 So, Jazakallahu Kharen Sheikh, for your talk in the first segment, in your talk you mentioned something very, very intriguing that to be honest didn't really make sense to me as well and I'm sure it didn't make sense to a lot of the people. You mentioned that there's three types of people, there's people that are married, there's people that are not married, and there's people that are married and not married at the same time. Could you please elaborate on this for us, insha'Allah? Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulillah wa ala aali wa sahabah ajma'in. I recall saying that right at the beginning, do you remember? I said there are people who are married, there are people who are not married, and there are people who are neither married nor not married, and I even said that there will be some from among you who understand that. So, for example, the Qur'an speaks about it and I said that Allah speaks about it. Allah says under certain circumstances when a person treats his wife in a way that he's married to her, but he's not divorcing her, he doesn't get along with her, he doesn't want to have anything to do with her, but he's just holding her for some reason. Either to punish her to say, you're not going to be divorced, I'm not going to divorce you, and you can just stay, and sometimes it's just because of ego, arrogance, whatever, just a delay. So Allah says, do not turn to such an extent where you leave her hanging. And hanging there would mean that she's neither married to be able to enjoy a beautiful marital relationship with someone, nor is she unmarried that she can go to marry someone else. So she's hanging in the middle in a way that is very, very dangerous and that would be very sinful to keep a person in that type of a, you know, situation. Also, sometimes you have, and this is something that probably some of you might be in right now and you might know about it, you have a situation where you're married to someone, but they, for example, for some reason live far away, and for some obstacle, whether it is made by you or something you can do nothing about, they cannot come and live with you. Neither do they want to release you nor sort the problem out by perhaps agreeing on something that is, you know, acceptable to both parties. So in both those cases, we would say the person is neither married nor not married. You have, you know, a scenario where someone has promised to marry you, for example, and you're sitting and waiting for them and they, they're just delaying. They say tomorrow, next year, the following next month, following month, you know, the proposal will come, we're going to come, and they keep you waiting. Now, in that case, you're not married, right? But it's quite similar in the sense that you're either being fooled or you are being foolish, one of the two. So you need to know that there is definitely this third category, people who are neither married, that they can enjoy a relationship nor are they unmarried, that they can marry someone else. Now, there's a lot of youth in the crowd. I'm sure there's a lot of young sisters, young brothers in the crowd. And I think from around the age of 16, 17, maybe even younger, a lot of the youth start looking forward to getting married. You're 12, 12. Okay. Maybe if you're 12. No, that's just a joke. Actually, I just wanted to see if people were actually listening and they were. But I think you're right. Like, you know, about from 12, they start developing interest and doing things and sometimes, you know, they start engaging in immoral behavior from even earlier than 12. I mean, I've come across cases and that's why we're talking about it. But marriage, I think a little bit later. And, you know, it depends on your environment and so on. Anyway, go on. Let's see. So I want to lay out a little scenario, inshallah. And this is a very realistic scenario. There's a sister, she's seen a brother at university or at college. Seeing? I mean, just with her eyes like that? Yes. I see you. She's seen him. He's a good-looking brother, masha'Allah. He's practicing. He praises Salah. And she would like to marry him. It can also go the opposite way where the brother has seen a practicing sister and he likes her. He likes the way she looks. From what he's seen, she is practicing. She observes the hijab, etc. He would like to marry her. In this society, Sheikh, what is the best way for people to actually go about approaching each other? Because, let's say, for example, we go by the traditional way. The strictly speaking... I just thought of something. You know, in the Arabic alphabet, there is a scene. Yes. A scene. So she's seen him. Yes. So immediately after the scene, what is there in the Arabic alphabet? Sheen. What's the difference between a sheen and a scene? Three dots. Yes. Right. So she needs to tick all those three, masha'Allah. And then she'll have a sheen. And the sheen is obviously a relationship where seeing, and then you add the age for honey, you become your honey, masha'Allah. Right? Basically, you're making it halal. It's also the age for halal, right? The first tick is you get your well-e-involved, your family members-involved, someone, like I said earlier in my speech, don't donate your heart or mind to someone because they're going to hurt you. Before you donate your heart and mind, ask yourself two things. Is this within the pleasure of Allah? And have I involved my folks? Your folks, it's a very broad term. The reason is maybe they may not have parents. Some might have whoever else it is, your folks. So you involve your folks from the initial stage. Someone important in your family who has a bit of authority would actually need to know that the scene would like to be converted to a sheen, you know? Sorry to say that, but you have to. There's no other way of it. Yes, what do you want to say? Sheikh, let's say the father is not on the scene. He's on the sad. Okay, you're getting a bit clever now, but that's fine. So may Allah bless you, my brother and all of us. I mean, say, I mean, and may Allah bless whoever's in that scenario as well because it's quite difficult. So you need to involve your brother, maybe. That's why I have done something quite realistic in my speech a little bit earlier by speaking about how important it is to have a relationship with your children as parents. That's why I stressed on it so much that if your child comes to you and tells you, you know, I've seen someone, you need to show an interest in this. And I'm not just saying it out of, you know, imposing. I've done it in my own life, where, you know, you have someone coming to say, look, I'd like you to find out more about this person. It's okay, we'll find out more about this person. And then SubhanAllah, things develop. They got further and so on until it had, you know, whatever Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala told us to do, we had to do. The reason is, we as parents, and I'm speaking as a parent, we tend to forget that the children are just an amana. They're not my belonging, no. Allah allows me to say my child, but he is in control of that particular child's entire life. He can take the child away, he can make the child a means of your hell on earth, so to speak. But we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to make it easy for us to communicate with our children when they say something. Listen carefully, interact, engage. And like I said earlier, don't begin to engage with your children when there is a problem alone. It should have started a long time back. We only try to involve and interfere in their lives when something happens that we don't agree with. And then we say, you should be doing this. I'm your mother, I'm your father. You were not my mother for all these years. You were not my father for all these years in the sense that you didn't fulfill what Allah told you to fulfill and you're trying to come and involve right now by issuing an instruction. And I want to add, those who have a beautiful relationship with their children that is, you know, hands-on, their children will always make them happy by the will of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the sense that there will be beautiful communication, give and take, and you would not hold on to an opinion just because of your ego. But rather you would ask yourself, you know, what is this? Does Allah allow it? Is it okay? You know, am I just being a racist? Am I being someone who's just, you know, denying the reality and so on? So you have to involve a person of your family. Unfortunately, and having been trying to help people for so many years, I've seen that where you do not involve your family, you're actually heading towards disaster, some form of a problem, a challenge. Not everyone is strong to go through things on their own. Not every time is it permissible to actually do that. But, you know, you have to involve your folks. And thereafter, they will have to show a keen interest and bring the guy home. That's something that I always put forward as a challenge. Bring him home. Let's meet him. If he is serious, he will come. If he's not, you know what? He's not going to come. He's going to say, tomorrow, the next day, next month, no, he's not going to come. If he's serious, and then they say, no, I'm 15. And you know what? The guy I want to marry is 16. And you know, we're going to come at Haram. We need to do our nikah now. Sheikh, help us. And I'm like, hey, hey, relax. Hold back, man. You have to have a bit of self-control here. You can't just say, I'm about to go for this as Haram. So, Sheikh, Sheikh, help us. You know, the Sheikh begins to shake at that point, man. It's not easy to help because what do you want me to do? You have your desires that you're not able to actually control in the sense that, you know, you don't have restraint, which is part of your iman, supposed to be. And you're just coming to say, and a lot of the times, you know, parents are not always wrong when they tell you, listen, this is not going to work. A lot of the times they are right. And unfortunately, I said it earlier, we learn through mistakes. A lot of the times when a parent, especially one who's been really good to you, they've worked their life to let you go to school, they've paid your fees with almost all their salary, or whatever else it was, they looked after you, they tried their best, they provided for you, they kept you in a beautiful way. So, involve them in this decision of marriage. When they tell you, look, daughter