#kahwinblogs: Marriage
- by Bro Reda Bedeir , Orchards of Love. via bro Nabil Al Farabi“marriage is not merely an alliance of two people because of the love that they have, but rather it is a journey of faith, where you have someone that you love the most holding your hands along the path. The path is not always a straight one and conducive, but rather hilly and thorny. One of you may fall down into a giant holes for quite number of times, but the one that is holding your hand will always pull you up back and never let it go because it is not a matter of love solely, but accompanied by the strong belief in Allah because when you ” please your Lord, you please your spouse and when you spend love, it grows.”
I have so much in mind to write right now. First things first. Marriage.
One of my favourite topics and yet it is one of the longest syarh(elaborations) that need constant searching for case studies and dalils(evidences).
Marriage is not a one day moment. It is a commitment that two people vow to each other to the rest of their lives. It is not purely commitment per se, its holding both hands to Jannah insyaAllah. Most of us, the younger generations including me are always deluded by the main aim in this world. We are too engross with the world that we sometimes forget the purpose of life. Ask everyone around on their purpose of life, the will say the same old thing over and over again. Getting to great school, getting good grades, get to good university, falling in love, having a good job, having enough money, getting married, getting kids, getting old together and die.
The journey is the same all the time. People get in love, get out of love, getting married, having babies and happily ever after. Ask yourself are we living in a fairytale?Or we are inventing our own fairytale?Is this what we wanted in our lives?
Some people get married because they don't want to be lonely, some people just wants kids, some people treat it as an escapism from their current life and some, just get married because everyone the he/she knows got married, some sort of peer pressure.
Allah ordered the believers to "consort with women in kindness" (4:19) and He said: "And of His signs are this: He created for you helpmeets from yourselves that ye might find rest in them, and He ordained between you love and mercy. Lo, herein indeed are portents for folk who reflect" (30:21).
In other words, Allah knows that
"Among His signs is the fact that he has created spouses from among yourselves, so that you may find tranquillity with them; and he has put love and mercy between you. In that are signs for people who reflect." [Qur’an 30:21]
and again:
"They (wives) are garments for you, while you are garments for them." [Qur’an 2:187]
Having sought his bride in an honourable way, and married her in the manner prescribed by the Prophet- that is with public celebration but the minimum of fuss and ostentation- what are the Muslim husband’s duties?
His first duty is maintenance and protection, and overall responsibility for the welfare of his wife, which is prescribed in the Qur’an:
"Men shall take full care of women with the bounties which Allah has bestowed more abundantly on the former than on the latter, and with what they may spend out of their possessions....". [Qur’an 4:34]
This includes feeding, clothing and shelter for the wife and for any children of the marriage. This is a legally enforceable duty, which remains even after divorce until the expiry of the Iddah or even longer in the view of some of the scholars. Financial responsibility for the family therefore rests squarely on the husband, and the wife has no duty to contribute to family expenses unless she has the means and the wish to do so.
The legal obligations of a husband do not stop with provision of the basic requirements relating to maintenance and protection. He is also expected to give her company and marital relations, and to avoid doing anything that would harm her.
These obligations are enforced by the Shari’ah. If a man fails to maintain his wife or fails to visit her for more than a certain period of time, the wife has grounds to be granted a divorce by a Shari’ah Court. Similarly, if she can prove to the court that the husband is doing harm (Idrar), be it by drinking alcohol, or beating her without lawful cause, or abusing her or her parents and so on, she is entitled to be granted a divorce. In none of these cases can the husband claim back any part of the dowry or presents he has given to the wife. I would like to make a note here that every situation has to be evaluated on its merits and circumstances by a Shar'iah Court. These points mentioned above are general precepts in the Shar'iah.
The Husband is however urged in the Qur’an to avoid divorce and try to preserve marriage even if it is not ideal. This is to be done in the first instance by exercising patience with his wife’s faults. The Qur’an say’s;
"Live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If you take a dislike to them, it may be that you dislike a thing while Allah brings about through it a great deal of good." [Qur’an 4:19]
The Prophet (saws) also emphasised the undesirability of divorce in a Hadith found in Abu Dau’d’s collection:
"The most hateful of all lawful things, in the sight of Allah, is divorce."
The ideal husband should therefore, if need arises, make full use of Qur’anic provisions for reconciliation and arbitration [Qur’an 4:34] before proceeding with divorce
If a man does divorce his wife, he should follow the steps approved in the Qur’an and Sunnah regarding a revocable divorce. This allows for cooling off and reconciliation before it becomes final on the final pronouncement. The divorce is not to be pronounced while the wife is in menstruation, but when she has finished menstruation and not yet resumed marital relations with the husband. (Qur’an 65:1) In other words divorce is not to be pronounced in anger or at random, but at a specific time when the husband is in control of his reason, and the wife herself is not in the state of emotional upset that sometimes occurs whilst she is pregnant or may accompany menstruation.
