Marriage From an Islamic Perspective.

“John and Mary sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.” This seemingly innocent tune presents what is commonly accepted as the proper sequence for a couple to move towards marriage and implies that such a playfully cavalier approach to organizing your dating and married life would yield favorable results. However, does this sequence factor in a correct strategy? What would society be like if John and Mary’s first meeting was to discuss marriage through a so-called “first date”? An answer would be to discern the way society operates and how monogamy works outside of the way Islam prescribes. The contemporary conversations surrounding getting married are more so dictated by seductive body language, pillow talk, Instagram DM’s, and steamy text messages rather than the mature dialogues necessary to determine compatibility and suitability for marriage. An overwhelming majority of us are placing a higher priority in satiating lust rather than developing love. We believe that the intensity of sexual attraction is the appropriate gauge of measuring the potential and depth of our capacity to love another. Such a concern is a mistake. Can the process of hook-up culture really be the proper pathway to morally sound lifelong commitment? Our subconscious may desire this to be true, but our higher selves know this to be an impossibility.

You know the parental question that’s supposed to discourage going against the status quo: “if everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it?” Well, that’s no longer an effective scare tactic meant to encourage the prioritization of making wise choices for self-preservation over following the wrong crowd. Often, herd behavior perpetuates the groupthink responsible for the unchallenged bandwagon fallacy which propagates immoral cultural norms. Metaphorically answered, everyone thinks it’s okay to jump off a bridge because not only are there “plenty of fish in the sea” but the troubled waters we’re cannonballing into seems to represent the only place we can go to find connection: the shallow dating pool.

According to Islam, marriage sets the stage for love rather than love being the reason for marriage. Love develops through time and occurs by experiencing life alongside a person rather than it being an intense chemically induced attraction. Islam certainly allows you to be attracted to and feel for the person, but attraction and sexual compatibility are not the sole or even primary reasons for marriage. In Islam, premarital relations are expressly prohibited. For a revert to Islam such as myself, I ultimately learned that John and Mary should take a page out of how ‘Ali and Fatima’ would go about things, and I encourage us all to do the same. Ali is going to approach Fatima’s father to request her hand in marriage. Fatima will only accept interaction from Ali in a chaperoned environment and use that as the arena to field questions and receive answers. Ali will discover what Fatima’s mahr (dowry) is and pay it if reasonable. Ali will have no qualms about the idea of a non-returnable bridal gift and is honored to give it to her. Ali and Fatima will have a wedding at their local masjid with close family and friends as witnesses. Ali and Fatima will then do some K-I-S-S-I-N-G’ing, and in the process of marriage’s ups and downs, THEN they’ll GROW in love. If all goes well, the children thing will occur. Fatima’s going to appreciate Ali for working to provide for the home and Ali’s going to appreciate Fatima for taking care of the home he worked to provide and upkeep. In my personal quest to sort out the mistakes I’ve made and overcome my fear and apprehension about marriage, I hope to convince you and myself that despite how risky marriage seems, we should still all aim to get married, but do so as Islam advises.

I have always been a traditionalist when it comes to my conception of practicing appropriate monogamy — I always wanted to marry and possibly have children. I say “possibly” children because I’ve always prioritized securing the best mate, first. Children can be a natural outcome of this positive relationship, but not always Allah’s plan for you. They’re certainly not the reason to enter the relationship in the first place. If my spouse couldn’t have a child for any reason and everything else was okay, why would I leave her? Of course, adoption would always be an option for parenthood, but even that’s a bit of a dice roll. Still, one needs the right spouse before one considers ever wanting to bring children into the world. Perhaps I’m selfish or perhaps I don’t think I can live up to the responsibility of being a parent. But I think I can live up to the challenges of being a spouse. And if I’m being completely transparent, being a husband AND a father would be way more difficult than just being a husband. Such a concern needs further elaboration, but this piece’s main point is not to conflate marriage with parenthood. Both experiences within an institutional phenomenon deserve their own attention, so this think-piece will center only on MARRIAGE. We must focus on fixing marriage first so the environment where children are raised is optimal. The journey a man and a woman embark upon to get to marriage, let alone married, is challenging enough and is proving to be even more so.

