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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the Prophet Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah,
may Allah bless him and grant him many glories.
And after him, my dear brother Umar, may Allah bless you.
Umar is one of those who asks good questions and I, that is one of the reasons I love him.
I love him for many other reasons.
May Allah bless him, he is doing medicine now.
And we hope Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala puts shifa in his hand, inshaAllah.
And that he is able to help people all around the world.
And Umar asked me two questions, as I said, he asked both questions.
The first question he asked me was, in terms of marriage, how do you deal with marital conflict?
You have a problem with your wife.
I have a problem with my husband.
What do you do?
How do you deal with marital conflict?
And the second question he asked was, what is the role of parents in a marital conflict?
If there is a conflict, do the parents have a role?
Should they have a role?
And so on.
What is the role of parents?
Now, my answer is this, very simple.
First and foremost, choose your conflicts.
And the criterion of choice is, ask yourself,
which is more important, the marriage or the conflict?
And do it likewise.
The problem happens because people pick the wrong fights.
And they get themselves into a situation where even if you win the fight,
you ask yourself, what did I really get?
And you got nothing.
You got nothing.
In the process, you could have…
You really put yourself in a situation where you would have destroyed
or you had a good chance of destroying a perfectly good relationship.
Now, that is a very stupid thing to do.
That’s a very stupid way of leading your life.
So pick the conflict.
And the second thing, as I already mentioned, is ask yourself,
what is more important, the conflict, meaning winning the conflict,
winning the argument or retaining the relationship?
Sometimes it is a…
You have to make the choice.
And walking away from an argument is the best thing that you can do.
Rasulullah mentioned in my hadith, he said that,
I will guarantee a place in Jannah for the person who walks away from the argument,
meaning he gives in even when he is right.
So the question is,
how much more important, because this hadith relates to a general situation,
people situation, you and me situation, not necessarily a marriage situation.
So if that is being said about this general situation,
how much more important it is with regard to marriage?
So ask yourself, is it worth arguing?
And if it’s not worth arguing, then don’t argue.
Leave it.
Let your wife or your husband do whatever they want to do.
Nothing is going to happen if they win the argument,
if they do what they are doing, and you walk away from there.
And I walk away, I don’t mean make actually, you know, sort of stage a walkout.
I mean just, just give in and say, okay, alhamdulillah, good for you.
Do that.
No problem.
Leave it.
Don’t make a fuss.
Don’t sulk.
You know, don’t play these games.
Because these games are, all of them without exception are destructive.
Destructive to the relationship.
So it’s a very stupid thing to play games like that.
So walk away and you will have a long and happy marriage.
My principle with regard to my marriage is that as long as my wife does not want to do something
which is against Islam, against the Sharia, I never say no.
And alhamdulillah, I have a wife who will never do that.
Her taqwa is better than mine, alhamdulillah.
So she will never ask to do or want to do something which is against the Quran and Sunnah,
against the Sharia.
She is very particular about those things.
So I have nothing to worry about.
So I just say, yes, whatever you want to do, just do it.
The bank book is in her hand.
She is a co-signatory of the bank.
I almost never go.
She does the banking.
My principle is very simple.
If you want to spend all the money, please go ahead, be my guest.
And then we will fast until the next paycheck.
Right?
So no problem with that.
And obviously, we never had a problem, alhamdulillah.
We have been married now 40 years.
So something is going right, alhamdulillah.
So this is the first issue of choose your battles.
Choose your conflict.
Choose your fights.
And don’t get into a fight where it has nothing to do with,
it has nothing to do with, you know, that you’re not going to,
you’re going to end up damaging your relationship.
That is the very stupid thing.
Second very important thing, question you asked was,
what is the role of the parents?
Again, very simple answer.
And this is really addressed to the parents.
Ask yourself, when you agreed to your daughter,
your daughter marrying this man,
and when you agreed to your son marrying this woman,
did you think they were capable of being married?
Did you think they were mature enough?
Did you think that they were people who could live in a marriage?
Or did you think they were not capable?
If you thought they were not capable and you married them,
then make istighfar and tawbah and turn to Allah SWT,
because then you have committed a great crime.
Simple as that.
Simple as that.
But if you thought they were capable, and I’m sure you did,
then leave them alone.
Leave them alone.
The biggest tragedies in marriages,
one of the biggest reasons, it’s not the biggest reason,
why marriages fail is because the parents get involved in resolving conflicts.
So when you get married, swear to yourself,
literally, if you have to put your hand on the wall,
on the Quran, do that.
Swear to yourself that you too will deal with your own conflicts,
and you will not allow anyone to come in the way of that.
And I’ll tell you a beautiful hadith.
Rasool Allah one day, Sayyidah Ayesha Siddiqa Radhiyal Ana,
was, something happened and she was arguing with him,
and so she was not very happy.
So at that time,
Abu Bakr Siddiqa Radhiyal Ana walked into the house.
And Rasool Allah said,
why don’t you ask your father what you are saying, right?
Ask him, maybe he can tell you.
So she said to him, you ask him.
And then before he could ask, she said, and speak the truth.
Tell him the truth.
Tell him the truth.
Now Abu Bakr Siddiqa Radhiyal Ana instantly reacted,
because here is his daughter telling the Nabi
to speak the truth.
So he instantly reacted and he slapped her.
He slapped her on the face very hard,
so that a little bit of blood came out from where he slapped her.
Now Rasool Allah , his reaction to Abu Bakr,
remember this is his closest friend, his Khalil,
his instant reaction was, get out of my house.
He said, leave my house.
Abu Bakr Siddiqa Radhiyal Ana left.
And then Nabi says to Syed Ayesha,
he says, see, this is what happens
when we get others involved in our conflicts.
Now think about that.
What a beautiful incident from the seerah
of a conflict between husband and wife,
the best of the best, meaning that there will be conflicts.
And also it shows what happens if you get parents involved.
And even the parent here is the best of the best.
So if you don’t think you are ready to be married
and to live with your wife or your husband
and to resolve your own conflicts,
do yourself a favor, do the other person a favor,
stay home with your parents, be happy, right?
Don’t ruin somebody else’s life.
If you think you are capable,
then go and prove that to yourself and to the world
that I am capable of living my life.
Conflicts between husband and wife
must remain between husband and wife only,
not get parents involved.
I know of many cases where perfectly good marriages
broke up and ended in divorce
because the mother was involved,
father was involved of either party.
I know cases where,
two o’clock in the night, three o’clock in the night,
the mother is sitting on Skype or on WhatsApp or something,
video, talking to her daughter.
And her daughter is in some place and she is,
you know, having this conflict with her husband
and the mother is giving her minute by minute instructions
that if he says this, you say this, if he says this, you say this.
Now, this is disaster, this is absolute total disaster.
So please, no role for parents.
You might say, well, what happens if we have a conflict
and we really do need some counseling?
Go to a professional counselor.
Go to a stranger.
Don’t go to your parent.
Do not even, I don’t even think you should go to the imam or somebody
because unless that imam is trained in counseling,
you know, he will probably side with your parents because,
you know, he’s kind of connected more with them than you.
So don’t even go there.
Just go to a professional counselor, get help.
No problem.
But do not go to the parents.
And my advice to the parents is stay out of your children’s marriages
if you want those marriages to succeed.
We ask Allah to help us to have beautiful relationships
and to help us to succeed in them.
Wasallamu ala nabeel, karib wa ali wasallam,
bim bim raam, sikaram, baaim.
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