Auto-generated transcript:
Bismillah walhamdulillah wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah.
Wa ba’d.
My brothers and sisters, a friend of mine asked me to share some thoughts on what makes a happy marriage.
And I guess I have some claim to speaking on this subject because my wife and I, we’ve been happily married now for 40 years.
We got married in 1985 and now it’s 2025.
Very quick short list of what makes a happy marriage.
And then maybe we’ll talk about it.
Maybe we’ll talk a little more in detail.
Very short list.
Number one, marry after you start your career.
I’m not saying after you achieve your long-term goals because that’s, you know, takes a long time.
You want to get married before that.
You need a companion in your life who you can literally trust with your life.
So you need a partner.
Believe me, I’m all 100% for it.
Believe me, I’m all 100% for it.
Believe me, I’m all 100% for it.
I’m in favor of getting married.
I think there’s people who are not married are really missing out a very, very major part of their life.
So it’s very important to get married.
The question is when.
So the first thing is when your career has started.
I started working in 1979.
I got married in 1985.
So that’s to give you some idea.
And there’s no compromise.
There’s no exceptions to what I’m about to say.
Get married only, and only and only, if you can support your wife.
Totally and completely.
I’m talking to the men because in Islam, it is the job of the man to support his wife, not vice versa.
So, make sure that you can financially support your wife.
Not with anybody’s help, yourself.
If you say, well, you know, I can support my wife, I’m getting married,
my parents said we could stay with them and my dad will pay the bills.
No, sorry. You’re marrying the woman, not your dad.
Your dad will pay for the woman that he’s married to.
You pay for the woman that you’re married to.
And if you cannot pay, then take cold showers and fast.
Because that is what Rasool Allah told us.
They had this very clear, he said, when a person,
when a young man is ready to be married, he should marry.
He should not delay. They asked him, what is ready?
He said, ready is when you can support your wife.
That is ready. Ready is not when you are, you know, just full of emotions,
full of hormones. No, that’s not ready.
So, ready when you… So, start your career and then get married.
So, the number one age at which you get married, because then you need some level of maturity.
I got married at the age of 40… at the age of 30.
Presumably, I had some maturity.
Women tend to be more mature and they get mature earlier than men.
I am not talking about physical maturity. I’m talking about emotional maturity.
Wisdom, understanding and so on. Women get that faster than men do.
And so, if you compare two 90-year-olds, they are not that young.
The man is 19 physically and…
Morning!
Morning!
Physically and mentally and emotionally, the woman is at least 25.
So, it’s important to have parity in that.
So get married when you are emotionally mature.
And third thing is get married when you have the wherewithal, the means to support your wife.
You, yourself.
You, yourself.
Without help from anyone, not parents, not anybody else.
So three, in my view, very important criteria for success in marriage.
So, I did that.
Fourth criterion is to marry somebody who has…
A personal interest, a personal, you know, career even, which she is serious about.
And ensure that you give each other space to be able to fulfill yourselves in that area of your life,
in the area of…
Your career, your choices.
Now, career doesn’t necessarily mean that your wife has to work for some corporate organization,
you know, traveling all over the world and so on.
That is not a good idea because the whole point of marriage is to be together.
And if you have…
Some people have this weekend marriages kind of thing, you know.
You see each other only on the weekends.
And that’s not a marriage, I mean, you know.
You are not living in a hotel, you have a home.
So, but at the same time, if you do not have…
If your wife does not have a career, she doesn’t have something to do to occupy herself usefully and sufficiently,
then the demand on you for your time, your energy, your attention will become overpowering.
And you will either give in to that demand and your own career and your own ambition will suffer.
And more than likely you will not be able to achieve that.
Or you will say goodbye to the marriage.
You will buy for yourself a lot of grief in the marriage.
Remember that the…
In Islam, the woman has the right.
It is her right to demand.
To demand attention.
So if you put yourself in a position where she needs that attention and she is demanding it, you have to give it.
And then what do you do?
So, then what do you do?
So, be clear about that.
Have…
Marry somebody who has their own career, their own, you know, interests.
And that they are able to pursue that without destroying the marriage.
My wife is an abstract artist.
And I am a leadership consultant.
I am an author and so forth.