The husband is to continue good treatment of his wife even if divorce decided upon. He is to keep and feed her as before in his own house until the expiry of her iddah (waiting period) without harassment, [Qur’an 65:1, 65:6] and to make provision for her according to his means.
He is not to take back any of the gifts he may have given her before or during the marriage:
"The parties should either hold together on equitable terms or separate with kindness. It is not lawful for you (men) to take back any of your gifts from your wives."[Qur’an 2:229]
On the contrary, the husband is to give her a gift or some form of maintenance to sustain her after divorce [Qur’an 2:241]. Moreover, he is not to interfere if after divorce she wishes to marry someone else:
"......and when you divorce women and they have reached the end of their waiting term, hinder them not from marrying other men if they have agreed with each other in a fair manner."[Qur’an 2:232]
The husband should also know that according to the Shari’ah he is not always the one to have custody of his children after divorce, contrary to the common practice in some countries. It is the wife who is given priority in custody of children in many cases, in accordance with a Hadith related by Amru b. Shu’aib in Ibn Majah, which tells how a woman came to the Prophet (saws) and said:
"Truly my belly served as a container for my son here, and my breast served as a skin bag for him (to drink out of), and my bosom served as a refuge for him; and now his father has divorced me, and he (also) desires to take away from me." The Prophet (saws) said: "You have a better right to have him as long as you do not marry again."[Ibn Majah]
We would also like to point out again however, that the decision as to the custody of the children has to be evaluated by a Shar'iah Court, which will consider the particular circumstances surrounding the family and the children's best welfare.
In the Maliki School of Islamic Jurisprudence, this rule is systematised to give priority in custody of children to the mother and to 5 other relatives before the custody could be claimed by the father. This custody lasts until puberty for a son and until marriage for a daughter, while the financial responsibility for their maintenance remains with their father.
The knowledge of the necessity of separation from his children must certainly act as a reality check when a husband is indiscriminately deciding to divorce.
It should also be realised the husband is required to be faithful in marriage as the wife must. The punishment for adultery of a married person, male or female, under the Shari’ah is death. The fact that the punishment may not be applied in this world, does not make the sin any less in the sight of Allah. A sin that is not expiated in this world is after all going to follow a person to the grave.
Therefore the husband should not fail to follow Allah’s command in the Qur’an:
"Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and to be mindful of their chastity: verily this will be most conductive to their purity (and) verily Allah is aware of all that they do."[Qur’an 24:30]
Those married men who cruise around in their cars looking for school girls to pick up are surely disgracing themselves, and forfeiting all right to require chastity of their wives.
If for some reason, the husband cannot manage with his first wife but does not want to divorce her, he is not prohibited from contracting another marriage, provided it is done in a legal and honorable way.
The permission to marry more then one wife at a time is however conditional:
".......if you fear you cannot do justice between them, then marry only one." [Qur’an 4:3]
This condition is often taken very lightly in some countries, where polygamy has long been a social custom. No words in the Qur’an, however, are without meaning, this verse should not be taken lightly. A weak husband will not be respected and will not act fairly between his wives, whereby, his marrying more then one is likely to lead to injustice, constant disharmony and the break up of his family. This is not in his interests or theirs or in the interests of the Muslim Ummah.
If having married more then one, however, a husband finds his heart inclining to one at the expense of the other, he is warned that this inclination should not reach the stage of neglect of the needs of the other wife:
"And you will not be able to treat your wives with equal justice however much you desire it.
But do not incline towards one to the exclusion of the other, leaving her as it were in suspense." [Qur’an 4:29]
But do not incline towards one to the exclusion of the other, leaving her as it were in suspense." [Qur’an 4:29]
This warning against injustice is strongly reinforced by the Hadith in which Abu Hurairah (raa) reported the Prophet (saws) as saying:
"Whoever has two wives and does not treat them equally, shall come on the day of resurrection with half his body hanging down." [Abu Da’ud, Nasa’i, and Ibn Majah]
We have so far examined the legal framework of marriage and divorce as outlined mainly in the Qur’an. This now needs to be filled in with illustration and elaboration drawn from the Sunnah, since the Qur’an tells us :
"You have in the apostle of Allah a beautiful pattern of conduct for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the last day."[Qur’an 33:21]
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