ADVICE ON GETTING MARRIED

Are you married? No?

All the more reason for you to listen very attentively! It is a good thing that these matters are being discussed. Insha-allah taala, you will make a good home.

Firstly, look carefully before you get married. Find out about the family and the girls background. Find out about her manners and character.

Do not look just at the eyes, whether she has big, beautiful eyes or not! How will you know whether her heart is big or small? I am pointing this out because youngsters look merely at the face: What are her eyes like? What is her complexion like? But completely unconcerned about what her inside is like!

Habits will remain forever, but youthful colour and complexion will not remain forever. Just see what happens after she has borne a few children, or after an illness lasting some months - that youthful face quickly fades away. As for habits? They remain forever.

I am pointing out these matters to the youngsters because this is an age full of fitnah.

In Europe, England, Africa and other countries the boy and girl insist on seeing each other first. This is not so here. The special shan of this province (U.P) is that the parents arrange the marriage. But this is changing even here. People from outside are coming to stay here. Also, girls are now being given an education. The result is that they have become more teri! By receiving western education girls have become more bent! Now they are even more teri!

Take karela. It is a very bitter vegetable. You now cross it with neem, another bitter plant. The result will be that now you will have karela that are even more bitter!

So too, the female. She is bitter by nature, and now that she is educated, this crossing has made her more bitter! To cope with her now is even more difficult!

I insist on going on a holiday, she is adamant. You and I are incompatible, molvi saheb. Why are you keeping me here in a prison?

Mind you, she now calls pardah a prison!

Come to think of it, is it not better to confine some people to a prison or to an asylum, rather than letting them out?

Women are best kept in the house, rather than let out, or else they will get wings and fly away! Once they set their feet outside, you will not get them back!

The European style is for the boy and girl to see one another before getting married. I want to see first! is what is insisted on. Idiot, what are you going to see? Oh, very well, very well, if you insist. Arrangements are made to go and have a cup of tea. The girl is handed the tray to serve the guests, so that the boy has an opportunity to see her. For a few fleeting seconds his eyes fall on her before she disappears again.

What has he seen in those few seconds? He has had no time to note the colour of her eyes, or the shape of her nose, or her complexion. Yes, he has some vague perception that she appears to be pretty. What an achievement!

So, on the third day of the marriage, he has given her talaq!

If he had made nikah to her, satisfied at seeing her, why the talaq? The reason is that he had merely seen her countenance and not her habits. After marriage he is now face to face with her habits. Appearance (surat) is a passing thing, behaviour and character (seerat) are for always.

These comments are made incidentally.

We were discussing the wife. If she makes teri statements, if she speaks insolently, if she says things contrary to ones temperament, there is no cause for surprise. And if there is no cause for amazement, then there is no cause for grief. And if there is no cause for grief, then there is no cause for ghussah (anger)! Then, insha-allah taala, there will be life-long compatibility, because you will remind yourself all the time, Allah Taala has created her such for our islah, from the rib of the left side, teri!.

Therefore, the real ahlullah show a tremendous degree of hilm and burdabari towards such wives. The question of talaq does not arise.

For Friends ... Ml. Maseehullah Khan Saheb