And the way we have…
We live and we have lived and worked now for forty years is…
I say we meet at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Umm…
Don’t take that too literally but more than…
More often than not that’s how it works.
She is in her studio with her paints and her art.
I am in my study with my writing, reading and so forth.
Umm…
I go for long walks.
Umm…
A couple of hours at a time.
And we have lived happily ever after.
When we meet, we chat, we talk, we argue sometimes on…
Various matters.
And…
You know, we have our opinions.
She has her reading, I have my reading.
And so on.
So, this is how it works for us and it works wonderfully well.
So, that’s something that I would kind of recommend if you…
If you like.
Do you as well and say that…
Do that.
Have somebody who has this kind of interest in…
Of her own and give them…
Give each other the space to pursue your independent interests.
Don’t be in each other’s hair all the time.
Third thing is, postpone children until your marriage is stable.
Because, believe me, once a child comes onto the scene, entire attention shifts.
And it should shift onto the child.
You will kiss goodbye to your career, to your ambition, to your life goal for the next twenty years.
Because your life goal will become that child.
Your eating, your sleeping, your daily timetable, umm…
Where you live, which city, which town, which country even perhaps.
Everything.
Everything will depend on that child or children.
And as I said, don’t complain about it because that is how it should be.
Umm…
You are supposed to take care of those children.
And if you are serious about that, if you are not serious about that, you are in trouble with Allah as well.
And if you are serious about that, then you are quite literally kissing goodbye to…
your ambition.
All the great goals that you thought you were going to achieve become…
I won’t say impossible, but they become very, very…
you know, unlikely.
It will be a huge stretch to do that.
So think very carefully about having children.
And then when you are ready to have children, by all means, go ahead.
But until then, make sure you don’t have them.
Now, in my case, as I told you, I got married almost five, six years after I started working.
I was still not completely sure about my career, what I wanted it to be.
But all the work that I did was unconsciously building up towards the career in leadership that I wanted.
And eventually, I decided on that in 1983.
And that’s what I have been doing for the rest of my… for my life since then, in my life since then.
So…
I decided on the career.
And then say, what does it career?
What does it require?
Now, here is where the rubber meets the road.
And that’s why I said it’s very important to have a person who is supportive, a wife who is supportive.
Because in many cases, as also happened in my case,
support literally means
that your wife has to put
her…
her desire,
her goal
secondary to yours.
That’s what it really means in real time.
If she wants to do something, it has to be done considering whether it is convenient for you
and convenient for your career,
and whether it supports your goals or not.
Now, my wife did that.
She consistently did that.
And she continues to do that for the last 40 years.
I wish you somebody like that, like my wife.
But I don’t think you will get it because according to me, Allah made one.
And that’s it.
But anyway, maybe you will get a second best which is not as good but maybe equally useful.
So, question of priorities.
And my wife gave and continues to give priority to my career choices,
my career demands over whatever she wants to do.
As I said, it is not a one-time thing.
She has done that consistently throughout her life.
I don’t even talk about, you know, expressing gratitude and so on and so forth.
I don’t think I can.
I don’t think there is… anybody can’t.
I just make dua to Allah .
See, Allah, You gave me this.
You gave me this absolutely fantastic woman.
Just make me be the best thing that happened to her.
I don’t think I am.
But… and I’m not being modest or anything like that.
I mean, I know myself.
But I say to Allah ,
Allah, forgive me.
Do not let that affect her heart.
And how to say, you know, 40 years have gone by.
How much forgot Allah from you.
Or how much time when Allah came to show all my emotions,
andまぁ what’s happening in me what am I going to do
I do this and that.
I do all that.
And there is no time to give up.
That’s it.
Right now.
That’s a good lengths than that.
If you only could learn that for the rest of your life.
That the time you better stop putting yourself on a sit-down position.
Because Allah says,
وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُمْ مَوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً
إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la said in Surah Al-Rum, which means,
and among His ayat, among His signs,
is that He created for you, from among you, your mates.
He created for you, from among you, your mates.
And then Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la said, why did He create them?
And He gave us the reason.
So that you may find sukoon with them.
So that you may find…
peace of mind with them, peace of heart with them.
