Transcription
The Muslim wayfarer to online, the home of the hereafter, is unable to complete his journey to his Lord in the absence of three bits of luggage. These three bits of luggage were manifest in the lives of all of the prophets and messengers, and these pieces of luggage were present on our present and will continue to be present with every righteous Muslim and Muslimah until the end of time.
There can be no pleasing of Allah, no safety in the grave, no help in the hereafter, and nor success when we arrive at the gates of Jannah without these three pieces of luggage. What are they? The first is Tawhid, to unify Allah Almighty in worship. And the second piece of luggage is conformity to the prophetic way. And the third of them is Tazkiyah, the purification of the soul. There is no success without them, and it was the provision of every prophet and righteous man and woman till the end of time.
As for Tawhid, Allah said, "I have only created the jinn kind and mankind so that they may worship Me." And when he [the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him] sent Mu'adh to Yemen to invite them to Islam, what was his instruction? He said, "Um, he said, the very first thing you are to call them towards when you arrive in Yemen is that none has the right to be worshipped except His Messenger."
Luggage number one. Luggage number two, we said, is what? Conformity to the way of the Prophet. The Hadith: "Whoever invents a matter in our religion that's not part of it, we'll have it rejected." All of the doors to Allah, with the exception of the door of the Prophet Muhammad, along his prophetic footsteps, that's luggage number two, conformity to the prophetic way.
Luggage number three is what? Tazkiyah, the purification of the soul. "Had successful is he who purifies himself." Tawhid, conformity to the prophetic way, and Tazkiyah. And here is what is amazing. All three of these pieces of luggage can be found in a patently obvious way in the institution of marriage. Tawhid is there, conformity to the prophetic way is there, and Tazkiyah is there.
How is Tawhid found in marriage? Very obvious. No matter how independent a man or a woman may claim to be in life, there will be a point in their existence when they will hit a brick wall, a rock bottom. They cannot continue without a spouse. We are weak when we are by ourselves, and we are much stronger when we are married.
As for Allah, He has not taken for Himself a wife, nor a son, nor a partner. And so the fact that you need to get married, you only become complete when you are a dual, is a reminder of the, what? Of the Oneness. Said, "And He, Exalted is our Lord, has not taken for Himself a wife or a child. He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth. The One, He created the heavens and the earth, and He was alone. He provides for all of creation, and He is alone. He gives life and death, and He is alone. On the Day of Resurrection, when He will wrap the earth and the heavens, and He will be by Himself. He will be alone. And when He allows people to enter Paradise and Hell, He will not ask for the opinion of anyone. He is alone in His command." And that is why Allah said, "On the Day of Judgment, they will be exhibited nothing. What they do will be hidden. They will be, it will be announced, 'Whose kingdom belongs to today?' And the answer is, 'To Allah, the One, the Subduer.'" So the fact that you find yourself at some point in your life unable to continue physiologically, spiritually, emotionally, you're weak, you need a wife, and you need a husband. This is the greatest reminder that He is One. So Tawhid is found in the institution of marriage.
Number two, we said, is conformity to the prophetic way. And that is why the Prophet, peace be upon him, when he came to hear of three men who decided that they will worship Allah in a different way. One of them said, "I will pray all night and I will not sleep." And the second said, "I will fast and I will never break it." And the third said, "I do not marry women." And when the Prophet, peace be upon him, heard of this, this innovation, he summoned them. He said, "Were you the ones who said such and such?" He said, "As for me, I pray and I sleep, and I fast and I break it, and I also marry women. So whoever turns away from my way is not to consider himself from one of us." So conformity to the prophetic way is found in the institution of marriage.
And we said, number three, Tazkiyah, the purification of the soul. And perhaps this is the most obvious. And this is found very obviously in marriage as well. How? Marriage in Allah closes many of the traps of Shaytan and fills the heart from its void and allows the mind to concentrate on other matters of life with the help of a wife or a husband. And that is why Bukhari and Muslim narrate on the authority of Ibn Mas'ud, the famous Hadith where the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, "O young men, O young people, whoever of you is able to get married, must get married. Because it will help you lower your gaze and it will help you protect your private parts. And whoever is unable to get married, then this person should fast, i.e., a lot of fasting, because this will be his shield."