or son, I really don't think this is the right thing. I think you're making a big mistake. You need to consider what they're saying. Speak to them. They might have a very, very good point and you will have to let go. You know, I always tell people, how many women are there on earth or men? Let's say the population of the globe is what? Six, seven billion? Let's say half, half. For example, you know, not to be, you know, different. Let's just say three billion men, three billion women. From three billion. You can't see anything besides one. That's it, one, one, that's it. And you're just looking. And you're not, there's no marriage. Yes, once you're married, I'm sure it's your spouse, Alhamdulillah, you know. But you're not married and you're just closed to the degree that you can't even, you cannot even see the weaknesses. Sometimes when we desperately want something, we are blinded to the weaknesses of that particular thing. We can't see it. So I want this desperately, but because my parents are not so happy, I begin to fight my parents. And in the process, I've actually blinded myself from all the weaknesses of this person that are glaring me in the face to the degree that one day if it does happen, then it has in some people's case. And then they say, oh no, they regret. And before you know it, it's all broken. So I want to give a piece of advice to the parents whose children may have gone through something they were not too happy with. And then they come back, either divorced or with a broken relationship, open your arms, accept your child back. Because you know what? Forgive them. They made a mistake. It's a hard way, but they're still your child. Allah brought them back. It's your responsibility. It definitely is. A lot of people, their ego prevents them from forgiving their own children. And so therefore I know of a lot of cases where a person goes away, perhaps they might have had a shari'i reason and the folks might not have had a shari'i reason to block it. So they decided to shift the wali to someone else who was an Imam of a Masjid or someone, you know, whoever else would do that. And they got the nikah done and they began to live. And then what happens is, and this is not one case and I'm not speaking of a specific case, wallahi thousands, thousands. You have the parents who then say, that's it, cut the relation completely. We don't want to know this person. Hang on, hang on, hang on. They may have children. Those are your grandchildren. They may have a very good relationship. They may be so happy, happier than they would be had they married the person you had. It has happened. A lot of people look, you know, a lot of people in their families very, you know, out of concern. They have an idea. You know, my daughter's growing up and, you know, my brother has a son or that uncle, he's got a grandson. This person's got a cousin. I saw that guy, you know, and you've paired it up in your head. And so when your child comes up with something, it's no way. Why? Because I've got a dream. Sometimes we unfortunately even communicate that dream to the parent of that person way before our child even knew what marriage was all about. Wallahi, this is realistic. And so we find it so difficult to pull the plug because we feel embarrassed for that reason we chop off our own child, gone. What I want to encourage myself and yourselves, where your children have made a mistake, learn to embrace them, forgive them, they will probably come back. You might have a day when you can quickly say, I think I told you, and don't harp on that. You know, you have, for example, a daughter or a son, they married someone you really warned them about and they still married them. And then when they come back every day, you tell them, I told you, didn't I tell you? Now suffer. I told you, didn't I tell you? Now suffer. That is absolute nonsense. The reason is your job as a parent is not to keep on making your child feel bad about a mistake they made. It's over, it's done. You told me once, now come on, let's move on. So my brother, as you can see, it's very, very difficult scenario, but I really pray. Number one, that we're rightly guided. Number two, that we can take our parents seriously. Number three, that the parents can take their children seriously. And number four, when a scenario of this nature does come up, let's be realistic. Ask for guidance. We're living in an environment where we cannot deny that the ways of getting to know a person who you would be wanting to marry have changed within the Islamic framework, but it's not exactly the old way, you know, the conventional way. It's now changed. People meet each other and they speak and they talk and they, like I said earlier, if you don't communicate, you're not going to be able to get what you want. May Allah make it easy. JazakAllah. Khirin Sheikh. There's another question to do with infatuation. So let's say there's a young man or a young woman and she's seen this one man and that's it. That's the guy for me. He has won my heart and they are stuck on this one person. They don't want to let go. And as you said, you know, they can't let go of, they're looking over the person's bad habits. They're just looking over it because they're so infatuated and kind of, they feel like they've fallen in love with this person. What advice could you give to someone in that situation? A young person in that situation? Not everyone you're impressed with initially is actually the ideal spouse. They might be good at the uni, university or wherever else. They might be good at the workplace, but if you were to visit their home and see how they lived and meet their folks and their broader family, you would definitely wash your hands off the ideas that you might be developing in your mind. I'm not saying they're not a good person, but the environment is such, you know, I have within my own home sometimes comments fly that, you know, had this person known how you live, perhaps how difficult it is to live with you, they would have never shown an interest in you. You know, you have comments flying around in the extended home and so it is quite true that someone, sometimes we meet them at a common place where everything in that particular place is connected to a certain topic that is of concern to both of us. So for us, it seems so good, masha'Allah. Wait, you haven't seen the real them. You know, when they're not made up, number one, when they're just get up early in the morning, when, how they, how, for example, how disinterested they might be in cleaning up after themselves and so many factors. So I think from the initial stage, I've said it, I'm repeating it, don't donate. I'm using the word donate because people give donations, you know. Don't donate your heart or your mind to someone until you really, really have answered a few questions. And one of them would be, it needs to be kept within the framework of Allah. Subhanahu wa ta'ala's pleasure. And then involve your folks and then at the third level you would want to actually take it a step further. And I want to raise one very interesting point that's come to mind if you don't mind. There is shaitan. Shaitan beautifies things that are haram. You need to know this. And what does he use? He uses halal bait. You know when you go fishing? In Africa we fish a lot, masha'Allah. We actually go, I'm talking of real fish, come on guys. So what we do is we get the best bait, right? And we have a rod and we cast. It's in masha'Allah. And you have fish, what do they do? They see, they see a worm, they see the bait, they are confused, they bite. What was our intention to catch? Shaitan uses the same plot with us. So it looks like food, it looks like something good. Once you bite, you're caught. And then they bring you in, they rope you in slowly but surely. And you come up and suddenly that's the fish. As you get out of the water, what happens? You die. Subhanallah. So this is what happens to us. So it starts in a haram where you see, for example, a brother, a sister. Masha'Allah, good, really good. Hijab, excellent, alhamdulillah. Salah, beautiful, masha'Allah, you know. Everything's in order. Wow, soft spoken, very helpful, masha'Allah. Up to that point, alhamdulillah, good. Subhanallah. You know, whenever I say masha'Allah, there's a WhatsApp clip someone sent to me of a guy who keeps saying, Masha'Allah brother, have you seen that WhatsApp clip? I think some of you have, right? Keeps coming to my head and I think, Masha'Allah brother, subhanallah. Sorry for just adding that. I thought it would be a bit of a flavor for those of you who might know it. Definitely. I know what you're talking about. So you can see the guy as well. I hope he's not sitting in the crowd. Okay. Okay. So the point I'm raising is you say, Masha'Allah, you're excited and so on. And then, you know, you exchange numbers or somehow you get into contact with the person and guess what shaitan does? Shaitan makes this guy get you up for salat al-fajr. So he messages you early in the morning, five o'clock, peep peep. Get up for fajr. Wow. Come on. I've known of a case where they turn on the live videos to prove that I'm reading salat al-fajr. Wow. Subhanallah. And you feel so good, Masha'Allah. You did the salat for the sake of Allah. I'm not saying no, but the guy woke you up number one, number two is after a time he starts telling you, you know what? You need to give up your bad habits and you need and you tell him and each one of you you've helped yourself improve perhaps from a religious perspective that was in a way a good thing. But the fact that it happened such that you're now donating your heart before you've involved your folks. Subhanallah. And your argument is, but this person brings me closer to Allah and then you bite and what happens? Your life is gone. Subhanallah. You've drawn in, you pulled in and you've taken out of the water. Perhaps you might start zina and you don't even know. And then you will tell yourself but Allah is ghafoor al-raheem. Didn't you hear the lecture we heard the other day? I'm not going to do it again, insha'Allah. And the following day, okay, let's get up for tahajjud now. We do tauba, Subhanallah. Now, if you notice on one hand it's a good thing to be reminded about doing a good thing and you feel like you've improved as a Muslim. But because you gave your heart away that was shaitan's plan. So that's why Allah tells us involve a third party and make sure that the person doesn't abuse or use intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes it's unintentional. I do know you have a genuine relationship. You rarely believe someone's good. They've helped you with your project. They might have helped you at school with being realistic here. And you start developing feelings. You need to watch out. At that stage you're still in control. People say, but I'm not in control of my feelings. Initially you are. Let's not lie. Initially you are. But it's how you allow it to go further that would actually make you enslaved by those feelings. So we need to know that. It was just an example I gave that sometimes shaitan does use a trap. Be careful of these traps. Like I say, while it's good to encourage one another to become better Muslimin. But don't ever let that make you come out of the water itself. And then you know you've committed something that's major. May Allah forgive one and all. Amen. So Mufti, sometimes a situation happens where we've actually spoken about it. Let's say they make a mistake. They go into the marriage. It goes wrong. They split from each other. They are now divorced. The brother can very, very easily get married again. You know he can move on. And in a lot of cases, unfortunately the sister is left in a situation where she's finding it difficult to get remarried. How can we advise the sisters in this situation and especially our parents in the community to actually accept these people? I think it's not a question of advising the sisters more than it is advising the brothers and the families of those brothers. The reason is my brothers and sisters this is a very emotional issue. It's very close to the heart of a lot of us. Because you know the divorce rates are high. Not because people are bad but because shaitan is bad. So what shaitan makes us do is when we're getting married he makes us ignore the guidelines that we were taught and therefore we end up marrying the wrong person. When you find out it's the wrong person you try to resolve the matter. I have to say that because it's the first step. You have to try to resolve the problem and solve it and make sure that you know you actually come to terms with the fact that I need to correct myself give each other a little bit of time. It brings me also to another point that sometimes what we do is the minute we have one misunderstanding we say right that's it I want out of this marriage. Not realizing that we're going to have a misunderstanding with everyone with our own brothers and sisters and parents with those whom we love with everyone we have a few misunderstandings you don't break a relationship simply because you've had two or three misunderstandings or one but that's what people are doing. However if it is a major matter you can see that both of you are heading in different directions there are steps to follow after that we're very respectfully you part ways. When you engage in or when you officiate your nikah or your marriage you've entered into territory that will give you greater access to acts of worship that will result in your entry in Jannah that's why some people say you're half your deen, right? You know why? Now I've got in-laws bro to get along with your in-laws is a mission it's a mission for me to be able to pull that through I deserve Jannah guys come on, come on man half my iman whatever I've done in the past Salah, Zaka whatever else I mean that was easy by the way it wasn't as bad now getting along there bro you know you got to say masha'Allah you know you got to try your best so it's an act of worship why is it called half the deen by some because it's not a joke it's difficult it's hard you got new relatives you got a whole line of them before when you traveled you just had to buy a gift for one or two people now there's a line of people if you miss one out they say I knew she was bad you know so it's really difficult and you know as you have all the relatives and you have to try and make amends and you know you have to work your days of Eid out because as you grew up you had Eid with your folks all the time now that you're married what's going to happen where do we do the Eid it's a question that's resulted in divorce I've had the cases well you have to hello that's where you do the Eid you see masha'Allah they don't even want us to tell you subhanAllah you have to actually learn to come to an understanding and an agreement either this Eid will first go to my folks and in the afternoon especially when you're living in one city or nearby we'll go to my folks and in the afternoon we'll go to your folks and next Eid we will first go to your folks and then we'll come to mine why don't you share it out the problem is no we've had Eid for 30 years before I married that my family I'm never compromising that in that case on the day of Eid mother goes her way father goes his way or husband goes his way wife goes her way is that it come on your adults your adults and there are two families you need to look after yours and hers it doesn't mean she's a wife so that's it she has to do as I say no you need to have a good understanding it's a day of Eid make each other happy what is a day of Eid all about to spend the day of joy and happiness in the obedience of Allah with your family what else do you want that's what Eid is actually there for it's a day of happiness joy primarily pleasing Allah you will do an extra Ibadah or two like the Salah the Khutbah etc and then you you are with your family and she is also part of your family and her family is also part of your family whether you like it or not so you have to actually build these relations now why am I saying this because we're getting to divorce when you do the nikah and the marriage there is a door of worship acts of worship that are open that were not open before when you have your children to allow them to visit your in-laws is a great act of worship because sometimes you might not get along with them completely but you have to they have a right they are the grandparents or the uncles and aunts from the other side you know you might want to minimize if it is very bad influence but generally if they are slightly different you have to put a lid on your ego and you have to understand they are the grandchildren of these people as well it's an act of worship half your dean you see now when you end up divorcing someone there are doors that open up for Ibadah and worship that were never open before such as speaking good about your ex Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar that's a big one you have to go out of your way to engage in an Ibadah known as saying good about someone behind their backs someone asks you what happened the correct answer is look Masha'Allah good person I hope I was a good person as well we didn't get along you know it's a respectful answer it might not be exactly as I said but respectful and if someone is keen on getting married to your ex and they want to know the details if they were serious issues that need to be mentioned privately to a person because we're not allowed to lie when someone is about to enter into marriage with someone else you need to know are they asking you genuinely because they would like to know because half of them they just asked you but they've already made their minds up you know if that's the case say look you know what didn't get along with me perhaps get along with you Wallahi it happened at the time of the Sahaba Allahu Anhu many times when some of them would say to the others why don't you marry such and such a woman she was married to me didn't get along with me but I'm sure she was a very good person she'll get along with you Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar and then we claim to be good Muslims we think it's all about I'm here and it's just Salah after Salah I don't care how I speak to someone how I've seen people who are outwardly extremely pious extremely and I think to myself sometimes that you know what all that reward is going to someone else because you're busy backbiting you're busy you know I received a message a few moments ago from a friend of mine in Nigeria and I'm going to say this because perhaps they can benefit and the idea of the message was perhaps good in the sense that they wanted to say look as Muslims in our weddings we should try and have a bit of modesty and you know we should behave in a more respectful way etc up to that point I agree I would say that right now that as Muslims we should be right we all would agree try and have your you know the day you sowing the seed of your entire future why do you want to make it the displeasure of Allah that is a powerful way of looking at it I'm about to sow the seed for the rest of my life the taqdeer and the predestiny everything is coming into effect today I'm going to be having children inshaAllah the future is going to be coming inshaAllah Allah knows about it and on this day is the same day that everything I've done is within the displeasure of Allah that embarrassment of the thought should be enough for me to be able to hold back and say hang on I can do anything but not today did you get my point I might be weak I'll do anything not today by right we're not supposed to be doing anything anyway any day it's always supposed to be within the pleasure of Allah but I'm talking of if you have a weakness try and cut it on that day the problem with weddings is even those who don't generally have weaknesses they tend to think this is the you know when you're on diet what do you call the one day cheat day right they tend to think okay this is the cheat day you can do as you want that's wrong so we sowed the wrong seed so I received the message it was okay but then they had a photograph of people one example and another example an example of someone who wasn't a Muslim and there was a picture of perhaps a wedding scene and another example of people who were Muslim and there was a picture of a wedding scene and they were trying to show you look how bad the Muslims have become and look at how and yet these are known people in society for me that is such a big back biting issue that all your reward has gone to those people they probably will come out of whatever they were doing more clean than anyone of us who've been forwarding those messages about them trying to give an example yet the fact that we mentioned names and had pictures is what rendered it a crime in the eyes of Allah it became back biting belittling someone for what probably the people who are forwarding messages might have in their private lives greater sins than that so