Racism in the Muslim Community?

This made me very sad. I'm so disgusted by my own community at times. :( Alhamdulilah I love this sister though well done to her for speaking out.

What kind of woman is willing to share her husband?

Farzana is a senior nurse, 36, attractive, selfpossessed and articulate. “I have begun to consider polygamy,” she tells me at a matchmaking event in central London for divorced and widowed Muslims interested in marrying again. “When you think about love in an Islamic way, the co-wife idea makes sense.”

According to Mizan Raja, who set up the Islamic Circles community network and presides over the east London Muslim matrimonial scene, women are increasingly electing to become “co-wives” – in other words, to become a man’s second or third wife. As I reported last year in the New Statesman, Raja gets five to ten requests every week from women who are “comfortable with the notion of a part-time man”. He explained: “Career women don’t want a full-time husband. They don’t have time.” So couples live separately, a husband visiting his wives on a rota.

A dapper City boy listening to Raja whispered to me: “Actually, that’s not right. In late twenties a girl is considered past it, so this arrangement is the best she can get.”

If you’re divorced, widowed or over 30 and Muslim, finding a husband in this country can be a challenge. Does polygamy, or more specifically polygyny (a man taking more than one wife, as opposed to a woman taking more than one husband), as sanctioned by the Quran, offer a possible solution?

Aisha (not her real name), a divorced single mother with two children, recently chose to become a second wife. She was introduced to her husband by a friend. She says that at first she was hesitant. “I was like, ‘No, I can’t do it. I’m too jealous as a person. I wouldn’t be able to do it.’ But the more that time went on and I started thinking about it, especially more maturely, I saw the beauty of it.”

They agreed on the terms of the marriage by email, covering details such as “how many days he’d spend with me and how many days he’d spend with his other wife, and money and living arrangements”. They then met twice, liked each other, set a date and were married. Her husband now spends three days with Aisha and her two children from her previous marriage and then three days with his other family, unless one of them is ill, in which case he stays to help but has to make up the missed time to his other wife.

She confesses that “if he was to stay all the time I’d love it”, but says that having time off “is definitely beneficial in some ways as well”. She has “more freedom” to see her friends and her family, and it is a relief “not having a man in your face half the time, when you are cranky, and he can go somewhere else and you can manage the kids on your own”.

As a divorcee, bringing up children on her own for three years before remarrying, she built up an independent life for herself: “It’s hard to let your goals go for a man all over again.” Although she concedes they have had a “few teething problems” and that it took his first wife “some time to come to terms with it”, now, she says, they “have come to an understanding . . . We are finding our feet.” Both sets of children are aware of the new situation and have accepted it. In fact, she says that her husband’s daughter from his first marriage “can’t wait to meet second Mummy” and her own son, who now has a father figure and “role model” that he was previously lacking, is “really happy with it”. They have yet to experience “a big family get-together”, but Aisha says she is “hopeful that will happen soon . . . I’ve spoken to her [the first wife] a couple of times. She seems really lovely. I would really like for us to become good friends . . . for there to be that kind of bond of sisterhood between us.”

The main obstacle to happiness, according to Aisha, “is the sense of ownership” and jealousy. “But that’s something that you’ve just got to use your wisdom to get past . . . It’s more important for me to have a father for my children . . . to have a helping hand when I need it.” She insists that problems arise only when the husband does not treat both wives equally, as explicitly mandated in the Quran, or when the wives are not mature enough to rationalise and accept the situation.

Anecdotal evidence, in the absence of the statistical kind, suggests that polygamy is on the rise in Britain. And according to a poll conducted over a week by Singlemuslim.com, 33 per cent of men and 9 per cent of women would choose to be part of a polygamous marriage. Because such marriages take place through an unregistered marriage contract, they do not constitute bigamy, a criminal offence in the UK.

The reasons for polygamy are complex. Aisha says that, from her point of view, “Single mums don’t have the pick of the bunch . . . [Polygamy] is there so we can still have the benefits of marriage, so we don’t have to be left on the shelf, so our children can still have role models, father figures, and so we can still have that emotional stability, financial stability and security.”

The stigma of divorce, as well as later marriages and the importing of foreign brides (15,500 women were admitted to the UK in 2011 as wives of British men, according to Home Office figures), have all exacerbated the problem for Muslim women looking for a husband. 

Aisha tells me that her husband saw polygamy as his religious duty. “A lot of people think it’s just about sex but . . . sex goes out the window after a while. If you don’t want your husband marrying someone else, what would happen to these single mums, then, and these divorcees? Is it fair that they just stay on the shelf? We should be looking after our community. Islam is all about community and society and we should look after our brothers and our sisters equally, otherwise it’s every man for themselves.”

