 So, I wanted to start off this first segment by going over what the ideal Muslim marriage looks like, and I know that that's actually kind of like a bit of a challenge actually because that's kind of what everybody wants, that's what everyone seeks. It's one of the topics that I think is requested all the time. It's the most frequently requested topic that what would the ideal Muslim marriage look like. And I want to start us off by mentioning a couple of Ayat of Quran because I think it's important to set the stage and to set the tone for the subject. First and foremost, I think one of the challenges is that we receive information, we receive our knowledge about marriage, about family life, about what this is supposed to look like from all over the place, from family members, from what we think we know from our religion, from friends, from social media. And this actually becomes problematic because it creates for us a lot of ideals that may not actually work together very well. So with that being said, I wanted to start us off with an Ayat of the Quran, where Allah Subh'anaHu Ta'ala mentions in Surah Al-Rum. So this is the same verse that is often recited at Nikah ceremonies. It is a commonly referenced verse because it describes very plainly and clearly what a ideal Muslim marriage would look like. Because it talks about balance, it talks about what both sides, both the husband and the wife, the bride and the groom can bring together in their relationship. And if that were to be maintained moving forward or for the duration of the marriage, we would have that perfect system, the perfect ecosystem for what would be a successful Muslim marriage. So Allah Subh'anaHu Ta'ala mentions that from amongst his signs is that he has created you and your partner from yourselves, meaning that from mankind, mankind has partners. And then he mentions the qualities of that relationship by saying that what is the quality of that relationship supposed to look like? What is the quality of that union supposed to have? The first of which is that a person should have tranquility and calm and be at peace with their partner. So setting the stage and setting the tone, I guess I should backtrack a little bit by saying, first and foremost, I'm a little groggy. I just got off like an extremely strange schedule. So I was awake since three o'clock in the morning trying to get here and I just got here. So my mind is still processing and catching up. So I realized I started off without saying salam to everybody. So now I'm going to backtrack and start off by saying assalamu alaikum to everybody that's here. I'm welcoming all of you. Mashallah. Welcome to everybody. I'm just processing things a little bit slowly right now. But I didn't even speak about the conference, the speakers. You guys have seen the flyers. You've seen the other, inshallah, speakers throughout the day that will be here. It's going to be a very eventful, inshallah, program. Before I continue what I was about to say, I just remembered that every speaker after me is going to have a slightly different twist or angle to the way that they present this topic. And that's a good thing. There's nothing wrong with that. Actually, it's a very positive thing. And the reason for that and why we actually set the program up in this way is so that you can see different experts in their field speak about this issue, right? The marriage crisis, the struggles of young people getting married, remarriage. You know, this whole topic, you can see firsthand how different people have a different perspective on it and the different experts that we have coming, inshallah, how their expertise are going to contribute to our better, having a more holistic understanding of what's been going on and how we can combat the challenges that many people have today. So I want to just mention that because of the fact that the angle or the perspective that I'm taking when I start or as I start, it's going to be primarily from the religious spiritual point of view. So this is setting the foundational point. So my topic was the ideal Muslim marriage. It's ideal because we want to get to that point. I'm not saying we're there and I'm not saying that every marriage is going to be like that. But we have the precedent and we want to strive to that goal, to that end. And if we can't get there or if we don't understand how to get there, hopefully this program this evening, this whole afternoon will be giving us some tools to equip us with ways to get to that ideal Muslim marriage category. So coming back now to this point, this ayat of the Quran, I love it so much and I love to share this ayat because it feels so comprehensive. It's very clear. There's three steps easier said than done. There's three steps, just three easy steps to have a happy, successful Muslim marriage. The first is that you need to make sure that you can maintain Sukun. The category of Sukun is having that peace of mind, that tranquility, that comfort with one another and in each other. So it's not just this idea that one person is happy and the other person is miserable. That doesn't make a successful marriage. That's not the happy marriage that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is referring to. It's that the unity of both parties, that's number one. The second is, then he continues and he says, Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who places in that marriage, Mawadda, which is love. That there has to be love in the marriage. There has to be that draw, that attraction, that attention to one another. There's love, Mawadda and then there's Rahma and then there's mercy. And the commentators and the Tafsir mentioned different reasons for the order of this. Why love first then mercy? As well as this word before that, which is that Allah is the one who places love in the marriage. Which if we're speaking from a spiritual point of view, this takes us back another level, which is what? Which is the pleasing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is first and foremost. Because in your obedience to your religion, you attain the love of Allah, which Allah then blesses your marriage by placing in that marriage love. Mawadda wa Rahma. By virtue of you being more obedient to your Creator, Allah places love and mercy in your marriage. Because Allah is the one who is doing the placing of love in that marriage. So he puts love in the marriage and he puts mercy in the marriage. So love and mercy is another component of a successful marriage. You have to have love. This