Solemn marriages
Dr. Shaykh Rafiq
Love can be defined as the emotion that encourages intelligent self-expression in the partner and create congenial atmosphere, where the couple can find more happiness together than individually. This emotion grows gradually in intensity. It is based upon patience and mutual understanding.
One must learn to express this kind of love. Any marriage build with a clear understanding of this concept of love can stand the greatest of stresses and ensure a life of harmony and happiness. The husband and wife relationship is the sacred thing on earth, it’s mentioned in Quran, that for men Allah created their mates, so that they may find tranquility in them, and he placed between you affection and mercy. The spouses are emotionally supportive, trusting, caring, and most often they are like friends to each other.
Saying ”I Accept” means the responsibilities.
To say ”I accept” (Qabool hain) is actually meant for the promises of husband and wife. A promise that the couple will strive both in times of sorrows and happiness to help each other. A promise of husband to wife for providing nourishment, welfare, happiness for wife and children. A promise of wife to husband that she will take care of the family, she will be loyal, providing mental courage and strength and will share his responsibilities as her own. The Quran and Hadith gives us much better illustrated understanding of husband and wife relationship compared to seven vows of Hindu marriage.
The ultimate success of marriage depends as much upon the husband as on the wife. The husband and wife are coming from different backgrounds with several desires and feelings. The girl thinks that her husband will fetch stars from sky for her. While the husband thinks contrary to it, he thinks my wife will be loyal to me, she will stand side by side with me in all phases and circumstances of life.
The Husband and wife are just like two sides of a coin. They just can’t live without each other, but it may often become difficult to free each other due to misunderstandings and problems. Although there are thousands of articles, only the thing is, just Google and search the related articles – as don’t take each other for granted, spend quality time with each other, express gratitude, pass healthy compliments, never lie each other, compromise, share secrets may keep the relationship happy and healthy.
If one is fire the other should be water.
It’s said “Husband and wife fights are the summer rains” which lasts in seconds, minutes or hours, but the third person may add fuel to fire. Many problems in a husband and wife relationship arise due to rejecting the teachings of Islam. Islam is the complete code of life.
The Muslim has been taught the practical life based on ethics and morals. The complicated innovations adopted in the system of marriage are far away from teachings of Islam. It is said, “marriage is made in heaven and celebrated on earth”, but restrictions in it are brought by the blood relations of kith and kin of the families.
When a couple is tied in a relationship, the ego of desires and dreams may be the repellent, which is creating problems, but the good communication and understanding keeps the frustrating situations apart from the couple, which minimizes the quarrels and problems. However when third person comes in between the husband and wife minor problems, creating the major problems for both of them.
We should treat fairly the rights of a couple equally in terms of expression and implementation. Many a times the parents of bride and groom play a pivotal role in balancing and normalizing the dangerous situations. The parents had to listen to the problems of both the sides to combat the void spaces of misunderstandings. It’s rightly said, that everyone is listening of women beaten and nobody is listening of men beaten. Sometimes parents aren’t in a position to compromise, creates the huge distance between the couple, making them hard to be together and the relationship may end up even in divorce.
The bride (Brand -e- Kaien) – the stepping stone.
The aesthetics of marriage must not be the fruition of bride for resettlement in society, rather the enlightenment of two families in society with magnificence and eternal peace. Marriage, a necessity for human beings, is a fundamental pre – requisite for setting up of family and as such the religious sanctity for it, gives birth to the various kinds of morals to be followed in its performance.
People do not marry because it is their social duty to perpetuate the institution of family or because the scriptures recommended matrimony or because they have fallen in love with each other, but because they lived in a family as children and cannot get over the feeling that being in family is the only proper way to live in society.
The development of husband and wife relationship is co-related with the development of every civilized society in the world. Marriage is as old as the dawn of civilizations. However, the nature and the concept of marriage under various personal laws keep on changing with the changes in society and social order. The general marriage requires the subsistence of social unit “Family” which is the foundation of every society. The bride is the stepping stone of house, should not left the house on small misunderstandings, arising due to frustrations of daily life.
The thinking of arguments as a winning or losing game can be dangerous as this perception will stand spouse against the spouse. The parents should not keep on listening one sided mentality. The parents of bride must not keep her daughter in their home for maximum time. In Kashmir it is a trend to keep the bride after delivery of a baby in their homes for years. Many fathers are not sending the bride back to home for years. Which is completely baseless according to Islam and medical science.
Enduring the hard times together
It is necessary that marital conflicts be avoided as far as possible, if conflicts arise, they must be suitably resolved. Each partner must understand the needs of others, thereby helping the other find fulfillment. Give and take attitude is the basis for a couple uniting in a matrimony.
The day a husband or a wife accepted each other ‘for better or worse’ a new life begun for them. The husband cannot be the good husband or father without a substantial support of wife. The nagging wife has to give up creating the problems on trivial things.
The system of marriage is undergoing a continual change. There was a time when man took on the role of an unquestioned master and guide. The woman followed him, taking his word to be law. Although today’s marriage is based on equivalent rights in every meaning, whether it is aesthetics of decisions or words.
The marriages are fragile in connection these days, the divorces are rising, bringing not only the heartache to the couple, but also endangering the future of children from such marriages. While some feel it is better to break a marriage than to live a life of discord, in most cases wrecked marriages have resulted from lack of tact and understanding, from intolerance and selfishness.