Kalsoom Bashir, the project manager of the Muslim women’s rights organisation Inspire, and Khola Hasan of the Islamic Sharia Council in Leyton, east London, both believe that forced marriage is another reason for polygamy. British men are forced into marriages, often with cousins imported from “back home” with whom they have nothing in common. “For a man who has been in the difficult situation of being forced into a marriage, and the numbers are huge in Britain, absolutely huge . . . for many of them, polygamy is a good way of being happy and keeping the family happy,” Hasan explains.

The Quran instructs Muslim men to “marry women of your choice two or three or four”, but warns that “if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly [with them] then only one or [your concubines]. That is more fitting so that you do not deviate from the right course.” The Prophet Muhammad said, “Whosoever has two wives and he inclines towards one to the exclusion of the other, he will come on the Day of Judgement with his body dropping or bending down.”

In other words, “It is mission impossible,” according to Mufti Barkatulla, a senior imam and sharia council judge in Leyton. He firmly believes that there is no place for polygamy in modern Britain. “There are a number of cases we have come across and there is hardly a case where a man can balance all the duties required in a polygamous situation . . . In today’s industrial society, it is impossible to observe the conditions laid down by the scriptures.” Polygamy, he points out, predates Islam and was permitted in Islam in the context of war to offer protection to war orphans and widows. Many of the Prophet’s 11 wives were widows.

Sara (not her real name) is a 40-year-old Muslim convert. She accepted the practice of polygamy as part of her religion and when she fell in love with a married man, she was the one who suggested that she become his second wife. “I was busy and studying. I felt I could cope with not having someone around all the time,” she tells me.

In reality, though, Sara now says, their marriage was more like a religiously sanctioned affair. “Because of the social taboos against [polygamy], it had to be secret from the community and I couldn’t have any children . . . because then it will be known that he has a second wife.” Although she met her husband’s first wife, going on holiday with her once and even offering to babysit her children, the first wife never fully accepted the situation. “I really had this idea that we somehow would eventually find some way of getting on . . . I was imagining it would be like these stories I have heard of where it works, so I thought it would just be a matter of time and we were destined to be together.” Eventually, after six years, Sara sought a divorce.

In his 25 years presiding over thousands of divorce cases at the Islamic Sharia Council, Mufti Barkatulla has heard many similar stories. Between 2010 and 2011, 43 out of the 700 applications for divorce to Leyton’s sharia council cited polygamy as the main reason.

Mufti Barkatulla and Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the former director of the Muslim Institute, devised a Muslim marriage contract – in effect, a religiously sanctioned prenup, to be signed at the time of the nikah, or religious ceremony – that sought to address the imbalance in Muslim marriages, giving women equal rights to divorce, allowing them to feel safe from rape or abuse, and preventing husbands from taking a second wife. It also states that the nikah must happen in conjunction with a civil ceremony, for extra protection.

He tells me the story of a woman whose husband “had agreed to a civil ceremony but because dates and everything were not agreed the husband kept on delaying it”. One day when she got home, she found a notice on the door: “Everything is over. Collect your things from my sister’s house.” The woman told him that she felt as though she had been “on trial” but eventually was discarded.

An estimated 70-75 per cent of Muslim marriages in the UK are not registered under the Marriage Act, unlike Christian and Jewish marriages, which are registered automatically. Mosques have the legal right to register to conduct civil weddings, but only about one in ten have chosen to do so. A nikah or Muslim marriage can be performed anywhere, even using proxies or on Skype. When a marriage is not registered and the relationship breaks down, the unregistered wife has no rights to spousal or child support and can even be left homeless, denied her due share. In the event of the husband’s death, the registered wife and her children will inherit and the unregistered wife and children will not.

If Muslim marriages are unregistered, and take place outside of the jurisdiction of this country, there is no automatic recourse to justice through the British courts. Instead, an aggrieved party must go to an unregulated sharia council for mediation. The crossbencher Baroness (Caroline) Cox is concerned by this clash between sharia and civil law. “There is now operating in this country a kind of parallel quasi-legal system and that goes against the fundamental principle of liberal democracy of one law for all.” Of polygamy, she says: “To have more than one wife is not acceptable in the UK and people . . . must accept the laws of the land they choose to live in.” In 2011, she introduced the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill, which had its second reading in the House of Lords last October and “would make it illegal for any person or contacts to be established which would operate as a kind of alternative legal system. Anyone purporting to operate in that way in a judicial capacity would actually be committing a criminal offence that could [be punished with] a prison sentence for this alternative legal system.” The bill will be re-tabled in the next Parliament. 

Khola Hasan of Leyton’s sharia council believes that forcing mosques to register all nikahs, and thereby banning polygamy, will only make Muslims feel more persecuted. “The Muslim community in Britain already feels victimised,” she says, and it will inevitably force the practice underground, leaving women more vulnerable. She argues that, rather than banning polygamy, which she views as a “solution to many complex and difficult situations”, the practice should in fact be recognised by British law.