So subhanallah, the three most important bits of luggage in your life: Tawhid, and conformity to the Sunnah, and the purification of the soul, are all captured in the institution of marriage. Therefore, no surprise that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, "He has completed half of his faith, and so let him fear Allah with respect to the other half."
Why have we chosen the topic of marriage ever after? There are so many other topics that we could have covered. But in all honesty, in many of these topics, especially in this moment in time, you will find that they relate to some people but not others. Should you take a detailed jurisprudential topic, it might affect some but not others. If this series was about the ruling of Zakah, and we need it, it might affect those who have money, but it will not affect those who don't. If this series was about, say, grammar, morphology, it will affect those who want to specialize, but it will not affect others. If we wanted to speak about debate, how to give and take with atheists, it may affect some of us who would like to push ourselves in this domain, but it may not affect others who feel it's beyond them.
However, when you address the topic of marriage in Islam, it should affect every single Muslim on planet Earth. Because either you are married and you are happy, or either you are married and you are unhappy, or either you are unmarried and happy, or either you are unmarried and unhappy. One way or another, this topic is going to affect you.
Why have we chosen the topic of marriage ever after? I'm going to share with you seven headings, and the first of them is this: We have chosen this particular topic because, firstly, marriage is the way of the prophets and messengers before us. Every one of the prophets, with perhaps a few exceptions, who don't affect the rule, had wives. And some of those prophets had multiple wives. "We sent messengers before you and We made for them wives and children." So they all had wives, with the exception perhaps of Jesus, son of Mary. Some of the scholars, they say he married Maryam during his life. Others, they say it's unlikely that he did that. Some, they say when he comes back to planet Earth, he will remarry. Others, they say we don't really have knowledge of that, but it's an exception to the rule. In all cases, John the Baptist, some have said that he didn't actually marry during his life, based upon how Allah described him. But there is a difference of opinion as per what is meant by that. But generally speaking, all of the prophets and messengers, in their thousands, had wives. So this is cause number one behind our choosing of this topic. It was the way of the prophets and messengers.
Number two, marriage in Islam is seen as a garment, al-libas, that no Muslim can do without. Allah Almighty, in beautiful words, said, describing the institution of marriage, "They are a garment for you," meaning your wives, "and you are a garment for them." He said, describing what is meant by this, "It means you are a tranquility for them, and they are a tranquility for you." And subhanallah, a garment serves many purposes. Look at this beautiful Quranic analogy, the comparison made. What does, how, how does clothes serve you? It covers your private parts, it conceals your nakedness, and that is the purpose of marriage as well. Husband and wife, they cover the deficiencies of one another, they cover the vulnerabilities of one another, they hide the secrets of one another, they strengthen one another, they don't expose one another. That's the purpose of a garment.
Number two, al-libas. A garment shields you from the elements, whether it's the scorching heat, whether it's the blistering cold. Your clothes are a protection from the elements. And similarly, marriage is supposed to serve the exact same purpose, a protection from the elements of life.
Number three, your clothes, your garments, are the closest things to you. There is nothing closer to you at this second in time than what you are wearing, your outer and inner garments. And Allah said, "Your wives, your husbands, they are your garments." And so therefore, we understand this element of being near and close to your spouse. There shouldn't be these prolonged periods of separation, because it's not the function of a garment to be far away from one who is wearing it. So this is the second reason why we're speaking about this topic, because it is the most important garment that a believer can wear.