If you take the diacritical signs,
the harakat, the matras,
in the Arabic language,
and they’re the same in Urdu, for example, and Farsi,
you have what is called in Urdu,
zawar, zeir, pesh, and jazm.
And in Arabic,
we say,
fatha, damma, kasra, and sukoon.
Now,
zawar, zeir, pesh,
fatha, kasra, damma,
are a-i-u.
These are the sounds.
And in Arabic, they’re called harakat, movements,
because this is how the vowel moves.
This is how the sound of the letter moves.
It goes up, it goes down,
and it has the u sound.
So…
But when it comes to the sukoon, the jazm,
a letter on which that diacritical sign is placed,
does not move.
Sukoon is the absence of movement.
Sukoon is the absence of movement.
Sukoon is the absence of movement.
Sukoon is to be tranquil and to rest,
to be in a state of rest,
a state of tranquility where you are.
There is no desire to go anywhere away from where you are.
So if I am in sukoon in one place,
it means that I do not wish to go anywhere else.
I am in this one place,
I am in sukoon,
and that is where I wish to stay.
In the context of the marriage,
sukoon means, firstly,
that the two people are undertaking
to say that from this moment onwards,
from the akhdu nikah,
we will not move away from our spouse.
Physically, mentally, emotionally,
our affections, everything,
everything will not stray away
from the person that I married.
And remember,
you are saying that unconditionally.
You are not saying that my,
you are not saying my,
my thoughts, my emotions,
my attention and so on
will not move away,
provided,
my husband does this, this, this,
my wife does this, this, this.
There is no wish list.
There is no condition.
They will not move away, period.
So what about when the husband is
irritable or irritating?
What about when the wife has her PMS,
which she will have every month?
What about this and that?
What about when my husband is
stressed out in his work and,
you know, unwittingly, unknowingly,
he is taking it out on me
and on the children
and on the cat or the dog or whatever?
What about that?
Well, what about that?
What about it?
That is why you are married.
You are married to support him
in times when you need support.
When are you going to support him?
When he is absolutely stable and,
you know, gung-ho, everything is going fine.
He does not need any support.
That’s when you want to support him.
You want to support him when he needs support.
When he is helpless,
when he is crying without crying,
without tears,
when he needs help but he is
too proud or too stupid to ask for it.
You need to support him.
You need to help him in ways
which do not take away his dignity
and vice versa for the woman.
When do you want to support her?
When she doesn’t need it?
Or when she is going through emotional stress?
When she is going through
the stress that you are creating for her, probably.
That’s when she needs your support.
Are you going to do that?
Or are you going to now,
at that time when she needs it the most,
are you going to withdraw?
So it’s extremely important to understand this,
Sukhom,
that you will not stray away
from your spouse.
Sukhom also means
lack of conflict.
A ship is created,
is built to withstand storms,
to withstand typhoons and
all kinds of tremendous,
extremely stressful,
potentially hazardous,
potentially even
even fatal conditions
and to sail safely home.
A ship is built for that.
But what if
when the ship reaches home,
when the ship reaches the harbor,
there is a storm brewing in the harbor?
I don’t know of any ship
that is strong enough
to withstand
a storm in the harbor.
And that is because
you might say, well, you know,
the ship defended itself,
defended itself
against tremendous odds,
against these tidal waves
and storm winds and so forth.
And I say to you that
the ship was able to do that
because at that time the ship
had all its defenses up.
It was fighting
and it won.
But in the harbor,
the defenses are all down.
The ship is open.
And at that time,
if there is an attack,
there is no hope.
There is no escape.
There is sure death.
And that is the death of the marriage.
So the ship,
it’s important to understand
that Sukkun means
there is no storm
in the harbor ever.
Now for this, sometimes you have to
create sentient systems.
You have to create systems
and practices in your home
and say we will do this
and we will not do that.
And one of the things that you will not do
and write it down big
and bold
where you can see it all the time
and remind yourself
and that is you will never go to sleep,
never go to bed
on an argument.
You will never bring an argument
into the bedroom.
The bedroom is the place of maximum Sukkun.
No arguments in the bedroom.
All the arguments end
outside the bedroom.
Right?
No exceptions.
Absolutely no exceptions.
You will not raise a topic which might
turn into an argument.
