This practice is actually a tradition of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who married Ayesha, may Allah be pleased with her, and delayed consummation until she was older.

After over 18 months of being married by nikaḥ kitāba, today marks the day my wife and I will be having our “ruksathi” wedding party after which will begin to live our lives together forever, inshaAllah. After a wonderful year and a half of a beautiful relationship Allah blessed us with, we came up with what we feel is an essential survival guide for couples undergoing the same journey we just completed. If you are married by nikāḥ kitāba or will be in the future, then this list is for you.

1. Know your intention

Unfortunately, having the correct intention is often overlooked as the typically cliché and skip-over introduction point to anything. However, here as much as always, you will find it to be critically important. You, your spouse, and your families have agreed to join together in marriage and delay living together until later. In addition to being a tradition of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, it may also serve as a means of worshipping Allah. You could have decided to practice other less sound relationship methods, but instead chose to perform nikāḥ right away. Always remember this goal of pleasing Allah, as remembering Him in times of good as well as bad will make it much easier to reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

2. Don’t play games

With long distance relationships, communication via the phone or internet may become your relationship’s only lifeline. With such limitation, you’re going to run into some roadblocks in getting important cues and messages through to your significant other. Since you have no avenue to use physical gestures to express your feelings, don’t play guessing games with your spouse. If you’re upset, just say it! Both of you don’t want things to drag and the sooner you speak up, the sooner you’ll find yourselves laughing together again.

3. Understand that your spouse has another life

You may find yourself at times frustrated that your spouse is busy and can’t speak on the phone, or they don’t pick up the phone whenever you find the chance to call. Don’t stress it. This is simply a natural result of having a long-distance relationship. Whether the distance is across the globe or across the street, understand if the other is busy or cannot visit. Always believe they wish they could talk to you or see you more, and never accuse them of the opposite. There may be things on the other end you just cannot see to understand why they are so busy (i.e. actual fatigue, stress with school or career, family responsibilities, etc). Understanding that your spouse can be busy will help during times when communication and visits are hard to get going.

4. Increase your relationship with your in-laws

Use your time wisely to get to know not only one another but each others family while you’re at it. Of course it may be difficult to remember your in-laws when all you can think about is the wonderful new person in your life, but don’t forget the people that helped culture them in the first place. Make time to speak to in-laws on the phone, and remind your spouse to do likewise. When you visit one another don’t only try to run off alone. Instead, spend time with your parents and siblings-in-law and build a relationship while everything is still sort of “casual”. Making way for in-laws may require more effort than is needed for one’s spouse, but it will only strengthen the bond between you two for the long-run.

5. Make effort to schedule physical meetings

Not every couple in nikaḥ kitāba can easily visit one another, but if the means are there for you, take them. Physical interaction with one’s spouse is very important, and must be a part of your relationship if the possibility exists. Sure you’re limited to not being able to live with one another, but based on your agreed conditions in your marriage, make ways with your family and schedule to visit your spouse as much as you can. Being able to see one another can be one of the best ways to get through the time period which you have to endure before you eventually get to see each other every single day.

6. Strengthen your Iman with your spouse

You are undoubtedly going to find ways to visit one another, and even if you don’t you will find yourself talking to each other every day. Remember that you’re not just some random couple “dating” or in a relationship, you’re married and you’re Muslim. Therefore it’s important to build your Islamic relationship with one another. Find local events, seminars, classes, halaqahs, or conferences and make plans to go attend them together. Buy each other Islamic audio CDs and books to read and discuss. Or, just take it back to the basics: maintain a consistent daily reciting of Qur’ān and reading of the meaning to one another over the phone. Do something, anything; but just make you’re sure doing it and doing it consistently. You can have the best emotional, mental, physical and family relationship ever, but without a solid spiritual foundation, everything else will collapse.

7. Be yourself

Marriage can be a bit scary in the fear of wondering what the other person
will think about your habits, tendencies, and weaknesses. However, one of its beautiful aspects comes when you are able to be yourself in front of your spouse just the way you are, and your understanding and acceptance of one another further strengthens your love. Don’t try to hide behind formalities of what you think a spouse should or shouldn’t do. This is the time to be who you are and let your spouse get to know the real you without the added pressure of living together. If your spouse becomes familiar with your actual self before your wedding party, the transition should be a lot easier when that cherised time eventually comes, bi’ithniAllah.

We hope you’ve benefited from this list for your current or future marriage. This advice is in no way exhaustive, and there are many other tips for couples in nikāḥ kitāba, so if you have anything else, please feel free to share it here.

We ask Allah ‘azza wa jal to bless all couples everywhere and give us all the ability to preserve our communities’ relationships into the future, and that He makes marriage easy for those whom it is difficult and serve as a means to Jannah and His pleasure.

1) I am a Muslim woman.
2) I am between the ages of 25-30 years.
3) Masha’Allah, I am educated to the postgrad level (otherwise known as “overeducated” by my dear mum).
4) Oh yeah… I am single, and desperately looking for a decent guy to wed!

Okay, so scratch the “desperately”.

Even though I hail from the other side of the Atlantic pond, I did empathise with the main character of the article, sister “Afaf” (more…)

• GTA’s (Greater Toronto Area) Secret World of Polygamy
• I do, I do, I do. The Last Taboo
• Questions Surround Disputed Polygamy Law
• Polygamy is a crime, non?

I must admit, it took me some time to fully digest these articles, and their possible ramifications. The articles are apparently written by a Muslim sisters and are quite troublesome to me, but not necessarily for the reasons you may think.

