chosing the right partner - part 2

last time we talked about the balance between the two partners concerning religiosity, social background, education and financial situation. and we said that a balance in those points will be very beneficial for the couple and their married life and that extrem differences in those points can cause big problems.

today we will start with talking about the age-difference of the two partners.
we here very often about big age-differences between partners. what says islam to this?
the scholars say that age-differences between couples, in whatever constellation, are completely okay as long as they respond to two requirements

1. if the lady is older, she should never see herself as superior or more experienced because of the fact that she is older.
2. if the man is younger, he should not feel subjugated or think that he is allowed to neglect his responsibilities over his wife because he is younger than her.

Although it should not be the age but the maturity of the partners that should be determining, many scholars as well as psychologists have agreed on a perfect age difference between 3 and 8 years, simply because every difference bigger than that means that the partners are one whole generation or more apart.
Nowadays we see many young girls wanting to get married to men that are much older than themselves. Why is that?
reasons might be that they feel that the men in their own age are not mature and not able to take responsibility and to care for a family. They might feel that an older man could offer her more space in his life, value her more and protect her better than a young men who hasn't really "arrived" in his life yet.
This phenomenon should make our young men think about their attitude, maturity and ability to take responsibility.

Although the age-difference between mohammad, peace be upon him and khadija was 15 years, we should keep in mind that this was a special relation between two very special persons. and mohammad, peace be upon him can not be compared to the 25year old boys we see nowadays!

Abu bakr, omar and uthman asked to marry our prophets daugther fatima but mohammad, peace be upon him, rejected them all because they were to old! in the end fatima married ali who was only 5 years older than her.


Last time we said that finding a religious partner should be our priority.
But i want to emphasis that religiosity has nothing to do with being extreme since islam does not like anything that is extrem!
just because a woman is wearing hijab or because a brother wears a long beart and we see them all the time in the mosque, that doesn't mean that they are really religious or that they have understood the meaning of being religious in its right sens.
being religious is reflected in the good character traits a person posesses, because when being religious why want to please and praise Allah and one form of praising Allah is to have good and beautyful character traits!
One day a man came to omar, saying about another man that he was very good and religious.
omar said:
- how do you know that, did you make business with him?
- no
- have you traveled with him?
- no
- ahhh, so you just saw him in the mosque reading quran?
- yes

that is not enough to know if a person is a good or religious person. only by seeing a persons character you will find out if he is really religious and if he has understood the meaning of being religious.
Maybe there will be a lady saying that she married a very religious man who always prayed in the mosque etc. but he treated her very badly and she suffered a lot in the marriage with him.
so, can we say that the prophets, peace be upon him advice to marry the religious was wrong in that case? could our prophet, peace be upon him ever advice something that is not good for us?
or wasn't it the lady who missunderstood the man she chose, who thought he was religious when in reality he didn't understand his religion and responsibility?
maybe we see a lady in hijab and immediately we are convinced that she is very religious. but how can we really know that until we have seen her behaviour?

inorder to go the right we we should always keep our goal in mind.
our goal is to enter paradise and we are searching for a partner with whom we can inhabit the earth according to Allahs commandments so that we will enter paradise together. we are looking for a partner that will help and support us to go the right way together.
we must make the religiosity to or priority but we must also like and be attracted to eachother and there should be a balance between religiosity, social background, education and financial situation. And we should be pleased with the partners character traits since they reflect his religiosity.

Even if we know exactly what we are looking for, it can be very very difficult to find a partner!
Especially women find themselves in a situation that they are very good educated, finished their studies and are ready to get married but cannot find a suitable partner. maybe because there is simply no man near or all the men who come to ask for her hand are not what she is looking for. there are three major barriers
- the parents have to high expectations, be it financially or something else
- men are not willing/able to take responsibility for a family
- the number of potential partners is extremely limited (specially europe/non-muslim countries)