According to the Singlemuslim.com poll, 61 per cent of Muslim men and 28 per cent of Muslim women agree with Hasan that British law should be changed to permit polygamy. “Britain is refusing to accept that polygamy takes place,” she says. “It’s a reality and I think the British legal system is going to have to open its eyes and accept that it’s a reality in Britain.

“Polygamy is not going to go away.” Source

Showing appreciation of your spouse

Showing appreciation of your spouse in front of people in a way thats appropriate is sunnah

Amr ibn al-As: “The Prophet deputed me to read the Army of Dhat-as-Salasil. I came to him and said, "Who is the most beloved person to you?" He said, " 'Aisha." I asked, "Among the men?" He said, "Her father." I said, "Who then?" He said, "Then 'Umar bin Al-Khattab." He then named other men” (Bukhari)

Truth about the Prophet's wife

 The Orientalist scholar W Montgomery Watt wrote of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam: "Of all the world's great men, none has been so much maligned."

His quote seems all the more poignant in light of the Islamophobic film Innocence of Muslims, which has sparked riots from Yemen to Libya and which, among other slanders, depicts Muhammad as a paedophile. This claim is a recurring one among critics of Islam, so it deserves close scrutiny.

Critics allege that Aisha was just six years old when she was betrothed to Muhammad, himself in his 50s, and only nine when the marriage was consummated. They base this on a saying attributed to Aisha herself, and the debate on this issue is further complicated by the fact that some Muslims believe this to be a historically accurate account. Those who accept this saying argue that, because the Qur'an states that marriage is void unless entered into by consenting adults, Aisha must have begun puberty early.

They point out that, in seventh-century Arabia, adulthood was defined as the onset of puberty. (This much is true, and was also the case in Europe: five centuries after Muhammad's marriage to Aisha, 33-year-old King John of England married 12-year-old Isabella of Angouleme.) According to this perspective, Aisha may have been young, but she was not younger than the norm at the time. Other Muslims doubt the very idea that Aisha was six at the time of marriage, referring to historians who have questioned the reliability of Aisha's age as given in the saying. She had already been engaged to someone else before she married Muhammad, suggesting she had already been mature enough by the standards of her society to consider marriage for a while. It seems difficult to reconcile this with her being six.

In addition, some modern Muslim scholars have more recently cast doubt on the veracity of the saying, or Hadith. In Islam, the Hadith literature is considered secondary to the Qur'an. Hadiths were transmitted over time through a rigorous but not infallible methodology. Based on all known accounts, estimates of her age at marriage range from nine to 19.

Because of this, it is impossible to know how old Aisha was. What we do know is what the Qur'an says about marriage: that it is valid only between consenting adults, and that a woman has the right to choose her own spouse. As the living embodiment of Islam, Muhammad's actions reflect the Qur'an's teachings on marriage.

Sadly, in many countries the motivation for the marriage of young girls is economic. In others, motivations are political. The fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia have both sought to use the saying as a justification for lowering the legal age of marriage tells us much about the patriarchal and oppressive nature of those regimes, and nothing about Muhammad, or the essential nature of Islam.

Political function
In seventh-century Arabia (as in some parts of the world today), marriage typically served a social and political function – a way of uniting tribes, resolving feuds, caring for widows and orphans, and generally strengthening bonds in a highly unstable political environment. Of the women Muhammad married, the majority were widows. To consider the marriages of the prophet outside of these calculations is profoundly ahistorical.

What the records are clear on is that Muhammad and Aisha had a loving and egalitarian relationship, which set the standard for reciprocity, tenderness and respect enjoined by the Qur'an. Insights into their relationship, such as the fact they liked to drink out of the same cup or race one another, are indicative of a deep connection that belies any misrepresentation of their relationship.

To paint Aisha as a victim is completely at odds with her persona. During a controversial battle in Muslim history, she emerged riding a camel to lead the troops. She was known for her assertive temperament. Muhammad established her authority by telling Muslims to consult her in his absence. After his death, she went on to be one of the most prolific and distinguished scholars of her time.

Those who manipulate her story to justify the abuse of young girls and those who manipulate it in order to depict Islam as a religion that legitimises such abuse have more in common than they think. Both demonstrate a disregard for what we know about the times in which Muhammad lived, and for the affirmation of female autonomy that her story embodies.

Source

Defying Parents, Some Pakistani Women Risk All to Marry Whom They Choose

 KARACHI, Pakistan — Nusrat Mochi, now 25, left her parents’ home one day to go to work and never returned. Instead of starting a job as a domestic worker, she ran away to begin a new life, against her family’s wishes, with a husband of her choosing rather than the one they had chosen for her. Her parents’ wrath has trailed her ever since.

In the four years since she and her husband, Abbas Bhatti, now 27, eloped, they have moved twice to escape threats to their lives, they say. Even today, with two small children, they try to keep the location of their home a secret. If threats were not enough, Ms. Mochi’s parents also brought a legal case charging that Mr. Bhatti had kidnapped her.