marriage should mean something. And the funny thing is we live in a world where our concept of marriage is predominantly for a lot of people who grew up in the West. It's what you see on TV. It's what you see in pop culture. It's what you follow on all these reality TV shows, which it's reality TV. It's not real, but for many people, that's actually set in stone what they should be looking for in a marriage. Which is obviously terrible and completely wrong. But the point is it's already been established that way. People are seeking love marriages. People are seeking Romeo and Juliet and Disney Channel style love. And the reality is that that's highly unattainable, very impractical and not realistic. It's a reason why it's on TV and not in real life, right? So if you really want love in your marriage, right, then there's a system by which you can attain that in your life and realizing that your marriages should have love, right? And then mercy. This is such an important concept. Usually when people talk marriage, people are thinking of all the stuff that happens right when you get married. So the cluster of love and travel and attention and Instagram photos and thank yous and pictures and attention. That first moment where just everything is wonderful, right? That's not marriage. That's just like the beginning stages of it. And that's where all the love is at. Jala beina kumma wedda. The love gets developed. People often ask me, they say, oh, should I, you know, when I get married, should I do all those lovey-dovey things? Like, you know, all the corny, stereotypical stuff that people do. And I say, if you guys are into it, just go do it. Whatever. You want to write your guys as initial in the sand at the beach. Go ahead and do that. You want to, you know, I don't know, make like those fake breakfasts that they show on TV all the time where there's like 50 things. And, you know, nobody eats any of it. And, you know, you want to do all that because it makes you feel good. You're married. Now go ahead and do it. Do whatever you want to do that's going to develop the love in the beginning. But then don't forget, because once that slowly starts to fade, and I don't mean that the love starts to fade, but the novelty of the love starts to fade, now you're just pals with one another. You're really close with each other. You know everything about each other. That's where the rahma and the mercy kicks in. Because in the beginning of your marriage, right, like anybody who's been to my marriage seminars, you've heard me say this a dozen, dozens of times. In the beginning of the marriage at the wedding ceremony, anything that happens, you're just, you're just so happy, you don't, you don't mind. Right? If you put a little cake on someone's nose, they're going to laugh and giggle and they're going to play it off. Five years later, you try to do that, you know, and it's not going to, it's not going to have the same reaction. So recognizing that later on in the marriage, you have to remember that there's going to come a time where you need to incorporate the mercy aspect. The mercy aspect being what? Being that there's going to be a stage in your marriage where you know everything about them and they know everything about you. They're going to make mistakes that you've seen again and again, and they've seen your mistakes again and again. But what happens is that you use this quality of forgiving them and moving beyond what they've done or looking past their mistakes and realizing what this person has dedicated their life to me. They're working hard for my home, whatever the roles are, whether you're the breadwinner, whether you're the caretaker of the home, whether you're, whatever you are, this person has done X, Y and Z for me. Therefore, yes, my, you know, I don't know, his income isn't as high as I wished it was, but I'm looking beyond that because he is an excellent husband and a caretaker and provides and is there for us. You know, he might say that, oh, my food one night, I came home and I was so tired, it wasn't ready, it wasn't warm. You know, I'm really, really exhausted, but then he looks beyond that. Yeah, but she also took care of the kids, four kids over the weekend for five days or whatever it was or all day long, I was gone at work and she had to, and the kids were sick and all this stuff. So you say, you know what, it's not that big a deal. I have a microwave. It's there for a reason. I can just go take my food and I can warm it myself. There's no need for me to, you know, get upset about our cause of fight. That's the mercy aspect of it. So looking at this whole thing holistically and looking at this whole, you know, these few IAAT, we recognize that these are the ideal qualities to have in that Muslim marriage, that you have Sukun, that you have tranquility, you have that calm, then you have the love, you have the love in the relationship. That's the driving force that helps develop the marriage. And then you have mercy. Why? Because then at a certain point of comfort, now you're at a place of having to show mercy so that the marriage can continue, right? Because without that mercy, everyone is on edge. Then everyone's just constantly angry. Everyone's upset. You're at each other's throats every second of every waking moment. It's constant conflict, right? Look at those relationships that lack these qualities. When the marriage starts without love, it immediately jumps to becoming very vile and rigid and it becomes, I have like a rule of thumb, any time you see in a relationship people start asking for their rights, it's already gone over the deep end. At that point, you need immediate intervention. When people are talking to each other like, hey, can you go get groceries? I got groceries last week. Don't you know what my rights are? I'm so exhausted. Why don't you go get groceries? Automatically, for me, that's like a red flag that this relationship needs immediate intervention. Why? Because then we've misused all of the application of these verses, which is you have to have love and then you need to have mercy. Again, I will say this is easier said than done. In practice, we're going to make mistakes. We are going to fail at this. Horribly, we're going to fail at this. But the most successful marriages, and there's a psychology professor who actually mentioned this, he said, the most successful marriages are those that deal with their irreconcilable, that learn to manage their irreconcilable differences, meaning there will just be things in life that you will