm not looking to get married right now. Just open discussion, like a simple honorable discussion, not an evil discussion, just a simple, is your sister looking to get married? Is this person, do you know of anyone? Don't make it hard on each other.

Last thing I'm going to mention, and there's so many, so many, so many things to mention. I will mention one thing very important, which is looking at the spouse, and I make this the last point, inshaAllah, because it's getting too late. Looking at the spouse, Al Mughira bin Shu'ba, he said, Khutiba imra'ah. A woman was offered, she was proposed, she was offered a proposal. Faqala li An Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Hal nazarta ilaiha. Or he said, Khatabta imra'ah. That's what I think it should be. Khutiba or khatabta. Khatabta imra'atan. I proposed to a woman. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said to me, Hal nazarta ilaiha. Did you look at her? Qala la. He said, no. He said, Fanzur ilaiha. Go look at her because it's more likely that there will be compatibility in the marriage, like love, and you know, you're gonna be happy together. Because if you've not looked at her, you don't know.

Different people are attracted to different things, and different people find different things attractive. That's fine. Someone says, I wanna marry someone with dark hair, blonde hair, whatever. Everybody likes different things. Someone says, I wanna marry a girl, a tall guy. She says, I wanna marry a short guy. I wanna marry, you know, no problem. Everyone likes different things. But you have to look to be sure you're gonna be happy with that person because you're gonna spend, inshaAllah, the rest of your life with them. So you have to really be sure that you're happy with them. At the same time, the brothers cannot have unrealistic expectations. Sometimes the brother makes a list, like the whole line long list. She should be like this and this and this and you know what made him make that list? Usually Photoshop. I'll explain why. Because all these pictures you see of women are not real. They're photoshopped. The woman never looked like that. She was about three kilos heavier and they slimmed her down. She had all these marks on her skin, they smoothed it out, and she had normal eyes, they made them shine. Her hair was all over the place, they even took all the frizz out of the hair. And because he's lived his life thinking that women look like they do in Photoshop, now his expectation of a wife is, I'm gonna marry someone like that. He's like, she should be like this. Oh, and by the way, she's never left the house under fully covered niqab head to toe. She should also be a supermodel. And she should be like, and he's put, be put for yourself reasonable expectations.

Because even if that woman exists, and I'm sure she exists, mutadayyina, religious, beautiful, but even if she exists, what makes you think she wants to marry you? Like you have to think about that. So set yourself a reasonable expectation. Deen first, manners, and yeah, for sure, make an effort. She should at least maybe, you know, she should be someone who's gonna make an effort for you. She's got a beautiful personality and alhamdulillah, you're attracted to her. She's not somebody you're not attracted to. If you're not attracted to her, it doesn't work.

So you look at her. When do you look at her? This is the tricky part. In the hadith of Jaber, the Prophet ﷺ said, إذا خطب أحدكم المرأة فإن استطاع أن ينظر إلى ما يدعوه إلى مكاحها فليفعل. If one of you makes a proposal to a woman and he's able to look and see that which will encourage him to marry her, let him do so. Jaber said, فكنت أتخبأ لها. Allahu Akbar. I used to hide and peek at her حتى رأيت منها ما دعاني إلى نكاحها. Until I saw what indicated that I wanted to marry her. What does this mean? First of all, it doesn't mean you go around spying on women. That's not what it means. What it means is you've got a girl that you want to marry, right? You believe that her father will accept. You're not looking over the palace wall at the princess. You believe her father, inshaAllah, is going to accept. You believe she's looking for someone like you. You're not going to spy on her, but if you can touch a look at her, you just see enough that would be better for her and for you.

Number one, you have to be serious. You can't be looking at four or five girls, let me see which one is better. You can't be looking at four or five girls like that. You're serious, committed to that you want to marry her. You just see enough that you want to marry her. Why? It's not nice that she's brought in front of you and you say no. That's first of all, it's not nice. No woman wants that. Come in front, okay, last thing, we all agreed, agreed, everything's agreed, okay, bring her here. No, not nice. Not nice, horrible feeling for her. So it's better for you that you just, if you can catch a glimpse, if you can't catch a glimpse, reasonably early in the marriage proposal, ask to see her early. Why? Because better you see her early than you, do you know what I mean? You go, the earlier the better. It's better you just catch a glimpse, but if you can't catch a glimpse, you didn't get to see her or catch a glimpse and only her, not her and her friends and all of that, you weren't able to catch a glimpse, then in that case, let it be done as early as possible in the khidmah, in the proposal, not late. Because not nice, well, the longer you go through and this girl thinks you're going to marry her and then you're like, no, I don't like the look of her. It's not nice. So it's better for you that you look at her early in the proposal.

What can you look at? Everyone agreed at looking at the face and hands, and some of them said you can look at her hair, but only in like she should not be wearing makeup and, you know, finery and beautiful clothes and everything, just like, say example, like normal how she would be in the house. Because we don't want to marry the Photoshop image, right? We want to marry a real person. What's she going to look like the next day? Not what she's going to look like on the wedding day. No, it's different. What's she going to look like in the next day and the day after and the day after? So you can look at her hair, you can look at her like that, but if the father is not comfortable with that, if he takes the view of the face and the hands only, no problem. Then the face and the hands is enough, inshaAllah, time. But if the father is willing, and I personally lean towards that view that if she's willing to show her hair, then that's maybe better because some women look very different, isn't it, with the hijab and then without the hijab. So you have to kind of like, it's better for him, it's better, but only if he's serious, only if he's completely serious and he really believes this marriage is going to go ahead, not that he's looking at two, three women, he's not serious, I might marry, I might not, let's have a look and see if it's worth it or not. Nothing like that, that's not acceptable.