“I don’t care about my father and mother,” Ms. Mochi said, sitting in her two-room house and cradling her youngest child in her lap. “When they are sending some person to kill me, how can I?”

Their story illustrates the conflicts some women encounter in Pakistan when choosing what are known here as freewill marriages. It also shows how women are increasingly asserting their rights against the traditions of forced marriage and parental authority, implicitly challenging one of the most powerful institutions in Pakistani society.

Though some form of arranged marriage remains the most common way for Pakistanis to find spouses, marriage without the consent of a woman’s guardian was legalized in 2003. The change in the law has created a larger opening for many women to claim their independence, using the courts and the local news media. Ms. Mochi’s parents’ suit was defeated in a Karachi court in April.

The tactics have given more visibility to a problem long considered largely a private matter.

“Things are changing; the girls are becoming bolder, they are continuously taking steps, and they are not afraid to die,” said Mahnaz Rahman, resident director of the Aurat Foundation, a women’s rights organization active throughout Pakistan. “They know that they will be killed, but even then they are taking these steps because they can’t conform to the values of their parents. They are the girls of this modern age.”

When a woman disagrees with her parents’ choice of husband, she has few options, Ms. Rahman said. If she wants to marry someone else, the two must elope and leave the family home behind. By leaving the home, though, the daughter is considered to have dishonored her family, and that is where culture, custom and the legal system intersect with retribution.

Parents frequently press kidnapping charges to regain control of a renegade daughter. Such cases can engulf entire families, as the police will often seize property and detain relatives of the accused man.

When they met and fell in love, Ms. Mochi and Mr. Bhatti were neighbors in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, a section of Karachi. The complication was evident from the start. Ms. Mochi had been promised since birth to her father’s cousin, 15 years her senior. Her family refused to end the engagement.

Her parents have since moved back to their ancestral home, a village in the Rajanpur district of Punjab Province, and could not be reached for comment.

The couple secretly married in a Karachi city court on Aug. 11, 2007, then waited until Mr. Bhatti was able to save money and secure a home for them in another part of the city before making their escape the following year.

Ms. Mochi’s father soon began harassing Mr. Bhatti’s father for the return of his daughter or some monetary compensation. Eventually, the family charged Mr. Bhatti with kidnapping for ransom.

In court, Ms. Mochi was able to testify that she had not been coerced and could produce the affidavit she had signed on their wedding day declaring that the decision to marry was her own.

Such affidavits have become crucial tools in conflicts over freewill marriages. Not only are they produced in court to validate these unions, but they are also presented by women to local Sindhi-language newspapers as “freewill marriage notices,” subverting the traditional concept of the marriage announcement to fend off accusations of abduction and adultery.

The sanction against freewill marriage “has neither to do with law nor with religion,” Ms. Rahman said. “It has to do with culture. It has to do with lack of education.”

Most of the cases Ms. Rahman sees come from rural, impoverished areas of Sindh Province, where tribal councils, or jirgas, hold more influence than state courts. For women who have married without the consent of the family or who have refused the spouse picked for them, community justice is often worse than a long court battle.

Pakistani newspapers routinely carry articles about couples who faced violence as a result of marrying without their families’ consent. In one recent case, The Express Tribune reported last month that a couple, Almas Khan and Shamim Akhtar, were killed in Chakwal, Punjab, over the weekend of Id al-Fitr, the holiday ending Ramadan.

Ms. Akhtar’s father had registered a kidnapping case with the police after the couple eloped. The family contacted their daughter and her husband, saying the pair would be forgiven if they returned. When they complied, they were shot and their bodies strung from a tree.

These killings, called karo-kari in Sindhi, are a constant threat for women who enter into freewill marriages. The women are considered dishonorable, or kari, and become the targets of male relatives looking to restore family prestige. The men, too, can be targets.

Even when such cases are investigated, the killers often escape prison sentences. Under Islamic criminal law, which applies to murder cases in Pakistan, victims’ heirs or family members are entitled to pardon a perpetrator in exchange for monetary compensation. Since most karo-kari killings are committed by close relatives, there is often pressure to forgive the perpetrator, who then goes free.

In its 2011 annual report, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organization, found that, according to news and field reports, at least 943 women were victims of so-called honor killings that year, 219 of them because they wanted to choose a spouse.

Such realities did not discourage Ms. Mochi from making her choice. She was, she said, too consumed by anger on the day she left home. “If they are not allowing me to get married, than I will do it,” she recalled telling herself.

Mr. Bhatti is trying to negotiate an end to the feud so the couple can live in peace, but his wife’s family is demanding 200,000 rupees, or $2,110. He earns 200 rupees a day. Still, he says, he and his wife are content. “We are happy with our every decision,” he said.

Source 

Aisha's age at marriage (ra)

French woman in custody fight with Saudi Prince dies in fall

Suspicions have been raised about the apparently accidental death of a French mother who was gaining ground in a lengthy child custody battle with a Saudi prince.