these unmarried women are under an enourmous pressure from all sides and sometimes the pressure is so big that they just want to get married to anybody so that people will stop talking badly about them etc.
this is a very dangerous problem and we should wonder why our parents and grandparents and the people of the time of our prophet, peace be upon him didn't have those problems.
those people had a family, a family in its real islamical sense and function. a family that was a network of all the family members and their neighbors and neighbor families and so on. a network were a boy and a girls could know eachother in a healthy, halal environment, where they knew eachother since childhood and were the families were very close to eachother.
the prophet, peace be upon him used to gather families in his house to make dua for them and ask Allah to strengthen their relationship.
but what has happened to our families today? if i asked you what your cousin likes, how she/he is feeling etc, will you know the answer? are your parents your bestfriends like it is supposed to be in islam? will the members of your family understand eachother and their needs without even telling their problem?
So even if the best way to find a partner would be through the network of your family, many of yús cannot apply it today. may it be because their family are non.muslims or simply because their family has lost their solidarity.

After musa had escaped egypt he arrived at an oasis were he saw men giving water to their camels. a little bit secluded he saw two girls standing, apparently waiting for something.
he went their and asked about why they were there.
the girls said that they needed to get water but that they couldn't do that aslong as the men where there and that their father was an old man.
musa went to bring the water for them and than he left.
one of the girls liked musa and so she asked the father if he could not ask him to work for them since he seemed strong and useful.
the father told her to bring musa to him.
when she arrived musa she said that her father was inviting to thank him for helping the girls.
when musa came to the house the father asked him if he wanted to marry one of his daughters.

from this little story we can learn so many things.
first musa saw that the girls were in need so it was just natural for him to go and helped him.
when he talked to the girls he was very respectful and didn't talk more than it was needed, neighter musa nor the girls tried to be charming or anything like that.
the daughter didn't have to say that she liked musa, her father understood like this because he knew her so well. how many amongst us think that their father knows everything about us and will understand us even without saying anything explicitely?
when musa came to the house the father didn't embarrased his daughter by telling musa that she liked him. he was very discrete to remain his daughters value and to don't embarras her.

Islam doesn't forbid us to like somebody or to fall in love, in the end how can we control our hearts?! it is just that when you are in love you should not let your feelings leed you to things that are forbidden.

In islam the lady has a very high value and we should try our best to remain her value as high as possible and not to embarras her.

one day nafisa came to her friend khadija who was sitting somewere.
- what happened to you khadija?
- i see mohammad and i see so many things in him that i don't see in other men
nufaisa got what she was trying to say and said:
- what do you think about marying him?
- how should that work?
- i will take care of it.
nufaisa went to mohammad, peace be upon him and said:
- ya mohammad, don't you want to get married?
- i don't have the means to get married!
- what would you say if you wouldn't need anything to marry a very good woman?
- who would that be?
- khadija bint-u khuwaylid
- would she agree to marry me?
- I will go and ask her!

You see, khadija didn't have to actually say that she was interested in him to make her friend understand her and nufaisa kept her value very high by making it seem like it was mohammad, peace be upon him who asked to get married to khadija and not the other was around!
that is the beauty of good character traits and so many good examples from which we can learn!

Friday afternoon

Last week we learned that it was a parent’s most important responsibility to educate the children and in order to do so we looked at the importance of choosing the right partner.

This week it is about the question how we can give our children their right of education.

It is a child’s most fundamental right to get education and love and the best and maybe only way to give our child this right is to follow the wonderful behaviour of our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Children need unconditional and never ending love in order to grow, love that is not restricted, limited or connected to certain behaviour or performance.

One of the Prophet’s companions, peace be upon him, saw how he was playing with the children. The companion said to Muhammad, peace be upon him: “I see how you play with the children and how you kiss and love them. I have 10 children and by Allah, I have never kissed them!” The answer of the Prophet, peace be upon him was: “Those who don’t give mercy will never get mercy!”, meaning that if the father is not merciful towards his own children, Allah won’t be merciful with him either. Muhammad, peace be upon him didn’t asked if the father treated his children bad or anything, just the fact that he never kissed his children was enough for him to give such a harsh and strong answer.