If there is an argument going on,
you will park it and say,
okay, now we are going to bed.
We will go back and park this
for now and we will
look at it tomorrow.
But right now,
you know, we are friends.
You kiss and you hug and you wake up
and you get into bed.
You will not go to bed
with an argument.
And on a side note,
you will not go to bed
with a computer screen.
So, ban screens
from the bedroom.
Completely ban screens from the bedroom.
This is a big, big, big curse
that we have inflicted on ourselves.
Screens.
And the worst place for those screens
after in the hands of children
is in the bedroom.
Look at this fantastic pine cone.
SubhanAllah.
See the khudrat of Allah .
Absolutely incredible.
No arguments in the bedroom.
Right?
Make these rules.
Make it a rule that
as long as both of you are in the same town,
you will eat at least one meal together.
And when you have children,
that the children will eat
one meal with you.
At least one.
You eat more than one.
Great, lovely, fantastic, all power to you.
But at least one meal
you will eat together.
There is a butterfly.
So, make this a rule.
Make these rules.
Very positive rules.
Which will, you know,
which will keep the marriage together.
So, Sukhoun.
To understand again,
Sukhoun, the married home
is not a boxing ring.
This is not where you prove
to each other every day
who is boss.
This is not where you prove
to each other every day
who can fight better.
Don’t do that to yourself.
And believe me, nobody can do it to you.
Many times people blame,
you know, the mother,
mother’s in-law usually.
I have never seen fathers,
fathers-in-law being blamed.
Maybe the men are so good.
God knows.
I don’t believe that but
who knows.
Mother’s in-law.
Right?
I’m not saying that
mothers-in-law don’t do,
fathers-in-law don’t do,
you know, crackpot stuff.
But the point is,
whether to fall into that crackpot stuff or not
is your choice.
There’s nothing that prevents you
from saying to your mother or your father,
or your uncle or your aunt,
or your grandmother or your grandfather,
or whoever,
who tries to interfere in your marriage.
And who tries to tell you,
you know, this is what you should do,
this is what you should tell him,
this is what you should tell her,
and so on.
You say, excuse me,
thank you very much for your advice.
When I need more advice,
I’ll come to you.
But this is what you should do.
But this one,
please,
I am not looking for advice
about how to be with my wife,
or how to be with my husband.
So please do not give me that advice.
Now you might say,
well that sounds very impolite.
Well,
a broken marriage is
worse than that.
So,
don’t worry about being impolite.
Be impolite to save yourself,
to save your marriage.
You might say, you know,
okay, I won’t have to,
why do I have to say that?
I’ll just listen to her,
listen to him
and ignore it.
You cannot.
You cannot,
I cannot,
nobody can.
What is said is said,
what is seen is seen,
what is said cannot be unsaid,
what is seen cannot be unseen,
what is heard cannot be unheard.
And so therefore,
the best option is
don’t hear, don’t see,
don’t listen.
Stop it right in the beginning.
And good news is that
you don’t have to do that ten times.
Doing it once is enough.
The person,
if they are wise,
they will get the message
and they will not tell you again.
If they are not wise,
they will get offended
and they will probably not talk to you,
which is good.
But say it very clearly
and say,
sorry,
I’m not looking for advice
about how to treat,
how to be with my spouse.
So,
stay out of it.
Sukhoun,
a home which is tranquil,
a home which has peace,
a home which has
support for each other.
Third thing to do
in order to have such a home
is do some special things for each other.
Cook the kind of food
that your husband likes
or your wife likes.
Specially,
you know I’m Hyderabadi,
so I love khichdi,
kheema and khatti dal.
This is all.
It’s very simple food.
I’m not talking about biryani and stuff.
It’s simple food.
But this is something that we Hyderabadis love to eat.
Now,
I used to travel a lot.
I don’t travel that much now,
but there were times when I used to travel
22 days in the month,
23 days in the month.
But my wife,
every time I came back from a trip,
she would have khichdi, kheema and khatti dal for me.
Of course,
we lived in India,
so we had servants
and we had a cook and so on.
But irrespective of that,
whether the cook was there or not,
my wife would make sure that this was there
when I came back to greet me.
Such a beautiful gesture.