French authorities insisted yesterday that the death of Candice Cohen-Ahnine, 35, in a fall from her fourth floor apartment in Paris, bore all the signs of an accident. However, friends and her lawyer say she had spoken of a feeling of being under threat in recent days. Despite a previous suicide attempt, they are convinced that she would not have killed herself just weeks before she was due to travel to Saudi Arabia to visit her 10 year old daughter for the first time in four years.

"She was in a state of exaltation, very determined, delighted," said her lawyer, Laurence Tarquiny-Charpentier. "There was a great deal of progress in her case in recent times."

Ms Cohen-Ahnine published a book last year on her struggle to recover her daughter, Haya, who has been held – allegedly in captivity – by her father, Prince Sattam al-Saud of the Saudi royal family, since September 2008.

She fell from the window of her fourth-floor apartment in the eighth arrondissement of Paris, apparently while trying to clamber into the flat next door. Although there was no obvious sign that she had been attacked, friends have suggested to the French media that she might have been trying to flee an assailant. The results of a post-mortem examination released yesterday failed to clear up the mystery. Officials said the autopsy showed that she died as a result of injuries from the fall. "The accident theory appears to have firmed up," one official said.

A French court ruled in January that Haya be restored to her mother's full custody and ordered Prince Sattam to pay child support of €10,000 (£7,800) a month. The prince rejected the ruling but agreed recently that Ms Cohen-Ahnine, who was of French-Jewish origin, could travel to Saudi Arabia to see her daughter next month.

The couple met in London in 1997. After an on-off love affair, Haya was born in November 2001. The prince allegedly refused to marry Ms Cohen-Ahnine because she was Jewish but asked her to remain as his mistress after he married his cousin.

In her book Rendez-moi ma fille ("Give me back my daughter"), she claimed that she was held captive in a palace in Riyadh after taking Haya to visit her father in 2008. She refused to leave without the little girl but, according to her account, the prince's family threatened to bring charges that she was a Muslim who had converted to Judaism – an offence punishable by death under Saudi law. She took fright and, with the help of the French embassy, escaped and returned to France.

Her lawyer said: "This was no suicide. The pain of her separation from her daughter had left its traces but she was also a great fighter, convinced that she would see her daughter again."

The journalist and author Jean-Claude Elfassi, who co-wrote Ms Cohen-Ahnine's book, criticised the French authorities for not fighting her case more strenuously. "Fate was against her," he said. "She promised her daughter the day that she left her: 'I will never abandon you'. And to her last breath, she fought for Haya."