Number three, we've chosen this topic of marriage ever after because there is no other topic that is of a greater miracle than this. Marriage is the greatest miracle, or we can say marriage is a miracle in every sense of the word, really, when you think about it. How do people who perhaps share different ideas in life, at times, they have different first languages, different cultures, different surnames, different appearances, different ways of upbringing, they don't know one another. Should they walk past one another in the street, they wouldn't bat an eyelid. This person is a stranger. And then all of a sudden, with the bond of marriage, they become the nearest people on planet Earth. How is that possible? "And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves spouses that you may find tranquility in them." And He has placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed, in that are signs for a people who reflect.
Previously, they did not know one another. Previously, they meant nothing for one another. Should one pass away, it wouldn't affect the other. They are strangers. And then all of a sudden, through marriage, this person becomes the nearest individual to you on Earth, such that if they were to travel for work, for example, and back in the days when they traveled for work, it wasn't like nowadays, a weekend, Friday to Sunday. Sometimes it would be months on end, sometimes years on end, looking for your provisions. And the pain that they would experience during that moment of departure. And in the coming weeks, I'm going to share with you some of the poetry that was said by the Arabs who were bidding farewell to their wives before they traveled for months and years. You will see, as Ibrahim said, the pain that they experienced during the time of departure was similar to the pain of death. How did that happen when they used to be strangers to one another? It is called the miracle of marriage. That is reason number one, brothers. That is reason number three.
As for reason number four, we've chosen the topic of marriage ever after because marriage is the most wholesome form of enjoyment that life could provide, perhaps coming second place only to the enjoyment of being a Muslim. And that is why the Nabi Kareem, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, "And the best form of worldly enjoyment is the righteous woman." And the companions had a question for the Prophet. They said to him, "O Messenger of Allah, what type of money should we acquire? Animals, land, livestock, currency? What type of wealth should we acquire?" He gave them an answer that they were not expecting. He said to them, "The money, the wealth that you should acquire is a heart that is grateful to Allah, and a tongue that is in the praise of Allah, and a righteous woman." Underline this: a righteous wife who will help you in your journey to the hereafter. It is the most wholesome form of enjoyment that a human being can experience in the life of this world, coming second place perhaps only to the joy of believing in Allah and worshipping Him.
Number five, the reason why we've chosen this topic is because marriage is the widest route to the objective of peace and inner tranquility. And just ask those who are experiencing the opposite of this marital discord, they will tell you that nothing can sap you of happiness and contentment and tranquility than being disunited with your wife or husband. And I quote to you the ayah that you've all memorized. This is the go-to ayah in the marriage ceremonies and the marital occasions. The ayah from Surah Ar-Rum, where Allah said, "And from His signs is that He created for you from yourselves spouses that you may find tranquility in them, and He has placed between you affection and mercy." Indeed, in that are signs for people who reflect.
We will recite it and then we will break it down step by step because it is at the heart of what we are discussing. This ayah, it's the crux, it's the signs of Allah. "Indeed, in that are signs for people who reflect." Rewind and take this ayah bit by bit. Allah said, "And from His signs," signs of what? From the signs of the Oneness of Allah, from the signs of the power of Allah, the capability of Allah, the sovereignty of Allah. From His signs is what? "That He has created from amongst you spouses." And I find it amazing that this ayah that speaks of marriage as being a sign of Allah is wedged in the middle of a series of ayat that speak about huge things. And then all of a sudden, you have the topic of marriage that appears as another one of the signs of Allah. Subhanallah, when you think about it. Demonstrate the ayah before it. What does Allah say? "From the signs of Allah is that He created you from the earth, then you became human beings scattered on the land." This is a sign of Allah, something mighty. And then the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the different languages that you speak, and your different colors. These are huge signs of Allah. The ayah after it: "From the signs of Allah is how you sleep during the night and day." The ayah after it: "From the signs of Allah is that He shows you lightning, causing you hope and fear, and He brings rain down upon you." Signs of Allah mean, "From the signs of Allah is how He maintains the heavens and the earth by His command. Then when He calls you from the earth, one calling, you will emerge." So sign after sign after sign that all indicate the Oneness of Allah, some speaking about the heavens and the earth, and some speaking about lightning and rain, some speaking about the resurrection, some speaking about our creation. And then all of a sudden, you have, "From the signs of Allah is marriage." Subhanallah, because it is a sign, it is a miracle that is no less in magnificence than the other signs that you just heard.