not agree upon. But a successful marriage is that marriage which can bring all of that together and understand that there are differences and still function and still be able to work together. In another Ayat of the Quran, in Surat Al-A'raf, I believe, Allah SWT says, very similar, that Allah SWT has created you from one body, one soul, and from that soul, He made you a spouse. And so that you may do what you may find comfort in that person, meaning that our concept of marriage, our concept of a union has to have within it the qualities of compatibility. It has to have the qualities of love. It has to have these traits. Why I'm mentioning all this is not just because, oh, that's pretty obvious. I already knew that. That's not the point. The point is, is that I'm going to mention what a Muslim marriage is not. And I wanted to start by saying what a Muslim marriage is first, just so that we can set the tone, just so that we have that understanding. And we have that awareness that what do we want to ensure our marriage looks like? And we always have that precedent to go off of. This is where we want to be, and now we can gauge where we actually are. So an ideal Muslim marriage, like I mentioned, it's ideal because we may not be there right now. We may have made mistakes. We have flaws. Every one of us have flaws. But the goal isn't to identify our flaws and say, hey, look, I'm not like this couple or I'm not like them. Every relationship, and this was one of my own personal growing pains in this field of mental health, in particular in this field of marriage and family therapy, which was that in the beginning I had these very naive set of eyes that saw, which was a blessing in disguise, I suppose, but I saw everyone as happy campers. And unless someone was like throwing a shopping cart at you at Walmart, I thought everybody's relationship was happy. You know, I just thought everybody was successful. Everybody was happy. Everybody was just so good, you know. And then I remember I had a psychiatrist mentor once tell me he goes, you know, Jabra, here's the thing. You're going into this field. You're so, I don't know what the term for it is like rosy-eyed or something, but you're just seeing the world, you're seeing the world so nicely. And I don't want to break that for you or ruin that for you, but once you sort of experience what a lot of people are going through, you kind of realize like everybody has their own set of challenges or issues that they're working with and navigating and managing. And that's just the reality of life. So I say this to everyone not to make you depressed or sad or anything, but just so that we don't end up maybe subconsciously comparing ourselves all the time and looking at other relationships and sitting there and reflecting and saying, oh man, look at them. They're just set. Oh, they're just doing perfectly fine. Or look at that couple. They're like the ideal couple. Those are marriage goals, you know. The reality is that everybody has their own struggles. And that's why I wanted, again, just to reiterate for like the fourth time, when we say ideal Muslim marriage, we're setting ourselves up to grow together. That's the point of this, that there are things that I can learn from this program, from this day, from this lecture series, from all these really, really honorable, respected, skilled experts in their fields, whatever they're going to speak about, there's something I can take from that and benefit from that and potentially implement into my life starting today. That's kind of the point. So continuing along these same lines, the ideal Muslim marriage is what I just described. What it is not, however, these are things that people tend to think a relationship is. So you'll find that people oftentimes will engage in all sorts of different behaviors, thinking that this is my way of pursuing marriage or pursuing a successful marriage. Muslim marriage is not engaging in any form of zinna before marriage. And again, I almost feel like I have to apologize for mentioning things that are so obvious, but the reason why it's important to mention this is because oftentimes it's not so clear, actually. And specifically in the time that we live in and the era that we live in, with a lot of the things that are being shared online, sometimes, you know, actually my wife is the culprit because she sends me all these things and she makes me watch. She's like, oh my God, look at what this person is doing and look at this. And I'm like, you got to stop doing that because then I get all excited and I want to write a whole thing about it and I want to go give a lecture and say this is not right, but it just stresses me out. So it's not good to constantly receive all this information, especially just before a conference like this, I got three different videos. She's like, oh, watch this. And I'm like, no, no. My focus is not going to be on the program. I got to focus on this. So it's not Zina. And it sounds silly to even say that, but you have to realize we're talking about a Muslim marriage. Being a Muslim has criteria, has certain rules and regulations that we abide by to be part of that fraternity, to be a part of that sorority, to be part of that community. Part of that community means abstaining from committing any type of Zina or fornication. This is not a Muslim marriage. It's very important to know that. Our marriages are started with what's known as the Nikah or the Aqt or the Qatben Kitab. That is what is a Muslim marriage. Why? Because cohabitation, dating, all these things is not the Muslim marriage. Oftentimes I get this question from a younger population, usually a high school college age, but I have genuinely been surprised in at least the past three years or so how many people who are outside of those parameters have also been asking these type of questions. What does that relationship look like? And then the conversation goes, well, if I'm looking to get married, what are the limitations? What can I do? What can I not do? Can you define for me halal dating? And the conversation that comes around that. So it's all I'll get to that in just a moment. So again, a Muslim marriage, an ideal, successful, happy Muslim marriage, is not constantly sending pictures of yourself to the other person you're speaking to. It's not sending Snapchat and private photos and private messages, having really intimate, deep, private, heartfelt conversations in secret and in private. It's not ideal Muslim marriages. That's not how you want to start off a relationship. In