31. ENGAGEMENT & MARRIAGE

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَ رَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَ بَرَكَاتُه
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيْم
أَلْحَمْدُ ِللهِ رَبِّ اْلعَالمَيِنْ, وَالصَّلاَةُ وَالسَّلاَمُ عَلىَ أَشْرَفِ اْلمُرْسَلِيْن, سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِيْن. أَمَّا بَعْد :

Brothers and sisters in Islam,

Today one of our lucky brothers and our lucky sisters are proclaiming their intention to end their solitary lives. Br. … and Sr. … are lucky because they have finally found each other.

Br. … and Sr. ..., you are lucky to find what is called “the life companion” (شَرِيْكُ الْحَيَاةِ وَ شَرِيْكَةُ الْحَيَاة) You are lucky to find your other half. You are lucky for yoAu are going to fulfil the other half of your religion. Anas b. Mālik narrated that Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) said,
إذَا تَزَوَّجَ اْلعَبْدُ فَقَدَ كَمُلَ نِصْفُ الدِّيْنِ ،
فَلْيَتَّقِ اللهَ فِي النِّصْفِ ْالبَاقِيْ.
(رواه البيهقي)
“If the servant (of Allah) gets married, half of
his religion is completed; then he should
fear Allah with the other half.”
No matter how hard one practices Islam, without marriage one cannot make it complete. You see how important marriage is for a Muslim?

Through marriage you are expected to have children. Having children is an investment. How? By raising your children properly and in Islamic way they will be expected to pray for you when you die, and their prayer will be accepted by Allah. In one tradition narrated by Abū Hurayrah that the Prophet says:
إِذَا مَاتَ اِبْن آدَمَ اِنْقَطَعَ عَمَلُهُ إِلَّا مِنْ ثَلَاثٍ. صَدَقَةٌ جَارِيَةٌ
أَوْ عِلْمٌ يُنْتَفَعُ بِهِ أَوْ وَلَدٌ صَالِحٌ يَدْعُو لَهُ.
(رواه مسلم)
“When the son of Adam dies his deed ceased
except in three things: perpetual charity, knowledge
from which people get benefit, or a pious son
[or daughter] who prays for him.”

This decision you are taking is one of the most important events in your lives. If you see a person more handsome or more beautiful, do not be tempted by Satan into saying that you should have married that person. No! One does not marry for beauty alone. One marries personality, character, and now you have found someone you have already trusted, loved, and respected.

In Indonesia we have a proverb saying “Open your eyes before marriage, and after marriage close your eyes.” It means, before marriage you can look around and try to find the right person. Once you have found her, close your eyes for other girls.
It is sad to know that one-third of all marriages in North America [as well as in Australia] end with divorce. Although it is permitted in Islam, divorce is discouraged. Abdullah ibn ‘Umar narrated that Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) said:
أَبْغَضُ الْحَلَالِ إِلَى اللَّهِ تَعَالَى الطَّلَاقُ
(رواه أبوداؤد وابن ماجة والبيهقي)
“The most detested permitted thing
according to Allah is the divorce.”

Now, why are there so many divorces? There are many factors. One of them is the lack of mutual understanding. A person you think you have known very well before marriage suddenly becomes a stranger after marriage. If your wife does not work, but stays at home as a housewife, this does not mean that she just stays at home without doing anything. Therefore, do not be surprised to find your wife tired of working. The following stories may explain my point:

A businessman, as usual, came to his office in the morning. He was busy reading a newspaper. In the afternoon he called his secretary to whom he dictated a letter. His wife at home was working hard cooking, washing dishes, cleaning the house and many other tasks until she became tired. In the evening her husband came and found her tired. He said to her: “It is unfair! I am the one who works, and you are the one who is tired.” His wife said: “Yes, it is unfair, indeed!” What she means is that although she works hard but because she is not paid, she is considered doing nothing.

A couple went to a marital counselor for advice. They were complaining against each other. The husband claimed that he worked hard in his office while his wife did not do her work well at home. His wife claimed that housework is very hard, harder than her husband’s work in the office. Each claimed to have harder job. The marital counselor suggested to exchange jobs: the wife to go to her husband’s office and the husband to stay at home cooking, baby sitting, washing dishes and cleaning the house. Amazingly, both the husband and the wife rejected the idea. They knew that each of them had hard work.

Brothers and sisters
Allah says in the Qur’ān:
سُبْحَانَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ الْأَزْوَاجَ كُلَّهَا مِمَّا تُنْبِتُ
الْأَرْضُ وَمِنْ أَنْفُسِهِمْ وَمِمَّا لَا يَعْلَمُونَ.
(يس: ٣٦)
“Glory to Allah, who created in pairs all
things that the earth produces, aswell as their
own (human) kind and (other) things of which
they have no knowledge.”

Allah created human beings in pairs: man and woman, identical, yet different, and none of them is more human than the other. It is said that men follow reason, while women follow intuition. They are more often right than men in spite of men’s research and fact finding. “In sailing the matrimonial bark,” said Dr. Peck in his book Life with Women and How to Survive It, “always point the ship in the direction you do not want to go.” What he means is that your spouse will argue with you and will point to another direction. Once she points to the direction you want to go, then agree, or least, you will not go where you really do not want to go.