So, "From the signs of Allah that He has created from yourselves spouses." There's a difference of opinion here between the scholars, who is being addressed here that He created from yourselves spouses. Some scholars, they say it's the men who are being addressed, that He created from you, O men, a woman, meaning from your father Adam, his wife Eve, so that you may find rest in her. That's the opinion of most of the scholars of Tafsir. Some said, like he said, no, the ones who are being addressed here is humanity. He created from yourselves, meaning from your species, your kind, spouses, meaning men and women from your kind. So both are being addressed here, men and women. He created from your kind your spouse, so that you may find rest in her.
So you are told that the reason why your spouse was created from your jins, from your kind, from your category, your species, so that you may be able to find tranquility. In other words, had your spouse not been from your species, you would not be able to achieve this goal of tranquility. And that's why it's a little bit strange when we are hearing that nowadays, the contemporary forms of marriages between man and a cat, and a man who's married his dog. We've seen people who've married their pet frog. A recent one, a woman who's married the Eiffel Tower, and another who's married the Berlin Wall. It's not going to bring you the sakina which Allah speaks about in the ayah.
"He created from yourself a spouse so that you may find rest in her." This is called the lam al-ta'leel, the lam of causation. Created from yourself so that you may find peace in her. Meaning, this causes this. Notice how Allah did not say, "il-la" so that you may find peace at the place of your spouse. The preposition "fi", not "inda". The ayah said, which translates as, "so that you may find peace in her," not "at the place of your spouse." In your spouse, you find peace. What's the difference, Hamid? What's the difference?
This is your territory. All day. So the element of distance, brother, said, "at the place of your spouse," "in your spouse." Meaning it is near. Some of the scholars have said, "fi" indicates your physical presence where you are physically. You say, "Ana askunu fi Sheikh Muhammad." I find my peace at the place of Muhammad, meaning when I'm at his house, when I am physically at his house, I find peace there. So "fi" describes where a person is physically. When you say, "fi," meaning I find peace in that person. It's not about where you are physically, it's where you are, emotionally. So your heart is with that person. Yeah. It's not about where you are physically. Your heart is with that person.
So the ayah said, "so that you may find peace in her," not "at the place of your spouse." In your spouse. This word that we translate as "sakina," tranquility. I think your brothers use it from the Indo-Pak region, right? You say, in the Arabic language, the three letters of S-K-N, when they come together, it means something that stops moving, stillness. Stillness. Linguistically, when these three letters come together, it means something that has stopped moving. The opposite of "harakah," which is movement. This is called "sakin." That's why what do the Arabs call the knife? What do they call the knife? Same three letters. Why? Because when you slaughter, nothing, except, Allah willing, for food, when you slaughter it, it stops moving. Ah, you've stopped it from moving. "Sakin." The house, what is the house called in Arabic? Okay, another one. "Maskan" or "sakan." Why? Because you come into the house, you, you stop, stop what? Moving. You stop moving. "Sakin." Yes. So the wife, she was, or the husband, or the spouse, is described as "sakin," why? Because you have this image of someone who is moving around by day, making the money, bringing the bread home, and stressing people, and "kadan," and then you come home, and all of a sudden, there is, there is no more movement. There's comfort. There's.