To remedy such a predicament, we need to figure out how to be garments for each other to provide peace and tranquility. Our endeavors to provide this form of covering instructs us how and when love should grow between a husband and wife. Rather, than perform an action that will move the couple away from harmony, such as an aborted attempt to make someone “happy,” we must facilitate peace in our day-to-day lives. Such efforts are necessary to incubate love. We should not wait until a person brings us happiness before we fall in love with them. We need to do right by people amidst and despite their imperfections by being loving. By extending love, you recognize the other’s effort to reciprocate good treatment and you grow into loving them through that process.

Such an inquisitive deep dive should occur while abstaining from a sexual relationship rather than using sex as a metric for determining compatibility. Eliminating the possibility of falling into sex and “romance” prior to marriage would help prevent hormonal urges and desires from becoming the main impetus for jumping into commitment prematurely and irresponsibly. Let me reiterate, Islam prohibits an unmarried man and a woman from spending time alone. Such an edict helps a couple base their connection on spiritual outlooks and intellectual proclivities rather than fleeting intimacy based upon unsustainable passion.

An underestimated part of the Islamic vetting process is the requirement of a “wali” for a woman. This person serves as her spiritual guardian and is meant to help her decide whether she should marry a prospective candidate or not. Though the wali is given the authority to screen the man, the decision to marry is left up to the woman. The wali is often her father, but a trusted male (mahram) can take his place. The beauty of the wali is that he transfers his safeguarding to the husband. His security mirrors the counsel her husband will provide. This independent scrutiny helps her become more secure once she is married. It keeps the potential husband in check because her spiritual intermediary serves as a buffer. He’s designated as a liaison to focus on discovering the true intent of the man and figuring out his qualifications. The wali’s presence is indicative of the support system that a woman has before marriage and will continue to have after marriage from her husband, family, and in ideal situations, her community. The wali-woman arrangement is a means of securing relationship-building communication and engagement. It also is the key to problem-solving because the wali will spearhead any reconciliatory dialogue when the marriage is threatened. The wali allows the couple to keep their relationship difficulties within the private sphere. The woman can consult her wali to remedy issues, rather than a professional therapist, who is often consulted when the marriage is beyond repair or friends outside the family unit, who may exert a negative influence. In Islam, divorce should be the last resort rather than a convenient exit. Allah hates divorce, even though it is permitted. While many use it as an exit strategy for a financial payoff, it’s really designed to give both parties the chance to find more compatible matches.

As noted, the addition of a wali in facilitating the union of a married pair helps smooth the premarital process and aids in maintaining healthy marriages through conflict resolution. Everyone knows when emotions run high, the situation’s perception can become clouded. One or both partners find it difficult to calmly discern how to fix a problem. This wali’s help could be the saving grace for a couple, enabling them to stick things out, even when they are inclined not to. Ideally, the wali neutrally assesses the root causes of various problems and can arbitrate between the two parties.

Even though preemptive measures, such as walis and familial intermediaries are supposed to protect us from the potential pitfalls experienced in secular pairings, they don’t in all cases. Although the paradigm is different, Islamic marriages suffer from the same problems and outcomes as their ‘haram’ counterparts. The frustrations that modern day couples experience parallel each other in and outside of Islam. Although, the values that are foundational to our Islamic marriages are different from our secular counterparts, their disruption shares similar causes.

In Islam, the divorce rate is reported to be just below the secular rate of 50%. Stats for Islamic divorces ranging from 31% to 40% are a cause for concern, but not my main issue. Rather, I want to delve into what I believe is one of the main reasons for these divorce rates: the gender critique. The mutual criticisms we have of one another stem from the belief that the opposite sex should shoulder the blame for the current failure of the marital concept and its disintegration as a viable institution. Marriage was great in theory but now is poor in practice — operating as a stifling and ultimately antiquated ‘arrangement’. Marriage’s failure, according to the disappointed majority, has occurred because of its ‘assumed’ inability to meet the evolving needs of society. To them, marriage (religiously sanctioned monogamy) becomes more demanding and nuanced in its expectations. Each gender blames the other for the apparent impossibility of mutually beneficial pairings, so we choose to forge solidarity with those who share our same reproductive organs rather than fostering the type of opposite-sex deep connection necessary for marriage that cultivates love. On the one hand, the failure of successful pairings can be partly attributed to women guilty of having unrealistic expectations of men coupled with an unwillingness to reevaluate and adjust the criteria by which they judge them. This concern has become men’s emergent argument from within the current gender discourse. On the other hand, women argue that there aren’t enough men who are eligible for marriage because not enough demonstrate the competence to be good partners. If there are already more women than men, then imagine how few good men there are. However, the issue isn’t as simple as a mere shortage of good men. The issue is that there are more men that need to be seen as good and worth getting into relationships with. If a person has an obstacle that renders them unprepared for marriage, then measures should exist to help that person prepare economically and spiritually for marriage. For this reason, I am a strong advocate for premarital counseling and arranged matchmaking services.