a best case scenario, you're not doing anything like that. In a best case scenario, there's a whole system set up to prevent you from doing that. That doesn't mean that you can't speak to someone. That doesn't mean that you can't talk to someone or meet someone for the purposes of marriage. But this specific methodology of getting to know someone or to talk to someone doesn't really fit within those guidelines. Primarily because it usually leads to other things. And that's a very slippery slope. It starts with a very simple conversation. It starts with a very basic introduction. It leads to late night discussions, pictures and photos and conversation styles that are probably not appropriate for what we would deem as an ideal Muslim union. It's not always what other people have. And that's also quite important. Understanding a Muslim marriage as being what so-and-so has would be the wrong way to look at it. You can find certain qualities that you like and that you value and that you appreciate and that you would want. And that's important for you to understand what it is that you want in your relationship. What you want in the future of your marriage or in the future of your relationship going forward. But that's not how you should look at a Muslim marriage for the sake of just saying I want exactly what these people have. And the reason for that is because oftentimes we set our standards on what my parents have or what my parents didn't have, what my aunts had, my friends had, my relatives had. For example, people have certain definitions of marriage when they think of that word. They immediately think of an incredibly traumatic experience that they remember. That was a marriage that failed miserably and it ended terribly. That's what a marriage is. So therefore I don't want that. So when they think marriage, they think that scenario. And that's not what it has to be all the time. And so I know it also sounds kind of odd even saying that, but it's important to hear that. Your marriage is not your parents' marriage. Your marriage is not your relatives' marriage. Your marriage is not someone else's marriage. Why? Because it is what you make of it. And if you decide to make it what other people experience domestic violence, people experience a lot of adversity. There was a person who actually came to me in premarital counseling once and said to me that my guidelines for marriage are quite simple. And she said that I want to be taken care of emotionally and I don't want to be living basically paycheck to paycheck. I don't want to be wondering if I should use this money for gas or groceries or like if I could buy a coffee. I don't want to think like that. And I asked to just inquire further, where is that coming from? Because it doesn't sound like something which is kind of inappropriate. It seems very specific, right? It sounds like she's coming from a place in her own life, in her own experience where that was very serious. And she said very simply, she said, well, I come from a lifestyle or a background where that was something that I did not have access to. She said when we would have food, we would get food from donation centers. We would collect cans, right? This is how we had food growing up. And we would not have new clothing. We would have tattered clothing. And I would always remember late at night, my parents having a conversation specifically about, so we have X amount of money left for this month. Should we buy the kids this thing or should we have dinner like this? And she said that the older I got, the sadder I became and the more heartbroken I became that this is the lifestyle that my parents had to go through to take care of us in our household. She said now that I have a job and I'm kind of independent but I'm growing into the stage of marriage or into that next stage in my life, I have a very simple request which is I just don't want to be in that position again. So having certain experiences that you went through that other people went through that you don't want to go through, that's totally fine. But to say specifically I want exactly what so and so has or what so and so doesn't have, sometimes we basically set ourselves up with expectations that are unrealistic. And as a result of that, we let ourselves down. And that's really the point of this. That our marriages are not exactly what other people went through. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be what you saw somewhere or what you heard elsewhere. People sometimes try to do scare tactics and say, oh you're too young to get married you're going to turn out like so and so. It's a very common thing we hear people say. Or, oh you're too old now, you're going to turn out like so and so. The opposite of that, the other extreme end of that. And everything in between that as well. So you're focusing on your education too much. I met with a young man not too long ago and he said to me, he goes, well I don't make $300,000 yet. So if I'm not making $300,000 living in the Bay Area then I can't even, how could you even ask me about marriage? And I said, okay, well you're really narrowing your chances here of getting married if that's your expectation but that's up to you. So in any case, just to reiterate this point, the point is that we are not the experiences that other people have gone through. You have the ability to change that for yourself. You don't need to limit yourself. So when we talk about the Muslim marriage, the ideal Muslim marriage, you have that flexibility. You have the ability to look at it and say, here's what I want out of this relationship and here's what I don't want. You can set those parameters for yourself from the onset, from the get-go. And if you don't know what those parameters are, which is another issue many people struggle with, not knowing what am I supposed to look for? What am I supposed to look out for? What should I be using as a filter? Then that's when you consider doing a premarital course perhaps, doing a consultation. Speaking to someone who could guide you in that direction. Because a lot of people are just excited to get married. And I say this often, people tend to have this idea of when they think of marriage, they think of the wedding day. Actually. So that can become incredibly problematic because that means you didn't think anywhere beyond that. You didn't think about the fact that you're probably going to have to work on your character development. You're probably going to have to work on the fact that you have certain really nasty traits