Again,
it doesn’t take great time, energy, money,
but it’s the thoughtfulness,
the thoughtfulness behind it.
For my part, what I did was,
right when we got married,
I took my wife to the bank.
I made her a joint account holder
and I gave her the passbook.
And I said,
this is the bank account.
It’s now yours and mine.
And you are going to be,
we’re going to divide our responsibilities.
My responsibility is to put money into it.
And your responsibility is to put money into it.
And your responsibility is to take money out of it.
So I said, by all means,
do what you want.
Spend it as much as you like.
Spend it on whatever you like.
I will never ask you any questions
because I know you will not do anything wrong.
So,
and the reason I’m giving this to you is because
I don’t want the headache of accounts.
So if I give this to you and ask you,
you know,
where did you spend,
how much did you spend,
and so on and so forth,
I’m not buying for myself headaches.
So I will not ask you anything.
Take it, spend it.
You know how much I earned.
And if you spend it all,
then we will both fast
until the next paycheck.
So that’s where we are.
And it’s been 40 years.
You know, alhamdulillah.
My wife is one of the best money managers that I can imagine.
Does a fantastic job
without a finance degree.
It’s a question of trust.
And I have no problems.
I don’t have to worry about,
you know, you didn’t think of that,
you didn’t think of that,
and am I getting enough spending money?
None of that.
I have no arguments.
It’s your bank account.
Here’s your,
here’s the passbook,
here’s the checkbook.
You are a signatory.
You want spending money?
Go take it.
Don’t come to me.
Right?
If I want money, I will go to you.
I hate shopping.
So the agreement we made was,
I will not enter a shop.
So initially she said,
well what about,
you know,
if you don’t like what I buy for you?
So I said,
I’ll give you a written guarantee.
I will always like what you buy for me.
And it turns out she has far better,
far better taste than I have.
So she does a fantastic job.
I don’t,
I don’t even shop for my own clothes.
I don’t shop for my own shoes.
You know, I stay out of shops.
I hate shops.
I don’t,
I’m allergic to malls.
So,
works fantastically for me.
So, you know,
she goes where she wants to go.
She,
you know,
she does what she wants to do.
And that’s it.
It’s a fabulous money matter.
So,
I’ve never had to worry about money.
Even when I was earning a pittance.
Trust.
The whole issue of sukoon is trust.
Allah said,
لِتَسْكُونُوا إِلَيَّ
So that you may find tranquility in them.
تَسْكُونُوا إِلَيَّ
Find tranquility with them.
Then Allah said,
وَجَائِلَ بَيْنَكُمْ مَوَدَّ
And Allah said,
We have put love between you.
My brothers and sisters,
remember,
love is not lust.
Love is not simply physical attraction.
That is one aspect of it.
And not even the most important aspect of it.
Right?
You have to live
in the most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful,
most beautiful.
You have to be a certain age
to understand what I mean when I say
it’s not even the most important
aspect of it.
But believe me,
take my word for it,
it isn’t.
It is not.
It is one aspect of love
and it will happen.
Usually that’s one of the big reasons
you got married in the first place.
So it will be there.
But this marriage,
Love is more than that. The root of love, in my experience and opinion, the root of love is respect. The root of love is respect. You cannot love somebody you do not respect.
And how do you respect? By knowing that person. So take an interest in each other. Take an interest in what each person does. Take an interest in their work. Take an interest in things that are interesting to them.
Even though they may not be interesting to you, there is no guarantee to say that you are or you will be or you must be interesting to them.
You may not be interested in everything that interests your spouse. You may not be, but take an interest, show interest in that.
By show, I don’t mean pretension or anything like that, or making up. No. Genuinely be interested. And open your mind.
If you look at anything at all from a non-judgmental perspective, you will find that it is interesting.
So,
very important to think about that and say, take an interest. And then when you have an interest,
you get to know the person, then you will develop respect. Now to do all of that, also what goes
without saying is you spend time with them. You know, we have, I’ve seen cases where people get
married and their social life doesn’t change. They still hang out in clubs with their friends,
where the
spouse has no place, and sometimes they, initially they drag their spouse along, and she’s completely out of place there.
She has nobody there. She has no interest with anybody. She doesn’t understand your language, and vice versa.