Historically, women who endured bad relationships and marriages assumed physical and emotional labor which left them deprived, oppressed, and burdened with a directive to hold relationships together. Their fear of being with men who purposely aim to oppress them or put a ceiling on their agency discourages women from placing their trust in men who operate under more noble intentions. The fight to keep women “in their places” puts the onus of responsibility on them to be the spiritual exemplars of monogamy, because their roles imply that service to men should rank above self-honor. As a result of an over-corrective means to reverse such an inequity, women have assumed domination of men on a smaller scale. The fight over who should have the MOST power in relationships prevents us from developing innovative ways to make relationships work for both parties in modern society. This gender war clouds our collective ability to differentiate between two types of compromise: the compromise you should forge to make a relationship work, and the compromise you shouldn’t make to your value system just because you want a relationship. For example, men often want a woman to be agreeable (the submission request), a compromise to make a relationship work. However, women mishear this request as a mandate to be deferential or subservient, a compromise to their value system that they refuse to make.

An additional problem is an assertion that men focus on looks first and don’t evaluate the merit of academic credentials or moral integrity with the same stringency or appraisal. While a man, or woman for that matter, certainly looks for attractiveness in a mate, character and piety are also in play. The vetting process should take into consideration religious principles and appropriately consistent displays of kindness: good manners through leadership. Unfortunately, piety, in most cases, is too associated with a vaguely constructed idea of potential. If ideal circumstances aren’t actualized into tangible results prior to marriage, then getting married isn’t worth the risk. Looks and credentials are apparent, but piety is unknown upon first impression. So why take a risk on the unapparent, mysterious, and unpredictable? Perhaps because we want someone to assume that same risk when it comes to banking on benefiting from our piety.

The majority of reverts, including me, must overcome this conditioning of expecting endorphin-induced pleasure to be the best reward of marriage. The possibility of divorce shouldn’t serve as the contemporary deterrent it has sadly become. The failure rate is getting more publicity than the success stories because monogamy is being sold as a failed social experiment rather than a divinely ordained framework necessary to continue humanity. In fact, marriage should be our ONLY CHOICE for coupledom, rather than it being considered an outmoded option that has outlived its usefulness. How do we shift from the idea that marriage doesn’t work to prioritizing ways to make our marriages work? The mistake we make with marriage is that we shy away from the work of marriage because it doesn’t ensure that the marital experience would yield pleasure. Pleasure, in this case, is the dopamine rush you get from scratching the itch of addiction, the instant gratification that comes from the stimulation of your brain’s reward center whenever you experience the joy that comes from eating good food, enjoying intimacy, or experiencing any other fleeting pleasure. In this age, it’s easier to know what makes us stimulated rather than working on positively evolving within the parameters and guidelines of monogamy. Even worse is that the desire for stimulation is mistaken for the process of intellectual and spiritual evolution. If other people don’t make us happy in superficial and flattering ways (typically through ingratiation) on a consistent basis, then we dismiss them. Or worse, we fail to see how a relationship with this person can benefit us in a way that’s better for our continued emotional well-being and spiritual growth.

These concerns are exactly why the Prophet (PBUH) talks about marrying for “deen” first and placing all other variables below that in priority. Our secular counterparts would substitute deen for “character” or “marrying someone for what’s on the inside rather than what’s on the outside.” However, deen embodies much more. It means that the spouse’s presence and influence will help incline your actions towards becoming a better servant and worshiper of Allah. When you take on the task of being married, both people in the union pledge themselves to live up to the responsibility of ensuring that their spouse receives the rights they’re promised as believers. Receiving these rights fulfills the personal and spiritual needs each requires to obtain satisfaction and fulfillment. This test’s magnitude fulfills those obligations. In addition, the requirement of gaining more knowledge about the religion is a massive undertaking. The difficulty of that challenge plays into the relationship, because hoping that someone will grow into a person you should or would want to love, may or may not be worth it. I fear that marriage would introduce a hardship that would not only jeopardize me but the spouse I’m responsible for. Dealing with how challenging a disagreeable spouse could be would only compound discontent. Passing the test Allah gives you through her may be hard, if not impossible. And of course, the same goes for the woman. But such is what’s prescribed for us in Islam. “… But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you, and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not.” — Al-Qur’an 2:216