about you that you don't know yet. But that other person is going to pull it out for you and they're going to identify it. Then you're going to come face to face with this reality and then you're going to have one of two choices. Confront it and work on it. Or combat it and fight it. And that's just the reality of what it's going to be like. So if your expectations are when I think of wedding, I think of that fantastic day of the wedding day, then you are going to be sorely mistaken because then what happens with everything after that day, literally the very next morning, the very next day, and your life begins with this total stranger that you came from two different planets, you're put together now, and now you have to create a life together. However, again, just to flip the script a little bit and go over a little bit about what Muslim marriages can be. And I shared this section only because the amount of people that have said that my marriage is devoid of any type of quality is very disappointing. And I think that's also because at the onset of marriage, we were all just googly-eyed and excited and we had no expectation of what a marriage is and what that means and how to plan for it. So hopefully sharing this and what the other speakers are going to speak about and share will allow us to kind of understand better what to expect moving forward or how we can pivot and make adjustments. But what should a Muslim marriage have or include or incorporate? One is communication. This seems quite obvious, again. All of these things sound obvious. Actually, it's kind of like, you know, when you're in school and you're listening in class, everything the teacher is saying makes sense and then the moment you go home and I have never seen this in my life. Like, I don't even know anything. It just kind of, you blank out. It seems like that, right? Like a lot of these concepts, they seem very easy as we're saying it and as we're hearing it. It's like relatively redundant. Some of you are even thinking, why did I come this early for this? You know, I already know all this stuff. It's possible, but in practice, then it's kind of like having a, you know, like a toolbox full of tools. You don't need to use them all the time, but when the situation arises, then you're prepared. That's the best way to look at it. So communication. Successful and happy Muslim marriages do have communication. Okay? Why I say this is because people say that, oh, my wife, she doesn't talk to me. My husband doesn't communicate. He just like has this expectation in his head of what should happen and there's no way for me to know that. How would I be able to pull that out of his head and know that this is what he needs? He doesn't communicate, he doesn't talk about it in vice versa, right? This is not male-female-specific. It's just apply it across the board. But the complaint is that they don't communicate. Oh, she doesn't communicate. She doesn't tell me what she needs. He doesn't tell me what he wants. And so we're always in conflict. So to know a body's surprise, a Muslim marriage has communication in it. Right? We can see from the life of the Prophet alaihi salatu wassalam actually that in many, many situations, he was evident that he used to actually spend time, dedicated time, just to talk to his wife. Just to talk to his wives. In one particular narration, it mentions that once he was late night having a conversation with his wife and he was just outside and he was talking to her. And two Sahaba, they were walking by and they saw him talking to a woman so they immediately turned around. And the Prophet alaihi salatu wassalam called them back specifically. He says, no, no, come here. This is my wife I'm talking to. This is not just anybody. I'm not just out here having a conversation with a strange woman. This is my wife and I'm having a chat with her. And they said, no, no, no, messenger of Allah. We had no thought like that. He goes, no, even then, even then I just wanted to be clear about it. So in that moment, that's a lesson for us, right? That he used to actually dedicate time just for the sake of talking to his wife. And like that in many other scenarios, the Prophet alaihi salatu wassalam used to love. You know, we're going to get to that. I mean, forgiveness, for example, to be happy in a marriage. I really, it sounds even silly as I'm saying it. Like, is it okay to be happy in my marriage? Is that an okay quality? Is that am I asking for too much? I'm like, no, this is not like asking for a million dollar mad, right? This is like an okay thing to want, right? I think it's very fair. But truly, this is something that comes up again and again. Like, maybe I'm not meant to be happy. We've heard that, right? I mean, I'm sure somebody's heard that before. Maybe I'm not meant to be happy. Maybe it's not my nasiib that I should be happy. No, SubhanAllah, the reality is that that's not the case. That's not a good way of looking at it. That's not how we should be looking at this situation. Every marriage has the right to be happy, both husband and wife. Our responsibilities, they may weigh heavy. They may be a lot. But that doesn't mean that we don't deserve to be happy. We do, right? The Prophet ﷺ used to say often that I only enjoy my meals when my wife, Aisha, sitting next to me. He would say that to her. And that would make her happy. And she would blush. And she would become happy. He would give her a nickname, right? He would give her nicknames for each other. And he used to call Aisha, you know, he used to have this nickname for her. Or he would call her, shortening her name, again, another nickname. This was just a sign or a snippet of little, little actions that would indicate that they were happy. Their marriage was happy. It had happiness as a part of it. It was part and parcel of their relationship. It's not something you have to necessarily strive for. Like, oh, I unlocked happiness now. Five years into my marriage, 15 years into my marriage, now I've unlocked happiness. It was misery. And now I've gotten to the stage of happiness. That's not how it's supposed to be. So Muslim marriages can be, they can have communication, right? That's not so shocking. Muslim marriages can be happy, right? You're not supposed to be miserable all the time, contrary to some strange belief that, you know, I'm just miserable. I guess that's marriage. You know, I'm just miserable like that. No, that's not the case, right? That's not how things have to be. And there are examples. And again, I know probably