Source

Yasmin Mogahed on Love, Marriage Selecting your Life partner

A Wife

A talk by Shaykh Abdullah Adhami By getting married you are not just getting a wife, you are getting your whole world. From now until the rest of your days your wife will be your partner, your companion, and your best friend. She will share your moments, your days, and your years. She will share your joys and sorrows, your successes and failures, your dreams and your fears. When you are ill, she will take the best care of you; when you need help, she will do all she can for you; When you have a secret, she will keep it; when you need advice, she will give you the best advice. She will always be with you: when you wake up in the morning the first thing your eyes will see will be hers; during the day, she will be with you, if for a moment she is not with you by her physical body, she will be thinking of you, praying for you with all her heart, mind, and soul; when you go to sleep at night, the last thing your eyes will see will be her; and when you are asleep you will still see her in your dreams. In short, she will be your whole world and you will be her whole world. The best description that I personally have ever read describing the closeness of the spouses to each other is the Qur’anic verse which says: “they are your garments and you are their garments” (Surah Al Baqarah 2:187).Indeed,spouses are like garments to each other because they provide one another with the protection, the comfort, the cover, the support, and the adornment that garments provide to humans. Just imagine a journey in the winter of Alaska without garments! Our spouses provide us with the same level of comfort, protection, cover, and support in the journey of our lives on this earth as garments would do in the Alaskan journey. The relationship between the spouses is the most amazing of all human relations: the amount of love and affection, intimacy and closeness, mercy and compassion, peace and tranquillity that fills the hearts of the spouses is simply inexplicable. The only rational explanation for these most amazing of all human feelings is that: it is an act of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, “And Allah has made for you Mates (and Companions) of your own nature …” (Surah Al Nahl 16:72) Only our Almighty Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala in His Infinite Power, Boundless Mercy, and Great Wisdom can create and ingrain these amazing and blessed feelings in the hearts of the spouses. In fact Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala is reminding those who search for His signs in the universe that these feelings in the hearts of the spouses are among the signs that should guide humans to His existence as He says in the Qur’an, “And among His signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves that you may dwell in tranquillity with them and He has put love and mercy between your hearts: verily in that are signs for those who reflect.” (Surah Al Rum 30:21) But Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala knows that the human heart is not a static entity, it is sometimes weak and at times dynamic. Feelings can and do change with time. Love may wither and fade away. The marital bond might weaken if not properly cared for. Happiness in marriage cannot be taken for granted; continuous happiness requires constant giving from both sides. For the tree of marital love to remain alive and keep growing, the soil has to be sustained, maintained, watered and nurtured. Remember that our Prophet Muhammad Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam had found the time to go out to the desert and race with his wife Aisha. She out ran him but later after she had gained some weight, he out ran her. Remember that the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam took his wife to watch the young Ethiopians playing and dancing their folk dances. The show of emotions is necessary to keep the marital bond away from rusting and disintegrating. Remember that you will be rewarded by Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala for any emotions you show to your wife as the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam said “one would be rewarded for anything that he does seeking the pleasure of Allah even the food that he puts in the mouth of his wife.” Never underestimate the importance of seemingly little things as putting food in your wife’s mouth, opening the car’s door for her, etc. Remember that the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam used to extend his knee to his wife to assist her up to ride the camel. Try to always find some time for both of you to pray together. Strengthening the bond between you and Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala is the best guarantee that your own marital bond would always remain strong. Having peace with Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala will always result in having more peace at home. Remember that the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam gave glad tidings for those couples who wake up at night to pray together. The Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam even urged the spouse who rises up first to wake the other spouse up even by throwing cold water on his/her face. Always try your best to be good to your wife by words and by deeds. Talk to her, smile to her, seek her advice, ask for her opinion, spend quality time with her and always remember that the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam said “the best of you are those who are best to their wives.” Finally, it is common that spouses vow to love and honor their spouses until death do them part. I do believe that this vow is good or even great, but not enough! It is not enough that you love your wife. You have to love what she loves as well. Her family, her loved ones must also become your loved ones. Don’t be like my colleague who was unhappy about his wife’s parents coming to visit for few weeks. He candidly said to her “I don’t like your parents.” Naturally, she angrily looked at him straight in the eye and said ” I don’t like yours either”… Also, it is not enough that you love her until death do you part. Love should never end and we do believe there is life after death where those who did righteousness in this world will be joined by their spouses , “Enter Paradise, together with your spouses, and rejoice.(Surah Al Zukhruf 43:70)” and offsprings. source

Fairly self-explanatory

The Muslim Spinster Crisis

Marriage is a very important part of Muslim culture. In fact, as soon as most Muslims enter their late teens, parents start dropping hints about marriage. Often you are expected to get married, or at least engaged, in you early-20s and if you get to the ripe old age of 30 without being married, your community starts to pity you and question your normality.

It is not an easy or comfortable environment to be raised in, especially if you have strong views about the kind of person you want to spend the rest of your life with. However, it has been further complicated in recent years by the fact that many Muslim women, in particular, simply can’t find suitable Muslim men.
This is a trend that I had detected anecdotally many years ago but in recent months it has been reported in a number of media outlets too. This is a welcome development in my view because having the discussion in public allows us all to explore the dynamics that are contributing towards this imbalance.

Syma Mohammed is one such woman who wrote about her experiences for the Guardian a few months back. She attended a Muslim marriage event in Glasgow only to find that there were five women to every man. In her words “Well turned out women sat around dejected, twiddling their thumbs, waiting to speak to the select few”. She went on to say that nearly all Muslim singles events in this country are female dominated with the average age of women typically being higher than the men.
So what is going on?
Firstly, Western Muslim women are more likely to be better educated and more discerning about their future choice of marriage partner than their male counterparts. They are, therefore, less likely to want to go back to the ‘motherland’ to find a companion who will most likely be of a radically different mindset and will struggle to be the main breadwinner. Secondly, they are also forbidden from marrying non-Muslim men, both by orthodox religious authorities and their communities and families in general.

So whilst Muslim men are free to choose from half the population and the millions of women in places like Pakistan who dream of moving to the West for a better life, their female counter-parts, or at least those who want a say in their marriage, are stuck with the few men who didn’t get married for whatever reason.
In some cases, this can result in women reluctantly marrying men at 31 who they wouldn’t have given a second look at 21. In other cases, it can result in women remaining single for the rest of their lives since relationships outside of marriage are culturally taboo.

The situation for the women is made more difficult by the fact that men, consciously or subconsciously, use their mothers as their role models. In many Muslim families, especially first generation immigrants, women play a subservient role and, therefore, their sons are less inclined to go for a partner who is better educated, strong minded and outspoken. As such, an overtly obedient village girl from abroad who stays at home and looks after their mother becomes an attractive option.
This current situation is unsustainable to say the least and the changes required to alter it in the short to medium term are too radical for a community that rarely welcomes change. Furthermore, such problems are also, at least partially, symptomatic of the lack of personal freedom and individuality in Muslim communities. Group-think preserves cultural practises that are dysfunctional when maintained in a different time or context.