if you want to correct someone go back to go back to the hadith of the prophet where he generalized it he said look my brothers my sisters there are people perhaps we need to do this we need to make sure that we have a link with Allah we need to make sure that we don't do the wrong thing etc so when a person is divorced one of the greatest acts of worship is to watch the mouth to hold yourself back from saying that which is evil don't be evil secondly if you have children one of the biggest acts of worship from you that will get you insha Allah into Jannah is if you can put a lid on your ego and allow access to the father or mother of the child depending on who has that custody it's not a joke not many people even religious who read ten salah a day when it comes to a matter of this nature they say no I know what I'm doing what happened to all your salah when I say ten by the way we're talking of the farad as well as the sunnah and the nafil and everything else but this is the thing Allah is testing you with there was a divorce that happened how dare you decide that that's it the children are mine and not yours Allah gave them to you as a test come on you have to change you have to put a lid on your ego the world is struggling and suffering you cannot allow that to happen to you you might be diagnosed with the biggest disease tomorrow morning or tonight and then what are you going to do may Allah grant cure to all of us who are struggling in one way or another with our health say I'm in so that's another point regarding your children and thereafter remember the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam married a few times all of his spouses besides one were previously married how's that you ever thought of that I think a lot of people forget all of the spouses besides one aisha radiallahu anha she was the only one who was never married before the rest of them either divorced or wedded where are the men from amongst us and more than the men here comes the father and the mother of this guy he is interested he wants to marry someone and they're okay they even meet her and after that they say wow what a lovely choice you've made and so on and thereafter they find out she was previously married they say no no no you know what this is not going to happen because it's a disgrace how are we going to face our cousins how are we going to face my brother and so on Wallahi when their children did things they did it without consulting you not even bothered about you why are you bothered about someone else do what is right are you not enough a leader within your home to be able to lead the way for your own house all of you are shepherds and each one of you is responsible for his flock I don't have to worry about what the world is going to think and we say no why but she's a divorcee go back to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam look at his marriage starting with Khadija bint khawailid radiallahu anha and look at the others and look at the Sahaba radiallahu anham where are we it will happen in your own home sometime later it may because the tables turn and then what? too late we've already destroyed people's lives we've blocked and stopped so I call on parents with a passion be careful to be judgmental sometimes a person who's divorced may be a million times better than an idea you have in your mind for your child Wallahi by the way on a CV when you have experience I think you're given preference may Allah SWT bless us that's a good one JazakAllah Khairan Sheikh so just to conclude I'd like to ask you one last question we've spoken a lot this evening about marriage we've spoken about for example let's say you see a brother or a sister they're practicing masha'Allah but at the same time we've also said don't just take everything at face value what advice Mufty could you give to all of the youth out here that I hear that I've taken the time out to come and listen to us may Allah bless them what advice could you give them that these are the pointers if you see these specific things she's the one if you see these specific things he's not the one okay those pointers were given by Rasulullah SWT way back and the thing is it's difficult to just tell the brothers and sisters that you know what he's the one or she's the one because sometimes the eyes through which we're looking are actually deceived by the surroundings what that means is I can look and I can say wow why because what have I seen I might have seen a proper dress code I might have seen oh wow this person's read their salah I might have heard them speak softly to me or to anyone else you know but I don't know if that is actually the person because you never know who a person is unless you've lived with them traveled with them done business with them and interacted with them in a big way right it might be we will never be able to say that's the right one sometimes you get a feeling and maybe it can come true later on it has happened to people where you know you you've just met someone and in your heart there's a feeling that you get but you need to make a lot of duaa number one number two is before you actually say that is the one get your folks involved let someone find out a little bit more because for me to show you for the moment that you're seeing me every day the best part of me is not so difficult if I interact with the people at my workplace for five hours every day I can show them the best side of me go and ask my wife she'll say ha ha ha ha you don't even want to begin to know this guy from who he really is okay sorry that's not me I'm just talking about an example guys but it's a fact that sometimes you don't know you really don't so it's not easy like I said to just say that's the one but get people involved find out before you donate your heart notice it's the fifth time I'm saying this tonight before you give your heart away to someone find out a bit more be realistic don't just look at someone and say wow you know wow because the wow subhanallah it's actually very dangerous subhanallah you can drop straight through we are taught that look a person marries for a few reasons some people marry for looks they see you and say wow and the next thing the rest of the letters of the alphabet are in order you know it's all done MashaAllah what did it start with I just looked at her she was so gorgeous subhanallah some people marry for looks so what happens as the looks diminish and they do diminish as you age MashaAllah for a person who has looked beyond your physical you know your body they will be able to see the beauty increase as time passes as you age they find you more beautiful they find you such a lovely person their bond with you is filled with rahmah and muwadda and sakina it's filled with that mercy the love you know you look at how this person sacrifices for me and I sacrifice for them we've had children we've been through ups and downs we've gone through it and we love each other we actually love myself from sin because I appreciate my spouse and I don't want shaitan to come between us so the love increases but if it's just merely outward looks you might be in for a high jump you know you might be really getting into something very very dangerous so some people marry just for wealth and I've seen this growing I saw once a video someone sent to me trying to prove a point of some materialistic people it's not everyone but it's just an example they were doing you know one of those surveys or maybe not a prank but they were just trying to figure out something like a social experiment social experiment exactly so what they did is they had a guy asking a woman who was dressed in a very different way let me not use a bad word okay and he tried to like draw her attention and to make her come towards him and she just flicked at him you know like I'm not even interested and he just walked a few steps he flicked the remote and here's his little Lamborghini tweet tweet and the woman turns around and she smiles at him what happened marrying my Lamborghini chick may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala protect us if that's what drew you to someone just the Lamborghini he had the car and the wealth he had make sure that there is something beyond that that has drawn you to that particular person because I've given you an example of looks of wealth some people just because of lineage ooh I'm marrying the daughter of X you know who that is that's a big person you know he's the chef of that particular company etc etc so you marry them you don't know you're probably just going to be enslaved into there and you have to look and say yes ma'am yes ma'am to your own spouse Subhanallah well we do that anyway don't we but it's good for us it's done out of love I really wouldn't mind I really wouldn't mind if my wife were to phone me now and tell me move to the left I'd move to the left even if there's no place out of love that's it so what if that makes her happy it makes her happy you know people might say this guy is a chicken I don't mind being called a chicken I'll even quack quack for you a little bit so long as she's happy ma'am yeah if that's what makes your marriage let it be I'm telling you and I know that you might be surprised it's a reality Subhanallah it's a reality however let's get to the real real beans the Hadid says fad fard bidaatid dini taribat yadak if you want true victory and success success will come if you've chosen the dean if you've chosen the character the conduct the dean that which Allah's asked you to look at so that doesn't mean that you just pick someone whom you say look the dean is really good but you see I really cannot get along with this person because I don't know there has to be a bit of chemistry Allah's made everyone handsome and pretty there's no one who's ugly and not good looking but it's in the eyes of the beholder I might like a person of a certain you know size, shape it's okay it's fine it's my liking Allah's put it in my heart but someone else might like something totally different I mean sometimes you find the young people saying ooh she's hot and you try to think what you know it just goes to show so the Hadid says if you want success you can look at the family if you want you can look at the wealth if you want but that's not the deciding factor you have to look at looks as well you have to look there has to be a bit of chemistry I mean I can't tell you listen marrying you but you know what you're going to have to put on a niqab in the bed as well the guy by the