Muhammad, peace be upon him had to deal with so many and serious problems of the whole Ummah (community) but he never forget the love towards children and even while he was praying he let his nephews Hassan and Houssein play with him and jump on his back.

Once the Prophet, peace be upon him was praying when he heard that his niece Zainab, who was a baby at that time, was crying. He stopped his prayer to put her on his arms and comfort her until she stopped crying and then continued his prayer!

Muhammad, peace be upon him walked long distances just to see his son Ibrahim and to be able to hold him and kiss him!

These examples should show us that love is the key to good education and that this love should never be conditional. Our children are a gift from Allah and that is exactly how we should treat them!

If we give love we will get it back a hundred times! When Fatima, the daughter of our Prophet, peace be upon him was small, Muhammad, peace be upon him used to go to her when she entered the room and to kiss and hug her and to lead her to her place. When Fatima was grown up and the Prophet, peace be upon him was a old man, she came to him as soon as he entered the room and kissed and hugged him and lead him to his place.

We wonder why our children don’t want to be close to us, why they do bad things and why they don’t treat us the way they should. It is not the society or the children themselves to blame, no, we are the ones to blame! Simply because of the love we did not gave them when we were supposed to and it is their most fundamental right we failed to give them!

Our Prophet, peace be upon him said: “the best women are the women of the Quraish (an Arab tribe) because they love their children the most and treat their husbands the best!”

Friday afternoon

Since i've already started the Friday evening series I'll add a Friday afternoon series.
When I am having a perfect friday I'll go first to Juma'ah prayer in one mosque and then in the evening to a lecture in a other mosque.. so thats actually why it makes sense to post two Friday things.
So this friday afternoon the speech was about the following:

How can we manage our task in this life? And maybe more important, what is this task?
Well, our task is it to create, educate and guide the following generation, our children.
We have to lead and to guide them the right way in order to create a righteous and believing Ummah (community) in the future.
The first and most important thing on the way to sucessfully deal with that challenge is to choose the right life partner and therefor the right family and environment in which our children will grow up.
This step is often neglected in todays islamic society since many people think that they just have to get married in order to stay away from the harmful and that anyways they will get to know their partner during the years of marriage so they dont see the importance of getting to know the future husband/wife thoroughly enough.
Many people think that when they marry they fullfill half of their faith so the importance is on getting married, but that is not the solution!
I know many people that marry very quickly in order to dont be tempted to commit any sins but forget that the choice they make is a choice for life. And it is not just a choice for our life, it is also a choice for the lives of our children!
By choosing our partner we choose the nest in which we will embed our children, the environment in which they will grow up and the ideals and values which they will learn and later apply to their lives and pass on to their children, our grandchildren!
Our children are the carrier of Allahs holy message and we are the ones who will have to teach them about it and whoes responsibility it is to make sure that they will carry and pass it on.
It is our responsibility in life, our challenge to bring up believing and righteous children and by chosing our partner we will choose the man/woman who will help us with that, who will share our responsibility. And so we really have to make sure that this partner is as aware of his task as we are because otherwise we manot be able to fulfill our task sufficiently simply because our partner doesn't support us the way he should!

So choosing the right partner, a partner who is religious, rightous and who understand his responsibility and challenge in this world is essential.
And we also have to be aware aand never forget that when we choose a partner, we will also choose his whole family as a background for our children!!!
And the children have to be nourished with Halal (lawful), because no good can come from bad.
Once the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon Him, told the story of "a man who was on a very long journey, his hair was messed up and he was covered in dust and sand. He raised his hands and called "Oh Lord! Oh Lord!" while his food was haram, what he drank was haram, is clothes were haram and he was nourished with haram. So how could his prayer be answered then?" (Tafsir Al-Qur'an Al-Karim, Islamische Biblipthek, page 110)

Every single child has the right to proper attention and education and it is the parents responsibility to give the child these rights. So if a women gives birth every year, how can she than fulfill her task of giving individual attention and education?
Therefor Islam advises parents to waite till the breast-feeding phase of two years is over after trying to have another child to make sure that every single child gets his right and also to enable the parents to fulfill their task to Allahs pleasure.