The woman drags her husband to her kitty party, for example. It doesn’t work. No, I’m not talking about that.
I’m saying, spend time. Choose between your friends and your wife and your husband, and
choose in their favor. Spend time with them. Without that, you will not have a good marriage, believe me.
If you’re not spending time together, you will never know each other, you will never respect each other,
and you will never love each other. Spend time with each other. Mawadda. This builds love.
When you respect, it builds love. Another thing which builds love, which is extremely important, is to be grateful and to express gratitude.
Think about this and say, when was the last time you thanked your husband for going to work every day?
Probably in a dead-end job. Probably in a job which he didn’t even like to do. But he did that because of you.
He did that because of your family. Because you as a wife need that money, need the support.
Your children need that. And because of that, this man is giving the best part of his life,
and his time and his attention, and working in a job that he is, you know, he doesn’t even like to do that.
Sometimes there’s a toxic kind of environment. Organizations are horrible places.
I mean, I’ve been consulting with organizations for the last almost forty years now and trying to make them better.
But, so I know exactly how nasty organizational environments can be,
but I know that people, I know people, I know specific people, who work in that environment,
who continue to work in that environment, without complaining.
They don’t come back every day and moan and groan. No. They take it as their duty.
This is what I need to do. If the spouse was not there, they would drop that job like a shot.
But they don’t. They work. So, don’t they need to be thanked? Should you not thank them?
How many of you say thank?
Thanks to your husband for this. If you have not done it, go do it now.
How many of the men? Let me ask you a question.
And all of us have lived as bachelors. So, go back to your bachelor days.
There was a time when you came home and there was silence.
You opened the door and the loudest noise was the noise of the key in your lock. Right?
And then you came into the house. It was cold, it was dark, you turned the lights on.
Either you took something out of the fridge and heated it, or if you wanted to cook, you cooked.
Or in today’s day and age, you order the food and somebody brings it, Zomato or Uber Eats or whoever,
and you take it out of a plastic can or take it out of a cardboard box.
This was your life, right?
Now, today, you come home. It’s warm, it’s clean, it smells nice.
Everything is beautifully ordered, beautifully arranged.
Your wife meets you with a smile. Right?
If you have children, they’re there, looking forward to their dad, looking forward to their mother, and so on.
Tell me, is it worth?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Saying thank you?
Is it worth saying to them, look, you know what?
I should have thanked you a long time ago, but at least I’m doing it now.
Can I tell you how a life would be completely impossible without this?
Really, ask yourself this question.
What value is that?
If someone asked you to pay for that, what would you pay, if you could pay?
Obviously, you cannot pay, I cannot pay, nobody can pay.
This is the grace of Allah .
Trust the actions of the Maulvi.
This is our knowledge.
We teach them knowledge, this is the knowledge of the Maulvi .
Divine knowledge, every Felllä God has the power of knowledge.
I will definitely reach to the Maulvi too.
We used to make money and then my wife used to buy enough.
Instead of that, I used, and now, to give to them, I am keeping their money.
I’m giving hug, so that they can live with me and enjoy life I feel that I’ve never felt this way.
I’ve suffering this, it’s really suffering.
Everyone is crying out, its their fault.
Many have aação . I don’t know to your benefit you or not.
Surat al-Baheem, Allah said, the one who is thankful, Allah will increase my blessing
for him or her.
And the one who is ungrateful, let him beware that my punishment is severe.
Why is Allah saying thank?
Doesn’t He know what’s in our hearts?
Because it is not about Him, it’s about us.
Do I have an attitude of gratitude?
Am I thankful enough, and sensitive enough to go and say thank you very much?
Shukran jazeelans, Jazakallahu khayran.
That is why Rasulullah , he said, the one who has not thanked Allah, the one who
has not thanked the people, has not thanked Allah.
The one who has not thanked people, has not thanked Allah.
Thank people.
And the number one person who deserves to be thanked is your spouse, and of course your
parents.
So begin with that, but your spouse.
Needs to be thanked, must be thanked, no exceptions.
So if you haven’t done that, do it today.
How many times do you express your affection?
How many times?
How many times a day do you kiss your wife?
How many times a day do you kiss your husband?