in the back of your mind, you're thinking, he's mentioning all stories and incidents from the life of the Prophet's life, directly, how am I going to compete to that or how am I going to get to that point at any stage in my life? Again, to reiterate, the point is that we are setting the precedent for what is the ideal Muslim marriage and we all strive to try to get to that point, to try to get a glimpse of that, to try to get pieces of that, to try to get close to that. And that's not far-fetched. That's not far-fetched at all, right? Especially if both people, both members of this relationship understand these concepts, they acknowledge them, they say, you know what? Yeah, I agree. I want to be there too. I want to not argue with you for no reason. Why would I want to argue with you over, you know, what time you come back from work? You get back at 5.30? That's the end of the conversation. That's it. You're clear. You communicate it. I communicate it. I know what time dinner is going to be ready. I know what time to be home. That's my parameters. The end of the conversation. Whereas you'd be surprised how many relationships, just that conversation of what time are you going to be back from work is a literal fight every single day. It's kind of shocking. You would think like, that's not that difficult, right? But it is for many people, for some people. And so again, the point is, just going back to the basics here, the reality is that it's okay to have these qualities. We have to strive for them if you don't have them. And if they seem unrealistic, that's not the case. They are realistic. We just need to strive towards those goals. If we don't know how, there are means by which we can get to that point. One of which is, you know, you have counseling, you have therapy sessions, you have scholars you can consult, you have consultation sessions you can go to. You can speak to an elder. You can speak to someone that you highly respect, someone that has wisdom and experience in life, right? And also, just because, you know, I'm part of Wasila, and it's like a Wasila event, doesn't necessarily mean you have to always go to therapy, you know? I don't know if I'm going to get terminated after this, but like, you know, you don't always have to go to therapy. You can always go to like an elder, someone with experience. You have a parent, a grandparent, a scholar. There are other people that we can turn to. The main thing is to make sure and to communicate, right? This was something that is, I mean, part of our tradition, the Sahaba would go to the Prophet's Jerusalem whenever they didn't understand something. They would ask for clarity. If the men would ask, the women would ask, everybody would ask. The problem is that we're not asking. And then even if we knew the answer, we're not implementing. That's the challenge. And it's hard because our ego doesn't want to give up and say, yeah, he was right. Oh man, I don't want you to tell me that. I just, I want to stumble across it on my own. But the moment my husband has to tell me or my wife identifies something for me, I just don't like hearing it from you. You are the problem. I don't want to hear it from you. What you're saying may be right, but I don't want to hear it from you. So this is a matter of ego and the matter of having to work on that and resolving that, right? So continuing on, sadness. Sadness is part of marriage. Sadness is part of relationships. These are common things. These are things that happen all the time. Right? How we identify sadness in the life of the Prophet I mean, there's so many stories. One story comes to mind in particular. During a very famous battle, the Prophet had said to three of his very close companions. He said to three of his companions that when you go into this battle, because keeping the literal flag, like the flag that had the kalimah on it, was a morale boost for the rest of the army. He had told the Sahaba, Zaid ibn Haritha, Abdullah ibn Ar-Raraha, and another Sahabi, I'm forgetting, he had mentioned to them that keep the flag of Islam up at all times. Right? He had said to them, Jaffa ibn Abi At-Talib, it was the third person. So he said that keep the flag up at all times and he gave them a specific order. He says, oh Zaid, you keep the flag up first. If you become Shahid in the battle, then give it to Jaffa. And Jaffa, you keep the flag up for as long as you can. And if you become Shahid, then give it to Abdullah. And this was their order. And so the Prophet, as was his habit, sat in the Masjid while the battle was ongoing and making dua for them. And Aisha, she's sitting in her room which is adjacent to the Masjid and she sees like a messenger coming to relay news of battle updates to the Prophet s.a.w. And so she sees this person coming in and she hears that he informs the Prophet s.a.w. Oh Messenger of Allah, you had given a directive to your companions in this particular order and you had said to them to keep the flag of Islam up no matter what. And I regret to inform you that exactly in that order Zaid ibn Haritha, Jaffa ibn Abi Talib and Abdullah ibn Rwaha all have become Shahid. And Khalid ibn Walid was the last person to pick up the flag because he didn't want it to see it on the ground and through him we got victory. Meaning ultimately through that last stage. And the Prophet s.a.w. sat there and he was deeply, deeply, deeply saddened by that news. Why? Because these companions were some of the closest companions to him. So why is the story important is because of this particular piece which is that Aisha is the narrator of this particular incident and she's the one saying I was in my room when I had heard of the Messenger coming into the room into the Masjid to speak to the Prophet and I was peeking through the door and I saw this unfold and I heard the situation Aisha on his face a serious sadness set in and I realized that I should leave him alone in the Masjid where he will find comfort there where he wanted to be. So this is sadness in a relationship. Look at the unity between the Prophet s.a.w. and Aisha that they knew what the other person needed. The Prophet s.a.w. received terrible news. He's in the Masjid but she as his wife knew that when he's overwhelmed he likes to be in the Masjid left alone. But without any words being exchanged she did exactly that and actually we even know of this situation because of her narration of having fulfilled that beautiful relationship of wife to husband of knowing what his needs were at that time and I let him be in that