In the long term, I do believe that things will change for the better as third and fourth generation Muslim men are less likely to want to marry women from completely different cultures. Muslim women are also more likely to start partnering with non-Muslim men as the grip of the tribe gets weaker and people interact more. In fact, an increasing number of Muslim women are already marrying non-Muslim men and an Imam in Oxford called Taj Hargey is encouraging the practise and providing support for such couples.

However, in the short-term the males in Muslim communities face a stark choice. They either have to stop discouraging Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men or start discouraging Muslim men from marrying women from abroad. To do neither is to allow the Muslim spinster crisis to continue and even get worse.

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British Muslim women willing to share husbands as they struggle to find good men

As they struggle to find suitable husbands, successful British Muslim women have shown a willingness to become second or third wives reports the British newspaper The Daily Mail.


The UK-based charity, Islamic Sharia Council, said that it is receiving a high number of queries from Muslim women struggling to find suitable partners, the newspaper reported Sunday.

In addition to the demographics working against Muslim women, the Daily Mail said that many of the women prefer to keep their high-profile jobs than look after their husbands.

Mizan Raja, 35, who organizes Muslim marriages around the world, told another British newspaper, The Sunday Times, that he has received hundreds of calls in the past six months from women asking about becoming second wives.

“The demand for these relationships is led by the women, not the men. In one generation women have become educated, entrepreneurial and professional.
“The Muslim community is struggling with this, how do you cope with women who wear trousers?” he said.

He added that many Muslim men just wanted a “homemaker”, to come home to a clean house and a plate of food on the table.

A report by The Guardian newspaper in January also collaborated how Muslim women in the UK were struggling to find suitable husbands. The paper described demographic imbalance where women outnumbered men, making the task of finding a partner that much harder.

While polygamy is illegal in the UK, Muslim men are allowed to take up to four wives.

Islam allows men to marry women from the Abrahamic faiths but Muslim women are not allowed to do the same unless the prospective men are willing to convert to Islam.

The Guardian said that Muslim men can marry women from their countries’ of origin whereas for Muslim women, “marrying men from their country of origin is rarely considered an option as they tend to want social, economic and intellectual equals or superiors.” source

Why British Muslim women struggle to find a marriage partner

A few years ago, at the behest of my mother, I attended a Muslim marriage event in Glasgow. These are events where Muslim men and women meet for the purpose of seeking an ideal marriage partner.

At the event, there were around five women to every man. Well-turned-out women sat around dejected, twiddling their thumbs, waiting to speak to the select few.

Sadly, it's not an isolated example. Up and down the country, hundreds of women in their 30s and 40s within the Asian Muslim community are struggling to find a marriage partner.

Nearly all Muslim singles events are female-dominated, unless organisers artificially construct a level playing field by selling equal numbers of male and female tickets.

In the latter case, there's always a stampede for female tickets. December's Canary Wharf Professionals Muslim marriage event saw the female ticket quota sell out three weeks before, whereas the male ticket quota only sold out days before.

Moreover, the average age of women at such events is typically higher than men. Rooful Ali, founder of Emerald Muslim events, believes that the average age of women attending tends to be early 30s, while for men it is late 20s.

Such occurrences are symptomatic of the growing Muslim spinster crisis, which has been brewing for some time and is rooted in cultural, rather than religious, trends.

First, there has always been a tradition for British men originating from the Indian subcontinent to marry women from their country of origin. Families encourage their sons to do so for a host of reasons, including the cultural expectation that girls from "back home" will stay with and look after their in-laws.

The second trend is for Muslim men to marry "women of the book" (Christian or Jewish women), which is permissible in Islam. Men are more likely to work and socialise with British Christian women than their female Muslim counterparts, which leads to a higher chance of such marriages occurring.

Both trends lead to a shortfall of available Muslim men.

For Muslim women, marrying men from their country of origin is rarely considered an option as they tend to want social, economic and intellectual equals or superiors. Men from their country of origin tend to have different mindsets and struggle to find jobs no matter how well qualified they are, thereby leaving women as the main breadwinners. This situation can often create a strenuous dynamic in relationships with men from patriarchal cultures.

Muslim women, unlike men, are restricted as to whom they can marry. Marrying men outside the faith is only considered permissible in most communities if the men convert.

Moreover, in line with national trends, Muslim women academically outperform the men. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's How Fair is Britain? report, Bangladeshi and Pakistani women are more likely to be employed as professionals than their male counterparts. This means that professional Muslim women have an even smaller pool of intellectual and economic equals to choose from.

This is exacerbated by the fact that Asian men are likely to choose partners of lower economic and intellectual status as they traditionally grow up with working fathers and stay-at-home mothers, and generally choose to replicate this model.

Unfortunately, these imbalances are not widely acknowledged – many label older unmarried women as fussy. The effect on women is crippling. Many become depressed as a huge amount of importance is attached to marriage, and unmarried women are made to feel that they've failed.