way isn't that biology sheikh sorry biology subhan Allah subhan Allah may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guide us imagine one of the guys and the wife tells you listen don't like what you look like you got to cover your face I mean may Allah forgive us might be a silly example but I'm drawing it in order to show you that there has to be chemistry and then inshallah you know you get the people to confirm it your family inshallah involved and so on as time passes and you're making an istikhara brother we'll spend two minutes on this I've just thought of something very important as time passes and you're making an istikhara one of two things is going to happen either things are going to become easy or things are going to become difficult if things become easy that's the response of your istikhara positively if things are going to difficult it's the response of your istikhara negatively remember when you make a dua of istikhara we all have a misunderstanding that you're going to dream something 99% of the time you don't dream anything remember that so it's not like you know revelation is going to come through your dream and you see that that's it no you did not read the meaning of the dua that's why you don't even know what you asked Allah for the dua says oh Allah if this is good for me make it easy for me give me barakah in it and let it happen for me so you get up in the morning and everything is not happening why because the other part of the dua that you made in the dua of istikhara is oh Allah if it's not good for me create a barrier between me and it take it away from me make it difficult and make me happy with what you've decreed so everything becomes very very difficult that's the response of your istikhara it's in the dua so go back and read the dua and you'll understand people say you know it's becoming so difficult but I've dreamt a lot of the people have already slept with each other before they're doing istikhara do you not think your istikhara is going to be tainted with whatever has happened I mean you're crazy watching her talking to her or him every single day thinking that that's not going to have an impact about your dreams and everything your thoughts and what not you need to know what's the meaning of istikhara and if you've already made your mind up don't waste your time making an istikhara because then you're not going to follow it and another very important point is istikhara you know for those of you who might not know what it is it's to seek the guidance of Allah regarding a matter that you are confused about so if you're not confused about it it's inapplicable you don't have to do it I'm not confused things are one plus one is two I don't need to do an istikhara for that because it is two you see but where I'm confused you're saying oh Allah I don't know you know please guide me have you not donated your heart if you have I don't see how it's applicable you see if you haven't becomes applicable then you if it's a no you're going to back off the problem is a lot of us we put the the cart before the donkey and what do we do we try and do an istikhara when everything is already over it's all decided and done so my brothers and sisters I go back quickly to recap the question that was asked about when do you know that it's right there comes a stage during the whole process when you know it's right and sometimes people get engaged it's not wise to prolong an engagement actually if you prolong an engagement what you're asking for is shaitan to come in because they say you can marry four years from now I'm going to marry and it's going to be four years imagine all those four years what's going to happen do you think the young men and women today the majority of them have the capacity to stay away completely let's be realistic minimum is they'll be sharing images and having video talks and sometimes you know the guy will loosen the button it's a reality and the next thing she'll say oh I like your chest and then you take off his jersey and it happens why because shaitan the people who have decided to delay that nikah when they knew we're happy this side is happy that side's happy but no four years later you have to get your job and I've interviewed parents whom themselves have not had jobs when they were married it's ironic our own parents when they married they didn't own a home they didn't really have a solid income they probably never had proper jobs but mashallah they married they had us we're okay when we want to marry they say no the guy needs a job I mean where's the why is it so much hypocrisy so we need to know if an engagement has happened and you begin to have negative thoughts break it did you hear what I just said break it cancel it it's easier to break it at that stage and to have children innocent ones who are going to be caught in the turmoil so my beloved parents if your children want to call off the engagement support them talk to them initially you might want to know why you might want to guide them yes but if they want to call it off don't say I spent so much money because you're going to spend even more money and then it's going to break when it's going to make you cry tears of blood so rather do it now may Allah SWT to guide us and help us it's a very tough topic but I have not minced my words JazakAllah JazakAllah JazakAllah I think if we were to put it in one sentence it would be don't donate your heart without knowing what you're donating to 100% JazakAllah that's the message I've been driving home today starting off the Q&A inshallah Mufti I'd like to ask a question I've gotten which is there's a brother he married this sister and while them being married the sister has been living alone for some time two years and now what's happened is the brother doesn't really want to do anything with that relationship he doesn't want to divorce her he doesn't want to he's just leaving her there so she's kind of in a situation where she's in limbo she feels as if she's married to the guy but at the same time it's not a proper marriage what can you advise in a situation like this Bismillah I think what's important for us to know is that women they actually do have rights that they don't know of sometimes so if for example the brother is not fulfilling the rights of the sister like he's not living with her and a long time has passed or he is not providing for her and a long time has passed she can actually apply if she wishes and if she has not been able to resolve the matter she can apply to nullify that particular marriage in something known as something known as a fash right so that nullification will have to be done by the ulama perhaps in the area that she lives in like here you have the council I think it's called the sharia council what's it called the sharia council Islamic sharia council they can actually nullify the nikah so even if the brother does not cooperate with them after a period of time they will issue a nullification that nullification is worth one irrevocable talaq which means that she will be divorced from him in a way that if he wants to get back to her they would have to have a new nikah done with her approval so there is a way out when the rights of a woman are not being fulfilled she has if she cannot solve the problem and he is being arrogant or he does not want to issue the talaq she can apply for that and she will be awarded it especially if your council in your locality knows exactly what they are doing and as time is passing and we are becoming more and more advanced the councils are also becoming a little bit more advanced and they are doing processing time is becoming less and it's sharia life is more effective jazak allaw fair and sheikh brothers and sisters the start of the Q&A inshallah will give the first mic to the brava here at the front brava what is your name and what is your question for the sheikh inshallah yes haqi my question you've mentioned about the relationship between a parent and child what is the role of a sibling how can they what should they be doing the role of a sibling I think the siblings it's a very important question the siblings need to support they need to support what is right in terms of what Allah SWT has ordained so if for example you have your brother your sister wants to do something your parents are not permitting it to happen for example and you know that your parents are wrong you should very respectfully guide your parents so with us we are taught that our parents are owed respect to the degree that we are not allowed to disrespect them but that doesn't mean we have to agree with everything that they are doing so if they are wrong you can respectfully highlight to them that they are wrong another very interesting issue about a sibling we have a culture I think we can hear some of the sisters speaking into the mic at the back there we have a culture that the eldest must marry first that's a culture that is unislamic it has nothing to do with Islam it's just a culture it makes life difficult for those who are younger who want to marry before the older person so your siblings you need to make sure that you teach your parents if they do not know or you encourage them if they are just worried about what people will think that you know what if my brother or sister who is younger than me would like to get married and I am not yet married then you can actually have their marriage prior to ours and the culture that actually makes it prohibited would have to be sidelined although obviously by nature it is better to have the older marrying first but it's not a condition and it's not necessary if I can pause for a moment we can actually hear the sisters speaking into the mic the sister who has the microphone at the back can you hold it away from you because it is distracting us inshallah okay also if I could ask all of the brothers and the sisters to settle down inshallah as we have started this segment and he is from the correct adab to settle down and to listen inshallah when everything is taking place to continue I think we will take a question from the sisters now because we took one from the brothers sister if you can say your name and your question inshallah my name is Iman and I have a question about your Iman so my question is what does one do when the Iman decreases so much that when they are praying like you feel empty like the connection isn't as it was before with Allah how do you go about rectifying that and getting it back okay sister the question is not related to our topic but