Better if quarrels are not allowed to grow
Many times the expectations from a partner can be unreasonably high, and with desires out of proportion to the real needs, discord sets in. It is better if quarrels are not allowed to grow. The smaller quarrels are an outburst due to tension in our lives. They pass off as the tension is released and there can even bind a couple together. However, when differences are allowed to grow in silence, and with an indifferent attitude, the tension piles up and can cripple the relationships. Some day pent-up tension is released in a sudden explosion. This may break the marriage.
Follow Islam rather than innovations
The rituals and customs are negatively polluting the system of marriage. The resultant influence of it is causing serious marriage problems in the Muslim world from decades. The only ritual is performed according to Quran and Hadith is Nikah or marriage contract is drawn up and the Mehr is fixed.
Islamic scholar or Qazi would perform the Nikah ceremony by reciting the verses of holy Quran and Hadith related to it. The people of Kashmir observe several customs and beliefs. There are many points of resemblance between Muslim customs and the customs of Pandits (Kashmiri Hindu). Wazwaan is considered by kashmiris as a core element of their culture and identity. The Nishani (engagement), menzraat (use of mehendi dye), saath naam (fixing of marriage day), Gulimuit (giving of money and jewels), Phirsaal (the visit paid by the bride’s house), Baraat or Yanowoul or Rukhsat (departure of the bride), Mohar tulen (turning up of dupatta and giving gifts), Hash kant (bride in return offers ornaments), Phire-yun (Girl’s reception) are all baseless innovative rituals of marriages.
Wish changes the bad into good
The overwhelming majority of men and women did not accept the guidance of their faith and adopted the path of cruelty, abstinence, stubbornness and negligence. It is said, ‘the marriages are complex, but the fornication is easy’.
What makes the marriage complicated? Is it our thinking or the customs and rituals? Many experienced Islamic scholars are speaking about tutelage of husband and wife relationship such as Mufti Tariq Masood from Pakistan.
A famous program is been broadcasted by Radio Kashmir, Srinagar, known as “Humsafar” weekly on Fridays by Mr. Fayaz Ahmad Zaroo related to the rising issues of marriages. The people have to actively take action against such marriages fasten in a manner in contrast to Islam. The scholars and intellectuals are silent about the rising problems and eradication of evils in marriages. The doctors can play a crucial role in awareness of people especially the gynecologists and obstetricians, who are dealing with women’s body and their ailments.
Sheikh Nuruddin Noorani Rishi (R.A) writes about the end times(Akher Zamaan):
“My disciple, alike will be the realm of deeds.
The perversion in nature of things will be such that pears and apples will ripen with apricots.
The mothers – daughters duo will leave the home with handshake.
Then they will spend whole days and nights with strangers”.
Firstly, it is important to know that Pears and apples will ripen later than the apricots. By using this metaphor, Sheikh Nuruddin Rishi (R.A) meant that the boys and girls will attain puberty before time. And the consequences will be that the whole world will go towards immorality. Immorality up to that extent that mother will accompany the daughter in her immoral pursuits.
Attitude towards marriage need to be examined to eradicate evil.
It’s not necessary that late marriages are evil in the Society, but there are ample reasons leading the younger generation to practice wrong acts. It’s widely accepted that more married men or women are moving towards an evil practices than unmarried ones.
The punishments given by Allah and holy prophet (p.b.u.h) lost its eminence in the Muslim world. The parents are incompetent to stop their children from such heinous evil acts. We need to accept the reality of Kashmir, as it isn’t that Kashmir, in which Sheikh Noruddin Reshi (R.A) took birth. If we will analyse there are unlimited areas in Kashmir, where the sin isn’t understood as a sin, even though the traditional call to prayer remained as a ritual and prayer limited to mosque. A perception is being developed somewhere in mindsets that along prayers there is no need of doing good to humanity. A prayer which doesn’t stop a men or a women from doing evil is mere a mirage or betrayal of our souls.
Boyfriend or Girlfriend are allowed for husband or wife.
The concept of living relationship, boyfriends, late marriages and rare understanding of marriage gives rise to fornication or adultery. In Kashmir boys and girls are openly having relationship outside marriage or within the marriage. The parents are hardly bothered about the whereabouts of their children after leaving home for school or college.
We followed the old methods contrary to Islam inside the marriages and new methods to distract the population from marriages for adoption of evil practices. The polygamous marriages and divorces are seen as an evil in society or else the divorce or second or third or four marriage should be as easy as first marriage to refrain the society from the evil of adultery.
The method of divorce given in Islam is itself the miracle (mojeza) of our beloved prophet (p.b.u.h). The polygamy of Muslims draws its validity from chapter-4 of holy Quran. Its versus allowed marry “two or three or four” woman, but ask them to have a single wife if they “fear” they cannot treat them all with equal families. Polygamy become illegal in India in 1956, uniformly for all of its citizens except for Muslims, who are permitted to have four wives and for Hindus in Goa and along the Western coast where bigamy is legal.
Last but not the least, we should implement the methods to make the marriages easygoing, the fornication complicated, rather the couple must love each other and avoid the unreasonable quarrels in a marriage.
(The author is senior physiotherapist)
