Successful Marriages: Part IV

Lecture by Suhaib Webb | Transcribed by Fuseina Mohamad

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

Problem Number Four: Getting Married and Leaving the Community

The fourth is falling into the trap of being a young professional and leaving the community.  Before we get married we’re active.

One brother asked one time, one of the  brothers – I   became Muslim through him, he’s about 70 masha’Allah – somebody asked him, “Akhi that brother used to be at Fajr every day – what happened?”

He said, “Family life, man.” He didn’t mean it in a negative way. He said, “Jobs and family.”

So we have to be very careful as young professionals in the community that we don’t allow ourselves to be swallowed up in the sweetness of marriage and forget the bitterness of MCA (Muslim Community Association).  It’s bitter, but there’s sweetness here too.  So being a young professional and being a newlywed you have all types of freedom, [thinking] “Yeah, man, I got it going on now!” But you have a responsibility as a young couple to contribute to the community and be part of the community because the community needs a lot of help and a lot of assistance.

Problem Number Five: Contempt

The last point, and I’ll stop insha’Allah, is the idea of contempt.  We don’t hold our family like a court of law where people are held into contempt and sent to prison – this goes back to forgiveness.  I know brothers who told me that their wives bring up stuff that they did on their wedding night; the brother’s been married for thirty years.  She would tell him, “You forgot to open the door.” What are you talking about?  We forget things like that, right?  We’re not analytical like women.  “You forgot to open the door for me.”

In the Qur’an Allah exonerated or offered exoneration to Abu Sufyan and Hind – the people who maligned the body of Hamza (ra).   Fa means what?  Quickness.  So Allah said about them if they repent to Allah and establish prayer and pay zakah: fa ikhwanukum fiddeen, then they will be your brothers in religion.  And He used fa, He didn’t say wa (and).  Why did he say fa?  `Alatool, as we say in Egypt – immediately.  If they do that, they are your brothers and sisters.  Who?  Abu Sufyan and Hind! Look at the forgiveness Allah afforded these enemies of Allah and His Messenger, [yet we] cannot afford to give the offer of forgiveness to my wife and to my husband?

Those five important things are what they call pitfalls in marriage and they said around sixty-five percent of people who hold issues in their heart [and] don’t sit down, and talk about them, and forgive each other, they end up having massive crises in their marriage.