still I will take it because one might argue that it is in the sense that if your Iman is weak perhaps you know you might create issues for yourself in your relationships etc I think it has approach from various angles based on your own surroundings and what has caused that generally if you declutter your mind if you try your best to remove from your mind and heart that which is unnecessary and that which is holding you down it will help you develop your relationship with Allah when that happens you develop your relationship with people around you who are strong in their Iman or at least they will encourage you in that direction when the circle of your friends is not bothered about the deen or Allah or what's right and wrong or their duties unto Allah generally it will become easier for you to turn away from Allah or to become distant from Allah if those around you all give it the importance they enthusiastic about it you know they support you encourage you they have good words then it would actually help you also to fulfill what you have to with enthusiasm and Iman similarly when you have a reminder every now and again from someone or you know a source that would actually be of motivation to you the motivation actually helps at the time of the Sahaba they used to actually go and say let's increase our Iman for an hour you know by listening to the Prophet or the Sahaba or by learning something and increasing that particular motivation that they had once you're motivated you need to act upon it almost instantly because like today we heard something if we don't act upon the good of it it's going to diminish over a period of time they say within 48 hours if you haven't acted upon something motivational perhaps it's going to die down without you anything about it in any way so it's important for us to listen to that which motivates us also to increase your remembrance of Allah because the remembrance of Allah definitely will impact upon you there is one problem we have when we don't speak the Arabic language we tend to pay lip service to a vikr without thinking of what it means so we say Alhamdulillah without actually considering that it actually means all praise is due to Allah praise be to Allah so if you were to remember Allah in a way that the words you are uttering the meaning of them are close to your heart in that way you would be able to inshallah help yourself with your relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala similarly I have found that seeking the forgiveness of Allah actually draws you closer to Allah and being convinced that Allah has forgiven you that is a very powerful powerful point if you are convinced within yourself that I've done wrong but Allah has forgiven me because I sought forgiveness of Allah genuinely it makes you feel like you're a clean person it makes you feel like you know you have hope and so on so this would motivate you to do more for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala what I've mentioned these are just some tips regarding developing yourself your e-man your relationship with Allah but the topic is very very vast JazakAllah wa khairan sheikh we'll answer this question because some of the sisters they may be shy to come up and actually ask the question in the mic so we have a written question here sheikh I must warn you this is a question that will probably be very very beloved to the hearts of many of the sisters the question is what is the guidance on adding a clause in the nikah contract i.e. my husband cannot marry another woman whilst he is married to me I think it's a sign of insecurity to be honest with you you know we should be so confident with ourselves and our e-man and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and our relationships that as much as some might argue there are two opinions you know some of the scholars say it's allowed because it's up to you and some of them say well it's not allowed because it goes against the very grain of the reason of getting married so that fiqh he jurisprudence argument it's in its place I don't want to side with any one of them but I would believe that you know I found people then doing things behind the backs of their wives I'm one who doesn't promote or demote something of this nature meaning if a person marries again or not it totally depends on them their situation, their surroundings, their environment whether it's feasible or not I've seen really really beautiful homes shredded to pieces and totally destroyed because of another marriage and I've seen others where it has brought so much of goodness and support and love that it's unbelievable you know so I'm no one to promote or demote I don't know your particular situation you might just be diving into something that's going to mess the rest of your life so you need to actually think very deeply you need to have built the whole situation you cannot just come home one day and say that's it, it's happening you know so putting a clause is a little bit tricky I cannot really encourage that because if that's the case you know we might have another 20 clauses to put sometimes and you know people will start adding all sorts of clauses but like I said from a jurisprudence perspective there is difference of opinion whether it is a valid clause or not a valid clause so if the guy really wants to do it he's going to tell you listen according to such and such a scholar it's not even a valid clause so there you go I think like I said it's a sign of insecurity I mean you might disagree with me because you know it's just my opinion it may be a sign that you know if I were to to put a clause to say you cannot do that you know I think it would say a lot about me I'm so insecure that I really feel that I'm not you know this might happen and so on but look at the end of the day you know your situation people might want to add it for whatever reason if the guys agreed he comes to us then asking us another ruling to say am I allowed to break the clause what would happen and like I say there is a sickness that I can talk about totally away from this society sometimes is more forgiving when it comes to something haram than when it comes to halal and that's actually a trap of the devil so when it comes to something haram people are quick to say well it's okay it's fine you know he did this and it's okay it's okay with you but was it okay with Allah and then sometimes when something is okay with Allah not okay with society no way it's not happening and I think we need to deal with our own iman I think we need to deal with our own situation connection with Allah the problem we're facing and I can tell you a reality a lot of guys out there they haven't lived a proper life with their own spouses they haven't shown that they're loving and kind and supportive and so on and yet they're busy you know trying to look into other avenues of increasing the number of wives they have when they haven't even proven themselves as a person or as a good husband in the case that is there some people use that as an excuse to say well you know what how are you going to do justice to them when you haven't even done justice to one sometimes it's just a statement they say in order to get out of it but what we definitely should know is and I'm going back to what I started with I cannot give you a ruling to say guys do it or don't do it it all depends on a such it's not something farad remember that it all depends on your situation your you know environment your family your surroundings everything around you that might make it the biggest mistake in your life or it might be the best thing you've ever done so that's what it is may Allah guide us in a way that people don't need to make conditions when marrying but rather in a way that people trust us so much that we will be the most loving most kind people and I challenge you you know I always tell myself a few moments ago I was signing some books and I felt so hurt in my heart to tell some of the sisters that sisters I've got to stop here because the words stop actually is such that it hurts people it hurts people when you cut off something when you stop something good and I was feeling let me try and be the best person I can but sometimes while trying to be the best person you get trampled all over and some of the best of us we struggle and suffer emotionally because we allow everyone to walk all over and when we try to stand up for ourselves for the first time we're looked at as the bad ones it happens in a lot of homes where you have a person who's slaving it if I can use that word for years on ended one day they stand up for what is right and they're told how dare you so ungrateful you so I've been grateful for the last 15 years hello Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us I hope we don't have you know some of the tyrants in our midst who actually make life such a misery for people who live with them that's the case this is the day when we can change inshallah we need to make life beautiful for those we're with so that Allah will make it beautiful for us in the dunya and the akhira and if you make life easy for someone in this world Allah says we will make life easy for you here and in the hereafter what if it's your own family may Allah make us role models amen we'll take a question from the brothers inshallah what is your name and what is your question for the sheikh inshallah so this is a big thing today society and oh my name is Waseem this is a big thing in today's society and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to so brother Musa touched earlier upon if you see someone in a common place whether it's a college, university, workplace and you're interested you said to get the folks involved but even before that stage to get to know the person in a good way because you have to get to know the person and she has to get to know you etc how do you do so in a halal manner because I'm sure a big thing people need to look at his limitations some sort of framework how to do that realistically in this day and age jizakallah brother sorry brother Waseem I just translated your name into English mashaAllah a good name mashaAllah jizakallah khayr habibi I want to tell you that you see there is a difference the Islamic teaching tells you to get to know someone with the assistance of your folks the problem is our folks don't help I think that's really an issue where our folks sometimes they don't help us to get to know someone because they have their own ideas so we're faced with a challenge