Husband and wife relationship is metaphorically portrayed in the Qur’ān as a garment to each other:
هُنَّ لِبَاسٌ لَكُمْ وَأَنْتُمْ لِبَاسٌ لَهُنَّ (البقرة: ۱٨٧)
"… they are your garments and ye are their garments."
It means that, they are fitting to each other as a garment to the body. Like garments which are for show and concealment, they are each other’s show and concealment. They conceal each other’s secret, (except for consultation, such as to a marital councelor for solving any marital problem). They support, comfort and protect each other. Our garments protect us from hot and cold temprature, and our spouses protect us from commiting indecency and immorality.

It is oftenly said that for men, love is only a small part of their lives. For women, it is their whole lives. How? Men go to work and become busy, so busy that they do not remember their wives at home. For women at home, they remember their husbands most of the time. They cook for their husbands, and so they remember them. They wash their husbands’ clothes and so they remember them. Everything at home will remind them of their husbands. However, nowadays, women also work, especially if they work full time, there is possible danger of neglecting their husbands. Harmonious marriage life is much better than wealth that could become a threat to this peaceful life.

Allah created men and women with their pluses and minuses. Men have stronger muscles, are usually taller and have bigger brains. This does not mean that men are more intelligent than women. Cows have even bigger brains. Men are created to be the protectors of their family. That is why they are created with stronger muscles and bigger brains, to act more reasonably rather than following their emotion and intuition. In general men choose women, but women choose men among those who choose them.
But women in general are healthier than men, although apparently women see the physicians more than men, probably for general checkup. They live longer statistically, probably because their natural hormones, the estrogens, seem to protect them from the most common form of heart disease. Their response to stress chemically and behaviourally is different from that of men.

At birth and in infancy male babies who are born dead are more than female ones. In the first month of their lives thirty percent of male babies die more than female ones. It is said that thirty percent of major birth defects are related to males. Why? Because male babies have to go through more elaborate transformation in the womb. More things can go wrong with them than with female babies
.
The slightest brain damage occurring during or after birth often affect the behaviour and language skills of the baby boys in the left hemisphere of their brains. Therefore, they are four or five times more likely to suffer from language disorders and disabilities than girls. They are more likely to suffer difficulty learning to talk than girls (5 to 1), and with reading and writing (4 to 1). We have just heard (in 1988 in Edmonton) from the radio and watched on TV a two year old girl saved the life of her baby-sitter who suddenly became unconscious. The little girl tried to call the telephone operator. The operator tried to locate the house from which she was calling, then called the police and the ambulance.

In any community or nation violent crime are mostly committed by men rather than women. Apart from their environment, they have most probably something wrong with the left hemisphere of their brains, which governs their behaviour.

Another disadvantage of men but an advantage for women is that men are less resistant to disease than women, and therefore, as mentioned earlier, are healthier. When a woman became pregnant, she has to defend and support the fetus, not to reject or destroy it. In the meantime she has to defend herself against infection. Therefore, she must have inherited an extremely sophisticated immune system more than man. But this advantage for women could turn into disadvantage. This sophisticated immune system sometimes becomes over-efficient or over-active and attacks the body it is supposed to protect. Therefore, women suffer from certain auto immune disease more than men do.

In conclusion, there are pluses and minuses, advantages and disadvantages making us complementary and necessary to one another. Neither is better, neither is worse. They are equal although not the same. Allah has no preference in matter of gender, either male or female. He says:

مَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا مِنْ ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنْثَى وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَنُحْيِيَنَّهُ حَيَاةً طَيِّبَةً
وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَجْرَهُمْ بِأَحْسَنِ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ
(النحل: ٩٧)
“Whoever works righteousness, man or
woman, and has faith, verily, to him will We give
a life that is good and pure, and We will bestow
on such their reward according to the
best of their actions.”

In one tradition narrated by Abū Hurayrah the Prophet says:

إنَّ اللهَ لا يَنْظُرُ إلَى أَجْسَامِكُمْ وَلَا إلىَ صُوَرِكُمْ وَلكِنْ يَنْظُرُ
إلىَ قُلُوْبِكُمِ [ وَأَشَارَ بِأَصَاِبعِهِ إلىَ صَدِرْه ]
(رواه مسلم)
“Allah does not look at your body nor your
appearance, but He looks at your heart
[and he pointed his fingers at his breast].”

Now let us pray for the (future) bride and groom, may Allah bless their marriage and give them happy and harmonious life.
[Any prayer for the prosperity of both the bride and bridegroom can be cited together].

Footonotes:
140. Reported by al-Bayhaqī
141. Reported by Muslim
142. Reported by Abū Dā’ūd, Ibn Mājah, and al-Bayhaq
143. Qur’ān, Yāsīn [36]:36
144. Dr. Joseph H. Peck, M.D., Life with Women and How to Survive It. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, Inc., 1961, p. 82.
145. Qur’ān, al-Baqarah [2]:187.
146. Qur’ān, al-Nahl [16]:97
147. Reported by Muslim