So He said, "We've made from yourselves spouses so that you may find tranquility in her." And then He said, "And He has placed between you both affection and mercy." What's the difference between love and affection? The Quran did not say love and mercy. No, He said affection and mercy. What's the difference between love and affection? We've gone to English now, so this should be easy. We don't have a single romantic man here. Where in "yashabab"? This is the romance. Even though you can take a page from our brother's book here, masha'Allah. The scholars have said that love is what you feel inside your heart towards a person. "Mawaddah" is the expression of the love. It's the expression of the love. Sometimes we have people in the Sharia court, they come to us, and they are fighting, and the wife says, "He doesn't love me." He says, "Of course I love you, honey. You, if I can show you my heart, you would see it spilling with love." What is she saying? Ah, what is she saying? "Mawaddah." There's no affection, and you're not showing me that love. So Allah says, "He has placed between you mawaddah," right? The affection. It's more of a verb, the expression of love. And mercy. Why did they come side by side? The Quran is miraculous. Why affection and mercy? Why not just affection? You know, this is the image that Hollywood promotes to us, that all you need is love. They lived happily ever after. Why mercy? Ah, Muhammad, Hamid, is warming up now. Todd, it allows you to deal with the lulls, like what? What lulls in life require mercy? Old age, illness. He said that the reason that both of them were required is because one leads to the other. That's the first thing. One leads to the other. In the beginning of a relationship, what is it? It's passion, right? It's like a hot coal or a flickering flame. It's, it's, it's excitement, it's love, it's romance. There's not much affection. Yes. But then what happens later on in life? As they grow old together, the mercy kicks in. So now they can't live with one another. They feel sorry for one another, sorrow for one another. So He has placed between you affection and and mercy. There's going to be a hole that's just on this ayah. Inshallah, we will have it in the coming weeks. So in the first part of a marriage, there is a huge amount of love. Later on, there is mercy. Allah said there is both between. Furthermore, subhanallah, He says this. He says some of the strongest relationships that a person has in his or her life is defined by affection. So the friends that you have, if I was to ask you, tell me about your relationship with him, my brother, you will say, "Wallahi, affection." Very strong affection. That's between you and your friends. And some of the strongest relationships are defined by mercy, like the relationship between father and son, mother and daughter, parent and child. There is mercy there, more than anything else. He says, "What then do you make of a relationship that brings together both affection and mercy?" That is marriage, when it is done correctly and is played properly. That is the purpose of this series, to unlock all of these gems and these ideals that we are speaking about.
So we've said the reason why we are speaking about the topic of marriage is because it's the way of the prophets before us. And we said that it's a garment that you cannot do without. And we said that it is a miracle in every sense of the word. We said it is the most wholesome form of enjoyment dunya has to offer. And it is the widest door that leads to sakina, tranquility.
Number six, the reason why we spoke, we are speaking about this topic is because the decline of the institution of marriage is the marker of the decline of nations. Yeah, society starts at the smallest possible level. Countries are made up of cities, cities are made up of towns, towns are made up of streets, streets are made up of families: husband and wife. And so if it is broken at the base level, it is broken all the way up, all the way at the top. And I truly believe that most of our travisties as a Muslim ummah can be traced back to the breakdown of the Muslim family unit. Rather, the travisties of most of humanity, I think, can be argued, can be traced back to the breakdown in the family structure.
And there was a world-famous historian by the name of Edward Gibbon, and he studied the rise and fall of the Roman civilization. And he said that the Roman civilization declined because of five features that became salient in their civilization. He said, number one, there was a weakening in the sense of individual responsibility. Nobody felt responsible and accountable for the welfare of society, family, community, religion. There was no more individual responsibility. Number two, the Roman civilization began to suffer a breakage in the family structure. Highlight that one. Number three, he says that there was a huge amount of government intervention, control, and taxes levied upon people. And number four, there was people, a lot of promiscuity and hedonism and pursuit of desire that was becoming violent and immoral. And number five, the decline of religion. What was number two? Number two was the breakdown of the family unit was what caused the decline of the Roman civilization. So this topic marks the rise or fall of civilizations.