where people start getting to know others with the idea that I'm going to get to know them and if it's okay then I'll involve my family so they have good intentions but in the process of getting to know someone the emotions run high you've donated your heart without even knowing it's donated or your own bosom and it's gone somewhere else and by that time you now want to go back to your family and tell them something and you've actually already drowned so in Islam we're taught to get to know someone yes indeed and you are allowed to get to know as much as you'd like to prior to the marriage on condition that you've involved the folks who are supposed to be involved in the case of a sister for example someone respectable I have advocated and I have done it today and every other day when I've spoken about marriage for parents to become involved and to try and take seriously what their children bring up to them and so if someone says listen dad you know there's a guy interested in me he's really are you interested in him well I think so I want to get to know him well dad do you know what I think if it's not haram you need to help because behind your back Wallahi I want to swear by Allah that every other day I have an email of someone telling me that they are marrying someone they do not want to marry they're in total and absolute love with someone else but their parents are forcing them and I'm thinking we're living in the 21st century how can we allow that as muslimine how does it reflect upon Islam and the muslims and then you want to complain that we have a divorce and so on I have people who have told me and hundreds of them if not thousands that my father has just forced me to get married and I don't want to marry I don't have anyone in mind but I don't want to marry this guy how can we call ourselves muslims who fear Allah what representation are we providing for what we stand for subhanallah people will think of Islam and muslims as being backwards yet we're not counting the fulfillment of the rights of your own kids your own children so my brother quickly getting back to what you were saying Islam teaches us to involve before you get to know the person just on your own the two of you are sitting shaitan is the third as we're taught but if you if you involve someone you know you may have interactions with them you have to interact with the opposite sex that's something we need to know whether it's your mother your sister's a strange person they will come a time to interact even with someone who's a total stranger that interaction Islam doesn't say it shouldn't be there it says it needs to be within that which is respectable and acceptable that's it I mean I've met millions of people women a lot of them who are not related to me at all for as long as it's respectable within the limits acceptable we've greeted we've helped we've spoken to we've tried you know wherever possible we've you know we've helped and the same applies to all of us I mean if you see someone on the street for example they need help you as a muslim should be the first one to rush to help them you don't say I'm not a mahram I'm running away and you wait for someone who's not even perhaps a muslim or maybe an Islamophobe to come and laugh and do something that is nasty may Allah protect us so this is why we say society sometimes we need to understand the deen and what we're taught rather than you know just doing what we think which is not even a part of the deen so sometimes like I said you have to interact with the opposite sex you get to know them there comes a point when look I need to involve someone here because I want to know a little bit more so that would help may Allah make it easy for us We have a question here from a sister may Allah bless her she's mentioned that she got married to this brother after marriage everything was fine but because her father didn't like the brother and he just approved of the brother just because you know the sister wanted to marry him now what the father is doing and the family are doing is they don't want to accept the son-in-law they're saying we don't really want to know him you've married him no problem you live with him but we don't want to know him we don't want to welcome him into our home what advice would you give in a situation like this sheikh I think the most serious advice I can give because it's on the increase this type of problem is happening a lot my beloved parent if you are a person who has just accepted for it and then you have turned away you are failing your test with Allah what if Allah turns away with you the same turns away from you the same way you turned away from your this child and the spouse on the day of judgment and you're told you didn't want you turned away we're going to turn away from you that deed says when you make life easy for someone we're going to make life easy for you when you make life difficult for someone we're going to make it difficult for you in the dunya and the akhira so you need to know if you did that to your own child and your own child in law meaning whether it's a son-in-law daughter-in-law and you turned away from them because of that I promise you you will taste the evil effect of your own deeds in your life before you die you will guarantee that you will taste it before you die Allah will show you the evil of your deed within your life somehow and we've seen this happening because helpless people, the dua they make is answered by Allah way before everybody else the hadith says you need to fear and be scared of a supplication made against you by someone whom you have wronged for indeed there is no barrier between that supplication and Allah so what I want to say you fail your test, why do that embrace the guy, give him a chance let him prove himself perhaps he might turn out to be better than you and closer than you to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala yet your action is proving that you have actually not put Allah before everyone else but rather your own ego your own pride we need to set that aside may Allah never let that happen to us and whoever it is happening to may Allah bless your parents and guide them and soften their hearts to be able to stop themselves from doing that Barakalafi We'll go straight to the sisters inshallah sister what is your name and what is your question for the sheikh in regards to marriage my question is how should one go about seeking blessings for marriage by their parents when difference in skin color could potentially be an issue Subhanallah my sister it's a very interesting question because a lot of the times the child knows the parents better than anyone else so you've got to actually try and convince them through means that they would be convinced by your life if not what I have found helpful is to be able to very respectfully involve members of the family who are senior and looked up to by the parents to try and talk to them the difficulty today is parents say no and the reason why they say no they thinking of what will people say I promise you it's a big disease what's my community going to say what's my family going to say what's everyone else going to say and in the process they don't allow their children to live a life and the same people that they're worried about what they would say when their children have to do something they get it done you know I know of a case where there was a family that did not accept a brother because he was a revert and they said no ways revert what an insult Astaghfirullah I told them all the Sahaba were reverts by the way all the Sahaba were reverts 100% of them were reverts so what's the problem here and they said no no you know my brother he told me if this happens our relationship is over three years later three years later the child of this particular man married a non-muslim subhanallah non-muslim and invited the entire family and guess what everyone went subhanallah subhanallah I don't want to comment about that I want to say the double standards is look you didn't allow something and look at what's happened this side here and then people started asking fatwas to say is this allowed is that allowed big issue moral of the story is sometimes when you try to block something halal what did I tell you earlier in your life Allah will show you something to prove to you that you just failed your test dismally may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us you might be asking how can this happen how can that happen the only reason I'm citing it to you is I'm citing it because raising that example to say here is a sister asking us how do we convince our parents some of the parents are not easy to convince you know and then like I said you involve some of the family members who are senior sometimes you might want to involve an imam or someone whom your parents look up to unfortunately sometimes there is no one to look up to so in certain cases we really cannot offer that type of help the help of convincing I have tried sometimes to assist like I told you in a lot of cases where we've spoken to parents mashallah some of them come through some of them don't come through some of them have valid reasoning some of them don't have valid reasoning some of them are ridiculous and you can taste the pride as soon as you just try and say salam alaikum and they just look at you and you say okay this guy doesn't want to be helped at all but you got to try because you know why when you try you have fulfilled your duty and it's written against that person's name with Allah may Allah make it easy for all of us another very important point make lots of du'a call out to Allah don't lose hope but watch in which direction things are moving may Allah make it easy we'll take another question from the sisters inshallah so sister what is your name and what is your question for the sheikh today inshallah salam alaikum this is umna jiba I have a question we often hear when a proposal comes that mashallah the sister wears hijab and jilbab she is practicing or the brother has beard where though he is practicing does it define wearing jilbab or hijab or having beard does it define practicing so could you please enlighten us with the real definition of a practicing muslim jizakallah jizakumullah khair and I will give you an answer that inshallah you will be satisfied with by the will of Allah because we've tackled this issue before practically being a practicing brother or a sister should refer to two things the inward and the outward so some have managed