state so that he can get the comfort that he needs and then ultimately recover from it. But this is a shared sadness so is it okay to be sad in a relationship if sadness happens sure it's totally fine it's common. As a matter of fact when I had my first child, my first daughter I remember it was so strange I couldn't really be an emotional person and then after having my daughter maybe a couple months into that every single thing would make me sad and I remember I saw some ad somewhere of I don't even remember what it was a cartoon of something and it immediately reminded me of my daughter and I called my wife and she called me and she was just crying and I'm crying and what are we crying over like a cartoon what is wrong with us and just everything affected us the main take away from that is sometimes we are very rigid with our emotions we're very rigid with our belief systems that there are certain things that you know men don't cry or you know women don't show emotion in front of their wives. There was another situation I got a ton of stories for you guys there's another situation once where an elder told me it was in Little Mabon we were sitting in Ertikov it's kind of intense story but this was an elder and he was in the villages and he actually said to me he himself was like 80 years old as he's telling me this story he says when I was 5 years old he is saying so 75 years ago he is saying that when I was 5 years old I remember we were going to a like a tribal meeting in the village in the mountains and all the tribal elders were gathered there in the tribal elders house so all the tribal elders were there in the house and he said I was 5 years old and I came with my father and and as I mentioned the point of this story is that some people have a very rigid like emotional state that they feel like they have to be this way all the time. I can never express emotion this is the mindset I can never be sad I can never be a sign of weakness and my children will no longer value me and they will not want to spend time with me like literally living a 50-60 year lifestyle like this this is not the ideal Muslim marriage just by the way so he mentions that I was 5 years old and I was at this elders house and I see all these tribal elders there and I'm sitting quietly in front of my father on the ground and the tribal elder himself had a son that was also 5 years old and he was just running around whereas my father had warned me that you have to sit still you do not move this is very disrespectful you're going to disrespect me your family your village if you move around so he's like okay got it so he's sitting there still and but then he's noticing this other kid who is the this is his own house but he's just running around acting like a 5 year old oh my god acting like a 5 year old and he said at that moment he like tripped while the meeting was going on and this kid tripped and he made like a silly noise or he made like a silly chat like a noise or something like that but it was loud enough where it caught everyone's attention so the father he took the kid and he took him in the back and he beat him severely so everyone could hear it and the person narrating the story was telling me he said I started crying he's 5 years old at the time he said I started crying because I was just hearing it it was so intense that I felt like I was getting hit so he started crying and his father quickly like covered him and things like that so just stay quiet and then when his wife the tribal elder who he was beating his kid his wife came out and she was crying and after that if you make a noise or even cry I'm going to do the same thing to you too so wait until tomorrow all my guests are going to leave then you can cry like that is such a extreme these are all Muslim people right like this is not so this is such an extreme lifestyle and a mindset but keep in mind that many people grew up in households of the same level of rigidity and as a result spent their entire lives trying to maintain that not necessarily because they want to but that's how they were trained for 40 years of their life 40-50 years of their life they had this you know like blinders on that they only can function this way thinking that literally here's my 5 year old son if I play with him it's a sign of weakness and he's going to I'm not going to be a man I'm not going to be a father so these are things that are not prophetic in essence they're not in line you know tradition famous stories include a person who saw the Prophet ﷺ kissing Hassan and Hussain on the head and showing affection and he says I have 10 sons and I haven't kissed a single one of them and the Prophet ﷺ says it's not my problem Allah took mercy out of your heart what's that got to do with me this is a problem for you actually this is not a blemish on me it's a major blemish on you so going back these are all just to further this point that can a person show a sad expression in a marriage with their husband with their wife can you express yourself of course you can of course you can but many women feel like they can't many women feel like I can't cry in front of my husband because he's going to say oh not this again or if a man cries because he's experiencing something very difficult then he is going to be put down and shamed for having emotions or expressing emotion another quality is the quality of being romantic is this something which is permitted in a Muslim marriage can a Muslim in their marriage have romantic qualities certainly you can within guidelines of the shadiah of course you can can you buy flowers for your wife and go on long walks on the beach and draw your initials in the sand and go on a plane ride and do all sorts of stuff absolutely you can you can do all those things you can do all of these things there's no problem with that again for some reason there's like this idea that I can't be affectionate I can't sure someone had actually said to me this is all real stories which really just sometimes blow your mind I should write a book of just all these stories but there was a person who actually said to me he said you know I my wife started crying because of something that had happened that was deeply emotional for her she started crying so I got mad at her and and I yelled at her and I asked them why did you think to react like that like why did that kick in as the first you know your reaction to her being sad he said well well my logic is that if I console her and I'm there for her and I'm present for her then she's going to begin