And number seven, and this is the last of the seven points I wanted to share with you, and that is the reason why we are speaking about marriage ever after is because Shaytan places a lot of his investments in this topic. Muslim narrates on the authority of Jabir, "Then he sends out his troops to cause corruption." He said, "And at the end of that evening, the Shaytani troop who will be nearest to Iblis is the one who causes most corruption." They will report back to their lead Shaytan, Iblis, and they will say, "I did such and such corruption." At least will say, "You've done nothing." Then a second one will come and he will say, "I did not leave those two married individuals till I separated between them." Ah, then Iblis will say to him, "You are the one." And in another narration of Al-Amash, he adds, "And he brings him near to him." "You are the one. You separated between husband and wife." This is it. And as a rule, my brother, my sister, when Shaytan puts his money for a cause, we are to pay attention. He has invested so much time and effort and his men into destroying the institution of marriage. It is a satanic ambition to see divorce a feature of a society.
And when you ask yourself the question, why does he invest so much time and effort in this? Well, you look at the ramifications of divorce in many cases, not all, but in many, and sometimes most. The husband is derailed from his religion, and he's now experimenting left, right, and center. He's off the hook, he's off the leash. The wife, she may behave in a wild way, decline in her religion, and find ways to harm her ex-husband by depriving him from seeing the children, or any other way to upset him and harm him, cause pain. And as for the children, what happens to the children who come from a broken home? In most cases, not all. Ian Duncan Smith, who is the ex-Work and Pensions Secretary of the UK, said, "Children who come out of broken homes are nine times more likely to commit crime than children who come out from stable homes." Other statistics, they say that children who come from a broken home are more likely to be obese than they are to be healthy. Children nowadays are more likely to have a smartphone than they are a father. Children nowadays, if trends continue in the UK as they are at this moment in time, there is a one in three chance that children before the age of 15 will not be in a home with a mother and father, but with one or the other. It is a Muslim, it's a calamity. And the tsunami of marital breakdown is battering the coast of humanity, not just the Muslims. Take a look at the statistics. It's not just us who are being affected. It's a worldwide phenomenon.
There is an issue in the, uh, 1930s, one in seven marriages ended in divorce in America. In the 1960s, one in four marriages ended in divorce. And now, in modern-day times, it's around one in two marriages will end in divorce in the United States. In China, there is a huge surge now in the filings for divorce, so much so that courts are now requiring couples to carry out an exam before they can file for a divorce to try to limit it. And then when you turn to a country like Egypt, with one of the biggest Muslim populations, certainly in the Arab world, there is a divorce that's happening there every two minutes. In Pakistan, the ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan, his siren, he, he raised a flag, he was concerned, and he spoke about his concern for the rising levels of divorce in Pakistan. And then when you turn to the Arab world, it is just as devastating, if not worse. In 2014, it was documented that in parts of Saudi Arabia, divorce is reaching up to 60% of marriages. In 2013, there was a report that spoke about the divorces in Qatar, and in 2014, one in the UAE, Qatar, and the UAE suffering a divorce rate of approximately 70% of marriages are ending in divorce. Some will say that's a catastrophe. And so much is being applied to reverse this trend. You've got dowry caps, group weddings, people are loaning people money to give their mahar, their dowry, financial incentives, penalties for divorce. Nothing is working.
Where does this sit with our Quran? When Allah says, "If you divorce women," look at the particle here, of the conditional particle, "if." "If you happen to divorce," then you divorce at the "hindu" period, meaning it's not supposed to be the norm. And then when you look into the misery that comes into the life of a human being when they are going through marital discord, it really prevents them from becoming the true worshipper of Allah Almighty in many cases. Why? Because the heart is a vessel, and if that vessel is filled with grief, misery, and pain, shouting, fighting, how are you going to fill that vessel with the worship of Allah Ta'ala, the remembrance of Allah, the glorification of Allah?