How many times a day do you say to them, I love you?
Many of our eastern ones, you know the Indo Park crowd and the Arab crowd and so on, we
say, ah, you know these white people, they’re constantly saying, I love you, I love you,
why should I do that?
Believe me, do it and see, and you will know why.
Do it.
And you will see.
Do it and you will see the power of thanking.
Mawadda.
This is how love begins.
Show your affection.
Hug your spouse, kiss your spouse.
Don’t do it in public.
Do it in private, but do it.
And remember, I’m asking how many times a day, not saying once a day.
Very important.
How many times do you give a gift?
Just for the heck of it.
Not because it’s a, you know, a gift.
Just for the heck of it.
Not because it’s a gift.
I don’t give any.
Not for any important reason.
It’s just another gift.
And then Allah said, va Rahmah , then, we say gula moh,0, gula moh,
quran with to khalq elah, q lata with the beed of the cow.
We’ve had that sun for days now.
And today, you know we think, no need to Thought update this.
We know that, we have the beautiful time for the animal, of course for the animal,
but it’s neccessary, it’s difficult.
And many times, you know, when it’s in manifest picture images, that looks so barking.
Aw, yuck.
The marriage. A good marriage is where you have mercy, where you show mercy for one another.
Why mercy? For two reasons. First reason is that there are times when the spouse will not be able to,
or cannot, or will not fulfill their contract, within quotes.
They will not be able to do for you what they undertook to do.
What must you do? Extract retribution, revenge, or have mercy for all the times that they fulfilled that contract.
You say, well, out of all these times that they did, all that was good for me.
One time they didn’t. All right, I can take that.
.
Mercy. Mercy, why? Because mercy is the foundation. It is the root.
It is the platform on which runs forgiveness. Why is forgiveness important?
Because without forgiveness, there is no relationship that can exist.
None whatsoever, without exception.
Without exception.
Without exception.
Forgiveness is the fundamental principle behind every good relationship, including our relationship with Allah.
Without forgiveness, we cannot even have a relationship with Allah .
We ask Allah to forgive us, not because we deserve it, not because we didn’t do anything wrong.
People ask me, oh, but you know, he did this, she did that.
Exactly, of course, I agree with you.
I agree with you.
She did that, she said that, he said he did that, he said that.
That is why you need to forgive.
If they had done nothing, if they had made no mistake, what are you forgiving?
Right? What are you forgiving?
You are forgiving because there is a reason to forgive.
So look for the reasons.
Alhamdulillah, I found a reason to forgive.
Let me forgive.
And that reason is that I want Allah to forgive me.
Allah revealed in Surah An-Nur, the famous ayah concerning, in which Allah mentioned,
Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, and he said that those of you who Allah has blessed with wealth and with influence and with, you know, honor,
let them not say that they will not help others.
And this has to do with Mista, the relative of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq al-Dilana, who slandered our mother Aisha Siddiq al-Dilana.
So obviously, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq al-Dilana was upset about that.
He was angry about that.
And he said, I will not, I will cut off my aid to this man because he used to give him financial aid.
Mista was poor.
You might say, what kind of a person is that who takes aid from somebody and slanders their daughter?
Well, that’s a different argument.
There are people like that.
But Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala now comes in and he says, no, don’t do that.
Forgive him.
Then Allah says something which is so powerful.
Allah says, don’t you want Allah to forgive you?
Ha!
Don’t you want Allah to forgive you?
Right?
So when we forgive people, we are giving ourselves this reason before Allah.
We say, Ya Rabb, I forgive this person.
You know it was their fault.
Now I request you, I beg you, forgive me because it is my fault.
So seek forgiveness and forgive.
And remember, when a person seeks forgiveness, don’t insult them.
Don’t make them grovel.
Don’t rub their nose in the dirt.
Don’t revel in glory for glory and take glorious pleasure in that.
Treat them with dignity.
Treat them with dignity when you could have insulted them.
Treat them with dignity when you were right and they will remember that forever.
Do not insult them.
Do not.
People do this.
I have seen them.
They say, okay, now I got you.
No.
Don’t do that.
That’s your greatest opportunity to heal wounds permanently.
Don’t take that opportunity and destroy it by inflicting new wounds.