to actually only deal with one of them and some have managed to deal with both and every one of us is trying to become better and improve where our weaknesses are so when you see someone outwardly it does not necessarily mean that that person is practicing but it means they are practicing outwardly let's be honest they are practicing outwardly so we would like to hope that the inside is a reflection of the outside unfortunately it's not always the case so don't be fooled so while I am not belittling the outward practicing of a brother or a sister I have to warn one and all including myself that is not the only mark to look at a brother there needs to be other factors that would actually make you make your mind up regarding marriage for example and at times you have a person who is struggling a little bit with their outward practicing but you have an interaction with them that proves to you that they have some beautiful qualities in them that show that internally there are really god-fearing people but they are struggling with their outward practicing it does happen and it happens a lot especially where parents are very strict sometimes people are outwardly practicing due to the strictness of their parents and not necessarily because they themselves would like to practice so sometimes you have a person from a modern home no one is putting any pressure on them none of the people in the home are even talking about dress or anything else and that person makes sure they make sure but the way they were brought up perhaps they didn't give so much of importance to that which was outward so I'm not saying outward appearance and all that is not important but I am saying you've got to give credit to this person who actually grew up in an environment where they were lovely honest upright individuals they just need a little bit of perhaps movement this way that way and who doesn't who doesn't need we all need that movement inshallah so it's very very tricky to answer your question the outward appearance is not only what you should be considering because it does not depict anything besides outward practicing it does not confirm your inner the inside actually needs to be confirmed through other means wallahu a'la We have our brother here Masha Allah if we can get your name and your question for the sheikh Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh I am Karamo Karamo Tram my question today is based on this some of us came from somewhere else and there are lots of sisters who also I am the same situation they don't have family here nor do they have close friends and we're talking about Nika here can we throw a light on this secret marriage can we have Nika where is only me on her and no one else because this might be based on personal question thank you very much My brother Jazakallah Khair really my heart goes out to those who are perhaps from abroad they're here alone and they don't know perhaps people are not ready to marry them they don't know much about them etc it really is difficult but the question about secret marriages I need to tell you that before I get to that someone had asked me a question we were talking about it earlier backstage that young people it's becoming very common they say we did our Nika and you ask them well how was it done they say well he put a mahar in front of me and he asked me if I would be his wife yes I would I said then who was the witness so the answer is the greatest witness of them all he said who is that he says isn't Allah sufficient as a witness between you and I so Allah was the witness and Allah witnessed it ok don't let the devil make you think that that's a Nika that's actually invalid in a way in the Quran or the Sunnah that a marriage can be officiated without proper human being witnesses there needs to be human beings Allah will witness the witnessing of the human beings and he has witnessed it but he has asked you to have human beings as well to bear that witness so if you have the minimum witness of two males although technically the marriage is done when we speak about not going beyond that we've heard scholars talk about it in my circles and they say if you do a Nika properly it can never be a secret because the minimum announcement is the witnesses it was announced to them they saw it but what you are meaning to me is you did the Nika correctly like you have the Ijab, the Qabool the witnesses, the mahar the proposal, the acceptance they may be there as well but no one else knows about it well I can tell you something from a correctness point of view for the Nika if the Wali is involved, the witnesses are involved the mahar is there the proposal is there the acceptance is there technically it may be a valid Nika but from a social perspective it wouldn't be a wise thing to do the reason is the idea of getting married is so that people can now know this relationship is Halal and now everyone is going to look at you they don't even know if it's Halal or not obviously when we see couples we would immediately presume that they are married that's what we are taught but you are going to be ducking, diving, hiding and I tell the sisters a lot of the times when you when you become meaning when you are ready to have a secret without anyone knowing abuse thereafter without you being able to do anything in a lot of cases and the reason is sometimes I know of someone who says listen you know what, you marry me and it's fine you can just see me once a week once a month, once every six months and that's it, it's fine, I don't really need anything more than that I promise you a week passes, two weeks passes and you start thinking, gosh I've got a husband and now the pressure comes and it starts mounting and I tell you what you start thinking, no I need to see him more often you start arguing because you want what you've agreed, when you live it you realize you were foolish when you start living the reality you start realizing you know what I was foolish, I'm just being used that's what's happening I'm just being abused, that's what's happening so you need to understand you need to weigh the pros and cons correctly and you need to understand the reason of that nature as far as possible try and keep it open be brave enough to say let the world know so what and sometimes circumstances might make us not want to tell everyone but we need to at least announce it within a specific circle may Allah Subhanahu Wa'Ta'Ala make it easy once again I reach out to all those who are from other countries perhaps you might not have people around you may Allah make it easy for you to marry and you know I always like to encourage the imams of the masjid to say please look out for those brothers and sisters who need to get married and try and hook them up with someone who perhaps they could also have as a spouse, Wa'Allahu Ala JazakAllah Khairan Mufti we're going to take our final question inshallah from one sister I do apologize to everyone that has been queuing up we know that you have tried to ask your questions but unfortunately if we were to cater for everyone's questions we would be here all night and maybe more than that so we'll take our last question from the sister standing there what's your name and what's your question for the sheikh today inshallah my name is Fameda basically I'm looking to get married so I've done a fit course in marriage my Ustad he was saying to the brothers men don't want to marry career minded women to me it seems a bit like you're demotivating those women because how do you know what the intention of those women are for example I want to be a psychologist because I know that anxiety and depression is very common in the Muslim community and only Allah knows my intention now having brothers say that basically oh no you working is not good for my religion and not good for my children what's wrong with that I don't get it what's wrong with career minded women Masha Allah my sister I think the scholar who might have said that he's probably speaking about himself because I know of many brothers who are sitting right here right now whose wives are well within their careers and probably even supporting them they share the burden and the load and so on so I don't think we can say blanket that you know brothers do not like women with a career but maybe we can say there are brothers who may not like I mean it's their liking their preference and there are brothers who do and who don't mind for example and I think as the years are passing more and more people are beginning to understand that you know if your spouse and yourself if you have to work within a good environment that is acceptable to both of you it might even help in other ways sometimes there is a lot of boredom that occurs if a woman is just to sit doing nothing it could help in that way and another thing is you could assist also with the burden of the livelihood and the living because it's not cheap anymore so I don't think it's right for someone to just issue a statement on behalf of all the males to say that they prefer this and they prefer that because like I said earlier men prefer all different things what I prefer someone else might not and what someone else prefers you know I might not and that's what makes the world a lovely place because Allah has made us all different we will fit in somewhere by the will of Allah SWT so I hope that answers your question you know we the men who are here I think we don't really agree with a blanket ruling to just paint every one of us with that brush I mean brother Musa is nodding his head here a few of the others here are also nodding their heads they are prepared to marry a woman who has a career may Allah SWT grant us ease and Allah bless us all obviously if the career like you know sometimes you have a job male or female if your spouse is not comfortable with the job you have I think the two of you can discuss it and maybe you want to make adjustments in order to give preference to your marriage over your you know the exact place where you might be working because sometimes it does happen even with the brothers the wife is not comfortable because of what goes on at your workplace or something you need to talk about it discuss it and maybe make realistic changes if needed may Allah SWT bless you all I've really enjoyed myself it's really been a very very long day but I thank Allah SWT for giving me the opportunity to interact with you guys and I still have a few of those whom I almost inshallah to sign their books I will do that may Allah SWT grant you ease