Any real solution would require a complete cultural shift in mindset by parents, community leaders and imams. This will need geographically, socially and economically fractured communities to work together to achieve change – no easy feat. Until they do so, many women who want to marry men of the same faith will continue to struggle.
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Child marriages: Why are they still legal?

Ask yourself this simple question. Would you enter into a contract with a child? Would you consider anyone under the age of 16 or even 18 to be mature enough to make a life-changing decision and be bound by the terms of this decision for life? Most people would say no!

Let us consider the validity of a contract from a legal perspective. Since the beginning of time, for a contract to be deemed valid, there must be informed consent from both parties to the agreement. One cannot enter into a valid contract with someone who does not have the mental or legal capacity to truly know and understand the terms to which they are agreeing. There must be a reason why, legally, a person under the age of 16, 18 or 21 in some countries is considered to be a minor — and thus mentally unfit to be a party to a contract.

Marriage is a form of contract, and it is not just any kind of contract, it is a contract that changes one’s life and affects a person’s entire being in the most relevant ways. Even in Islam, for this contract to be valid, there must be “informed consent” from both parties otherwise the marriage will be considered null and void and thus, legally, there are justified grounds for annulment. Both Islamic Law and Saudi Law require full consent of both parties to the contract for it to be lawful.

Therefore, it could be said that a child under the age of 18 cannot possibly be a party to a contract. The final decision to enter into a marriage is for the woman and the man to make, which means that a marriage with any undue influence would be void. A child (anyone under the age of 18) cannot possibly be deemed mature or mentally capable to enter into such a contract with another person, and especially not with someone who is 10, 20, 30 years her senior. Moreover, the practice of forced child marriage is a clear violation of Islamic principles and laws since Islam made it clear that a woman’s consent is vital for a marriage to be considered valid, even if the said child being wed has already reached puberty.

The most commonly used justification for child marriage is that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) married Aisha (known as the mother of the believers) at the tender age of 9. Yes, indeed the prophet did marry Aisha when she was a child, but the Prophet wed Aisha so young in order for her to become his student and after his death, she would go on teaching Islam. Aisha was married at 9 so that she could live in the Prophet’s home and breath the Prophet’s ways so that her mission of continuing his legacy in teaching Islam would be possible. It is also well known that the Prophet and his young wife were not “married” until she was 15 or older as per the most of the Islamic historical sources. The reality of the child marriages that take place today is far from justifiable no matter how much one tries to find valid reasons for their occurrence.

Saudi Arabia has no law setting a minimum age for marriage for either gender. There have been repeated talks and so-called reforms that are supposed to happen in order to end child marriage that take place today. The controversially still-legal act of marrying a child not only defies true Islamic teachings of consent, but also human nature as a whole.

Human rights activists are speaking out against the marriage of children, including Zuhair Al-Harithi, a spokesman for the Human Rights Commission, who said that Saudi Arabia has approved and signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines a child as someone under 18, therefore the practice of child marriages violates the international agreements the Kingdom signed and is a party to. In addition the Saudi National Human Rights Association has criticized child marriages saying that it was a violation of childhood. The association continues to work with the authorities to restrain the practice and protect children’s rights.

Sheikh Muhammad Al-Nujaimi who is a strong opponent of child marriages and other Islamic scholars, activists and writers have urged the government to pass legislation setting the minimum age for marriage and to resolve differences among the Kingdom’s religious authorities over the issue. Since there are so many different (religious) opinions around the truth behind child marriages and what is considered an old enough age to marry means that, as a nation, we need to settle the issue through legislation.

— Ms Tala Al-Hejailan is a lawyer at DLA Piper, Saudi Arabia.

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Broken Vows Free vs. Forced Marriages by Khalid Latif

Meeting your Wife in Paradise...FUNNY Nouman Ali Khan...

Bridal slaves

India has one of the world's fastest growing economies. But the southwest Asian country also has the largest number of slaves in the world

In the midst of widespread poverty, fueled by economic inequality and rampant corruption, a new form of slavery - bridal slavery - has flourished. Women and young girls are sold for as little as $120 to men who often burden them with strenuous labour and abuse them.

In a country where female children are sometimes considered a financial burden, the common practice of infanticide and gender-selective abortion has led to a shortfall in the number of women available for marriage - something made all the more problematic by high dowry costs. Experts say this has encouraged bride trafficking.

Jamila, a former bride slave, says her traffickers kidnapped and drugged her, before selling her to an abusive man. "He would hit me and beat me day and night. I would have to work all day in the heat .... That's no life .... Is it worth living?"

Shafiq Khan, who runs a grassroots organisation dedicated to tracking down bride traffickers and their victims, explains: "The girls do equal amounts of work in two jobs. They are sex slaves, not just to one man but a group of 10 or 12 men. Apart from that there is agriculture - working on the farms with animals from morning until night."

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Desi Husband by Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan

Mashllah I love this brother!