to like me and become more gentle towards me and that's going to make me soft so I don't want to be like that and I said okay pal you know I don't know what that I've never heard that one before you know I don't think the army even implement stuff like that that's a weird one but he was serious and he was like oh was that wrong I was like I think so yeah I think that was not the right reaction I said you could have probably reacted a little bit different I mean if you have this whole thing set up and see this is the problem like when we have like these culturally made stuff in our head or that's not even a culture that's like something he concocted like he just thought like that would be the right reaction and it's problematic because look how we ruin our marriages we ruin relationships right by just doing things we think is the right way to do them and we didn't consult anybody we didn't run this by anybody we didn't check in with anybody we just decided like let me do that you know it's you know there are certain things you have some flexibility to kind of like make mistakes in marriages and other things are just kind of silly you know there are things that you should probably see counsel for before you do them right other things include like having children like I want to have a child okay you want to have a child you discuss that with your husband with your wife you move forward with it other times people just have like this idea like I just want to have children that will keep her busy and that way I can go do my own things this is probably an inappropriate way to go about you know creating progeny right it's probably inappropriate way for the creation of life you know your children were meaningless to you actually they were a means of distraction for you actually imagine what that thought would be like for that child if they ever grew up to know that I mean how belittling you know and the last thing I'll mention is and affection and and just showing you know like I mentioned an example of this person who didn't show affection and console his wife can I console my wife can I be there for her right romantic on one hand the process and would always show signs of his love towards his wife when Khadija radi allah passed away the process and would visit her friends to show that that love is still there that she's not here but she's still here and when he would be with Aisha radi allah there were times where she expressed her jealousy because he would talk the process and would talk about Khadija and she would become jealous and say allah has given you someone better than Khadija this is the kind of things that she used to say and of course it was just because this is a you know an emotional response but in other instances right the process would show for example like direct love or direct affection for Aisha by doing things as simple as if she drank from a cup he would find where she put her mouth and he would drink from that same area if she ate a piece of meat he would look for where she took a bite and eat from that same area to show his affection they would have nicknames for one another right all of these are signs of what? these are signs of love these are signs of an expression of love you don't need to just sit there and say I love you you do acts of service you do certain things to show your valuing the other person your love for the other person and when it comes to affection emotionally to be emotionally present in the case of the person that I gave the example of clearly he was not by getting mad at his wife when she needed support emotional support but what are some examples the most common one or I suppose the most famous one that comes to my mind is an incident of one of the wives of the Prophet SAW Safiyah they were on a caravan and they were riding and all the camels were moving but her camel for whatever reason was slower and kept stopping and she was at the end and she was sitting in her how-dudge the little on top of the ride and so every time the caravan would go on her camel and her how-dudge they would stop slow down, stop, slow down and this made her sad and she would say that I'm slowing everybody down I'm becoming a burden upon everyone and I'm bothering everybody and it got her to the point of extreme disappointment for herself and her situation that the Prophet SAW had to literally stop the caravan and see what's happening why do we keep slowing down so this situation was very shocking to some of the Sahaba because the Prophet SAW came from the front of the caravan all the way to the end of the caravan he brought his wife out of the little room and he with his sleeve or I think it's with his shawl he wiped her tears away in front of everybody as they were watching now you have to understand in a society where that time expressing emotion if we thought it was bad now I mean you have to understand that women were not even a valued thing in society and for the Prophet SAW who is the leader of the believers he is the the leader of the Muslim army he is the captain he's everything he is stopping to tend to an emotional need of his wife in front of everybody else that's there and he stops and he wipes her tears away and he's present for her emotionally and then he puts his knee up for her to climb back on top of the little room on the camel so that she can be back on the be comfortable in her space so that the caravan can continue on and in front of everyone he showed his affection he showed his compassion to his wife he was present for her and everyone saw that and he did not mind and then just like that he resumed his position and continued the caravan and continued the journey so the takeaway from that is the takeaway from that is that there are expressions of joy expressions of sadness there are certain emotions that we can express we can be happy, we can be sad we can be romantic, we can be affectionate we can communicate we are completely normal and we should be looking to have them in our relationships if we don't like I mentioned maybe some of these examples were very difficult to to imagine yourself in due to whatever you know circumstances but the reason it's called the ideal Muslim marriage again is that we strive to get to that point and we work towards that and inshallah that becomes our end goal and I welcome everyone to inshallah stay for the duration of this program today we have an excellent line up for everyone and inshallah with that I'd like to actually call up our next speaker Baba Ali Peace be upon you Peace be upon you