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No man has two hearts in his chest. Grief. I'm trying to build a case for you, dear brother, dear sister, why we are speaking about this topic. And there was a study that was done by two psychiatrists in 1967 by Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, where what they did was that they took a sample of 5,000 patients, and essentially they were trying to establish whether there is a link between stress and illness. Does stress cause illness? So they brought 5,000 patients, and they presented them with a series of 43 life events: death, divorce, bankruptcy, 43 disasters that a person can experience. And each one of these life experiences had a particular scoring and a weight to correspond to the stress. And each event which the patient added up to, or each event which the patient added, meant that the score was higher. And if the score was higher, it means the stress was higher. And if the stress was higher, it means the likelihood to become ill was was higher. Then they looked at the list of the most stressful events that can lead to illness and death, and they found: number one, death of a spouse. Number two, divorce. Number three, marital separation. The top three of the list of stressful events that causes illness and death are all around the breakdown of a marriage. So the matter is serious, dear brothers and sisters, and something needs to be done about this.
As you have found out, as Muslims, we are no exception to the rule that marriages are decaying left, right, and center. So much so that if you see a Muslim couple who are happy, you say, "Masha'Allah, may Allah protect them from the evil eye." This is strange. They haven't divorced yet. And you see the prenuptial agreements between husband and wife before they marry, as if to say, uh, it's not till death do us part, it's till divorce do us part. Subhanallah. The assumption is divorce. So they're sat, instead of sitting with a Sheikh, they are sat with a lawyer before they get married. "Where do the assets go in the case of a divorce?" Therefore, because the challenge is great, brothers and sisters, our response as Muslims needs to be equal, of equal measure, to deal with this challenge. And that is why for this series, starting from next week, inshallah, we are going to retreat to the book of Allah. We're going to find our solution from there. "This Quran guides to that which is best and a description, a detailed description of all things, guidance for people who believe." So we're going to go to the book of Allah.
And the method of the series is not going to be one whereby we're going to take a marital problem and a solution, and a problem and a solution. This is not the Quranic way, aslan. The Quranic way is that it gives you, it gives foundations, it gives principles to help you manage the difficulty in your life and to keep your challenges at bay. We're going to go through maybe a dozen or so, plus or minus, principles from the book of Allah. And these principles that I'm going to share with you have three characteristics. These principles will be universal, meaning they apply everywhere. And they will be timeless, meaning they apply at every period in time. And they will be self-evident, meaning you cannot argue a case against them. That would be foolish. Self-evident. We will start this as of next week. And we're going to discover, inshallah, that it's not marriage that makes you happy. You are the one who makes your marriage happy. Happiness is not a dream, it is a choice that we are able to make if we understand these principles and apply them.
And I offer you two quick disclaimers here before I conclude and I leave you to it this evening. The first disclaimer in the study, please. Number one, bear in mind that these principles are not intended to flush out every single problem and headache you experience with your husband and wife. Because even the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, was not spared of these. He separated himself from his wives for weeks on end, and he was stressed because of them sometimes. This is part of life. Fell out with Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, his wife. He left the house, and he was found in the masjid, sleeping, covered in sand. These principles, however, are looking to address the main issues that can threaten the fabric of a marriage, and to give you a system by way you can deal with your problems and to flourish as a Muslim couple. That's disclaimer number one.
Disclaimer number two, don't rush. Don't feel that you've memorized and understood the principles, you have to see results tomorrow or next week. It may take time. And I love the words of Stephen Covey in his book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families." And he speaks about the, the Chinese bamboo tree, the miracle of the Chinese bamboo tree. He says, "The Chinese bamboo tree, you place the seed, and for four years, you see nothing other than a bulb that comes out of the ground and a shoot. That's it. For four years. Very annoying." He said, "What is happening underground? It's building a huge network, fibrous roots. It's establishing itself. And then on the fifth year, in one year, it grows 80 feet into the into the sky." Why am I saying this? When you study the series with us, your fifth year will come. It will arrive. It may happen next year, it may happen next month. Don't rush. Understand the principles first, then apply them one at a time. Secondly, then leave it to Allah to allow your seed to germinate when He wishes. It will come with patience and reliance upon Allah. We will discover, inshallah, that living happily ever after with your husband and your wife is not a mystery. Ah, it's a mastery of certain skills. We're going to share them, with Allah.