I reference this ayah in the Qur’an to illustrate that we need to fall in love with the process of embarking on spiritual growth alongside an accountability partner. Marriage is an idea that we are supposed to love as a practice, and zina (sex outside of marriage) is a practice that we should detest. But nowadays, zina is a first resort, while marriage is the last — and not always the ‘final frontier’. Furthermore, we also need to learn how to despise the love we’ve developed for the pleasure-seeking activities of satisfying lust and desires. The most obvious cure for such a malady is marriage and only Allah truly knows how and why such a process is the best arrangement for us. I hope to learn the answer, inshaAllah.

The additional challenge of marriage is learning to live with traits you dislike in a person. As the Prophet (PBUH) says: “Let not a believing man hate a believing woman. If he dislikes one of her characteristics, he will be pleased with another” (Sahih Muslim). The uncertainty of knowing whether a spouse is truly good for you, in the long run, is knowing whether the virtues or quirks that trigger discomfort and annoyance are for your benefit or your detriment. This situation is where discernment comes into play. One must avoid the type of snap judgment where you are quick to jump to a conclusion about someone’s perceived ineptitude. Instead, one must trust that the person’s imperfect way of challenging you can turn out to yield a blessing that will improve you both. A good brother I’ve been listening to, Shadeed Muhammad, summarized this idea well. He stated that “your spouse’s mistakes are meant to help you fix the mistakes in yourself.” The process of refinement can’t happen best alone, regardless of the belief that achieving spiritual perfection solely through isolation and solitude is the preferred key to true growth. Though your relationship with Allah is a personal one, the indication of how that relationship is put into practice mostly occurs through interpersonal encounters. Being in the throes of fighting to come to solutions that involve a marital partner is the proving ground where your mettle is tested. The key is having someone who will provoke a change in you in positive ways. Many times, when the other’s behavior triggers us, we only come to know whether the provocation was motivated by an improper or dysfunctional quality in the other person. If they rubbed you the wrong way because you disliked the way you were corrected or their insight revealed a harshness in their character that indicates how dirty they can fight, then the internal tension makes you question whether their shortcomings are tolerable or toxic. The vacillation between a positive and negative opinion of your mate conjures an uncertainty that causes you to wonder if the person you’re with is good for you even when they’re not always good to you. As you work to make peace and accept how someone’s imperfect style of reproach can make being around them annoying, you’re also developing the patience and resolve to endure any uncomfortable situation. Marriage begs you to ask yourself these questions: am I ready to evolve and what does evolution look like in the face of that transformation; how does marital companionship deepen the human experience of self-discovery?

The merging of two souls who are designed to meet each other’s needs proves why marriage is a necessary endeavor. When we go without the type of fulfillment that comes through marital partnership, we feel denied the full experience of personhood. We all have physical desires, a need for mental and spiritual stimulation, and companionship. The Islamic framework of marriage is intended to provide each person with a spouse divinely designed to fulfill those needs. However, we need to reciprocate the benefit we intend to receive by being a benefit to another. In the process of being both a provider and helpmeet to another, we unlock the potential within ourselves to become a better person. By virtue of this improvement, we can operate at our highest level and worship Allah in the best form. In our foolhardy attempts to get the world to conform to how we wish to achieve satisfaction, society is venturing away from utilizing marriage as a forum to meet our needs. Because of the demands of commitment and the consequences of its demise, we are failing to engage each other through marriage. I challenge us to not fault marriage but to look at what prevents us individually from pledging commitment to each other in a more serious way. If we get beyond the childhood conditioning of how we look at falling in love, we can grow into love in a more mature and spiritually correct way. Islam provides us with a path that will yield success without the heartbreak that comes from violating spiritual order. Put Allah first, then marriage, then what we desire from love will hopefully follow.