In the Secret World of Polygamy article, the author recounts the story of a Muslim woman with 4 children who suddenly found out that her husband had taken on a second wife while she was in Egypt. The article is quite critical of one particular Imam who performs the nikkah for some polygynous marriages, and tries very hard to insinuate that these marriages are against the law, despite quotes from authorities indicating otherwise since they are not officially filed in court.

In the last article linked to above, it tells the story of a man who came home to find his wife with another man, and told that they had been married. He took his kids and went straight to the cops.

The environment that we live in is one that is marred by misrepresentation of Muslims, especially in national media. While many hope that we will have more Muslims involved in fields such as journalism to help combat this, it does not help when Muslims write about Muslim issues that can be construed to contributing to the problem instead of the solution. (more…)

I found a story written from www.themuslimhousewife.com about this issue with a personal story unlike any I had ever heard before. It also includes a cameo by Shaykh Yasir Qadhi, and is posted in full here, followed by my thoughts. (more…)

In my career as an instructor of “Fiqh of Love” and “Love Notes” with AlMaghrib Institute, the activity and survey sessions conducted in the class environment included many personal questions submitted by students (both men and women), regarding marriage and marital life. Through this, and the overwhelming marriage counseling sessions and advices given in the course of the past four to five years, I was able to collect enough data and statistics to open a window on the status of social life in the Muslim community in America and provide an insight into the crisis of marriage we face here. The findings com from multiple locations all around the country including places such as Houston, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, The Bay Area and elsewhere - and the results were startling. The marriage crisis is a big crisis indeed, and while many of our respected older generation are unaware of it, or at least act like that, the youth were left helpless and sometimes hopeless.

In my lecture at Ilmfest in NY “The Crisis of Marriage” back in March 2008, I attempted to speak for the youth, voice their concern and highlight some of these findings, which I’m working on publishing as a separate research insha’Allah. Many of these problems fall into systematic categories that can be summarized into three: (more…)

Article by Rami Mahmoud Elsawah
Photo by Think Tank

Islamic matrimonial services….

Auntie networks…

Friends who can’t even get married themselves…

The average Muslim waits two to three years to get married from the time he or she begins searching, according to a friend of mine in the matrimonial business. I did not believe him until two years ago, when I began actively searching for a spouse myself. I thought the process would be easy as pie. After all, I can cook very well, am kind to my mother, religiously conservative, and have been told I have good character. Yet now, single and frustrated, I have come to take aim at the disdainful state of the social networks available for Muslims to get married. You would think after all, that the cooking factor alone would have had the sisters lining up out the door with applications in hand.

(more…)

By Irum Sarfaraz

The wise have said that no matter how strong a person is, he definitely has one Achilles heel. Compared to women of any other society and religion, I consider Muslim women no less an epitome of wonder women. And their Achilles heel? Their husband’s second marriage. Its been years and years and I still haven’t found a single woman who wouldn’t object to her husband’s second marriage and would be willing to have a big heart just for the sake of two reasons; Islam has given him to permission to and he wants to. If ever I am in a really boring party where chances of the guests falling asleep are getting really strong, I shoot this question and lo and behold they are all not only awake but arguing in such heated contention as if their husbands are just about to get married in the next room!

I know it is a cultural phenomena and one of the stigmas of the Asian societies that ‘a husband’s second wife is the worst thing that can happen to a woman’. The Arabs have no issue with it because (more…)

Sex Ed., by Sh. Yaser Birjas

A lecture that broke all taboos, to tell things as it is.

The shaykh delivered a MUCH needed lecture on the proper etiquettes of the bedroom for a Muslim couple, going way beyond the syllabus of “Fiqh of Love”, to very explicit details that I won’t mention here (I don’t feel a blog is the proper place to discuss this). Suffice to say that, insha’Allah, every married couple would benefit from learning the specifics covered in this lecture - specifics that many are too afraid to mention - but should not be afraid to mention, as long as the discussion takes place in the proper setting, with the appropriate conduct.

(more…)

I’m writing from the convention center… I’m attending all of the lectures by our dear Shaykh Salah al-Sawi. He is giving an intensive series on the Fiqh of Family life, very interesting.

Its amazing to see ALL of us speakers, whenever we don’t have our own lectures, are eager to attend Sh. Salah’s lectures. Right now I have Kamal al-Makki, Isam Rajab and Yassir Fazaqa next to me (Yaser Birjas is giving his own lecture now, but attended the previous sessions).

It’s only in Arabic, so audience is the smallest out of all the lectures, but of course its the most academic.

May Allah bless Sh. Salah, and all of the other people of knowledge who benefit the Ummah!

—

Bro. ibnabeeomar was kind enough to stay up past his bed time in order to bring the MM readers a quick recap of Saturday’s talks on “Archetype of a Muslim Husband”, “Rules of Islamic Engagement” & “Men are from Mecca, Women are from Medinah”:

(more…)

The Vancouver Sun has a huge “exclusive report” on the subject, covering it’s history, legal standing, and the court cases against Warren Jeffs and other members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. I recommend going through all the articles, which are fascinating (in a horrifying way) in and of themselves, as well as making us fervently grateful to Allah for the Shari’ah He blessed us with that would prevent such a situation from occuring amongst Muslims (assuming that the Shari’ah was being properly implemented and practiced; and yes, I know that reality is very different from our ideals). There is so much that is so wrong about what’s going on in Bountiful that I won’t even bother writing about it - the shock you’ll feel as you read about it will be the same feeling I experienced, along with horror, pity, and the urgent desire to go make Da’wah to them. Anyway, moving on: (more…)