The greatest example to follow is that of Rasulallah , what he did.
He took a man who was aimi in Makkah, when he conquered Makkah.
Here was his opportunity to take revenge.
He could have done anything he wanted.
He could have enslaved the people.
He could have had them killed, had them slaughtered, which was the, which was par for the course
for the times.
The men would be killed.
The women and children would be enslaved.
and either use for personal benefit or sold.
He didn’t do any of that.
He freed them all.
And not only did he free them and he forgave them,
but he also didn’t even ask for compensation
for what they had taken from him
and from his companions who had been driven out of Makkah.
He didn’t even do that.
Imagine the dignity of the Rasul Ali, s.a.w.
Even compensation he did not seek.
He just let them go.
He said,
He said,
He said,
And that’s why they called the people after Fatimah,
we call them the Tulaqah,
the freed slaves of Muhammad, s.a.w.
So,
so,
so,
this is the secret.
You want to build communities,
you want to build relationships,
you want to build,
you want to be a leader,
forgive people.
Forgive people.
Forgive yourself.
Don’t carry the burden of something you did after you make tawbah.
You still carry the burden.
Oh, I don’t know what will happen.
Will Allah forgive me or not?
No.
To have, to lose hope,
in the mercy,
Allah is Kufr.
And to lose hope meaning,
that you say,
Allah will not forgive me.
Never say that.
And never say that to anybody else.
Never say to somebody else,
Allah will not forgive you.
That is the surest road to Jahannam.
Allah will not forgive you.
You have no business to say that to anybody.
Because you are not Allah,
and you are not defeated by Allah s.w.t.
to dictate what He will do and what He will not do.
Allah will forgive.
Allah forgives.
Inna Allaha Yaqfiru Zanuba.
Jamee’a Allah s.w.t. said,
Verily, Allah is the One who forgives all sins.
And He did not say,
except this and that.
All sins.
The only sin about which He said He will not forgive,
if a person dies on it.
Not while they are alive.
Dies on it.
And that is the crime of shirk.
Of joining partners with Him in His worship.
Because that’s the sign of,
the greatest sign of ingratitude,
is that you take from Allah,
but you thank Him,
but you thank somebody else.
You take from Allah,
but you serve somebody else.
This is ingratitude.
And Allah s.w.t. said,
No.
This is something,
if you die on that,
then Allah will not forgive you.
But even that,
if you seek forgiveness,
obviously you do that before you die.
Allah will forgive you.
So, forgiveness.
So, conclusion.
Let me give us the secret.
Four things.
Four things.
Let us go to the
and make between you mercy and mercy.
Three things.
And Allah says,
There are signs for people who can think,
who reflect.
People of intelligence.
We ask Allah to help us to be people like that.
And that’s why I shared my story to,
very quick points I want to make,
because I should have said this right at the beginning.
I told you I got married at 30.
I should have told you also that I got married on my money.
My parents didn’t spend a single cent on my marriage.
Not one cent.
I paid for my marriage fully.
And it was a simple marriage.
Nikah and valima.
That’s it.
No khurafat.
No customs and practices.
And nothing which was extravagant.
It was a decent wedding,
Alhamdulillah.
And I paid for it.
Every single cent.
And my wife reminded me the other day.
Because I told her that I had,
the nikah was after Salatul Maghrib.
And I led the Salatul Maghrib on that day.
And after that the nikah happened.
And she said to me that,
Do you remember,
that when we came out to the room,
and my grandfather had given us an apartment that,
on the top of his house in Azizabad,
Na brokhnu de naamad,
Na brokhnu de naamad,
Rahatul Ali,
gave us the apartment on top of his house,
for our,
for us to live in.
We were there just for two days in Hyderabad after we got married.
So those two days we spent there in his house.
Umm,
my wife said,
we came up,
and both of us had not prayed Isha.
So the first thing we did was we prayed Isha by Jama.
Right?
So maybe the great secret of being happily married is,
do not neglect the rights of Allah.
We prayed Isha by Jama.
And that’s how our marriage began.
And we have been married now for 40 years.
And I paid for my own marriage.
Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ghala alihi wa sahbihi ajma’in
bi rahmatik ala wal rahmeen.
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