Wallahi, we didn't get through all of the material, but it's just become now, we got very, very late because we had a late start and everything. What I want to achieve from this, and I'll make another lecture afterwards to finish it off in some other place, inshaAllah, we'll finish it off by the will of Allah. But what I want you to take from this is that the only way we're going to have a happy society and the only way we're going to keep away from the haram and the zina and the evil that people are doing is if we go back to the sunnah when it comes to marriage. If we really genuinely go back to the sunnah, fathers with their daughters, brothers, the way they approach for marriage, the women, the way that they, you know, carry themselves, the way that they look for marriage, very important.

Is it possible you could just come across a woman for marriage? It's true, you could. You could come across, like Musa, you just, like for example, it turns out that you both volunteer for the masjid or something like that. Yeah, you could, like that can, those type of things could happen. That's any also, but you don't go to her after that. You go to any third party. You don't go to her and say, sister, you looking for marriage? No, you don't go to her. But doing things properly, looking at any, following the sunnah as parents, as young people looking to get married, even following the sunnah when you can't get married, fasting, looking to find the right person, taking the compatibility seriously.

And the second part of this lecture, which is yet to come, is knowing the rights of the husband and the wife. Knowing the rights of the husband and the wife, and the second part, because the rights are very, very important. He said that the greatest conditions for you to fulfill are those that make the private parts permissible. Any marriage conditions, very serious conditions. You know what you have to do, how you are going to be able to take care of business as a husband, that you'll be able to do the job. You have to know what your rights are. And one of the sisters asked a question, I'm just going to mention this. She asked it in another, in Gothenburg, and wallahi, it actually touched my heart, to be honest. The question was, there was a question about racism, and I dealt with that. There was a question about, you know, sister said, I'm dark-skinned, and people reject me because my skin is too dark. We spoke about that there.

If someone rejects you, if the guy rejects you, then he just doesn't know what's good for him. So you don't want to marry him anyway. But if the father or like families are rejecting or whatever, we spoke about that issue of jahiliyya and racism and all of that. Like in the question that I got asked was, the men who normalize zina for the men, but then they expect to just get married and they expect that the woman is, like she's never had a bad past and all of that. And yet the guy is happy to play the field, like they say. And he's been around all these different women and whatever.

And then he wants, like he decides, okay, it's time for me to get married now. And that is really sad, but that is actually what is happening in a lot of situations is people are falling into haram and then they are expected to just find a righteous woman like that or even maybe rejecting a woman because of this or problems happen between them. We don't ask people's relationship history. That's not the Sunnah. We don't go through like this issue of things like that. Worst case, you can say is, I've only started practicing a year ago, and that's all I'll say. I started practicing two years ago, and obviously that's, I don't wanna say anything more. Like you don't need to go into, yeah, yeah, you know what, I had this girlfriend for six months and then this. No, you don't, especially make tawbah, you leave that behind, you don't go through that stuff. But at least you can maybe say, look, I started practicing, I made tawbah, I started practicing, for example.

But what's not acceptable is that this guy lives like that and then thinks Allah's gonna bless him to a good marriage. It's a very, very sad situation. And they say that, oh, for a girl, no, I would never marry a girl who's been in a relationship or I'd never marry a girl who's been previously married. But he himself is happy that he's had X number of relationships, so many relationships. But he says, oh, no way would I marry a girl like those girls.

So it's not the right mentality, it's not the way that we think. Stick to the rules, stay inside the limits of Allah and Allah will bless you in your marriage. Allah will give you a girl that's far more beautiful and far better for you than the ones that you were thinking of before. And more honorable, better for you in your dunya and your akhirah. But you have to stick to the rules, you can't be, you can't go outside of the rules and then think that Allah's gonna bless you. And then you can't apply to yourself and then you don't apply to others. Like you say to her that, I want a woman who's never looked at another man, but you yourself have been living a very bad life.

So you have to think about that, very hypocritical. It's a sad situation that we're in, wallahi, very sad. Lakin alhamdulillah, there's still a lot of good people and a lot of opportunity for good. And I would also say, it's my last remark, that do keep a thought for the reverts as well. It's not easy, wallahi, when you accept Islam from new people, a little bit reluctant for the marriage. Sometimes people feel a little bit like, oh, we don't know, will they stay in the deen or not? And things like that, they make it hard for them.

Now, I don't think reverts should get married the day they accept Islam, usually. People do that, especially with women. You know, the sister accepts Islam, it's like right, sister, there's a brother waiting for you outside, shahada now. I'll do the shahada nikah in one, you know, like in one sitting. It does happen, that's what happened. I've seen that many times, that the sisters like, marry this man, and it's out of love for her. People love her because she's accepted Islam, and you know, so they want good for her.

But she doesn't really know what kind of husband is compatible for her, does that make sense? She doesn't, she needs time to grow in Islam to know who she will like, not the first guy that's standing inside the doorway, for example. But also, a lot of people make it hard for leavers to get married, by putting obstacles and things like that, so it's very important to really, as a whole, as a Muslim community, fix these problems, bi-idhnillahi ta'ala. That's what Allah Azawajal made easy for me to mention, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la knows best, was salatu wassalamu ala Nabi Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in.