Don't Fall in Love... Grow in Love...

 

*It is imperative to note, at the very outset of this series, that this is not a rhetorical flourish; it is, in fact, the argument this entire series exists to make.

 

We are, as an ummah, unlike any nation before us. There is no messenger to follow ours; upon him be peace and blessings. As such, the responsibility of carrying his message to every generation after us falls, in its entirety, on us. It is a heavy inheritance, and it is worth asking what it actually rests upon.

 

A nation is nothing more than a composition of families. A family, in turn, is nothing more than a composition, at its core, of a husband and a wife.

 

It follows, then, that we cannot be the best of nations if we are not the best of families, and we cannot be the best of families if we, as spouses, are not the best of people to one another. The health of the ummah, from this perspective, is inseparable from the health of the marriage.

 

Before we go any further, it is imperative to note what marriage actually is, from the perspective of our dīn, because I suspect many of us have never paused to consider it.

 

Allah, exalted is He, tells us in Sūrah al-Rūm: "And among His signs is that He created for you, from yourselves, spouses, that you may find tranquillity (sakan) in them; and He placed between you love (mawaddah) and mercy (raḥmah)" (30:21).

 

Note the word Allah chooses: a sign (āyah)...

 

Allah does not describe marriage merely as a favour, though it is that; He describes it as evidence.

 

A sign of what, one might ask. A sign, from the perspective of the scholars, of His very existence, of His oneness in lordship, in worship, and in His names and attributes...

 

That two strangers, from different families, different temperaments, and often different histories, should settle into tranquillity with one another, and find between them love and mercy, is not a small thing to Allah. It is, in fact, presented to us as proof of Him.

 

To take marriage seriously, then, is not merely to take one's own household seriously; it is to take seriously a matter Allah Himself has pointed to as evidence of His Lordship.

 

It is also important to note that this is not a matter of personal preference or cultural custom. The Prophet ﷺ said, plainly: "marriage is from my sunnah; whoever turns away from my sunnah is not of me" (Bukhārī, Muslim).

 

Marriage is not, therefore, a lifestyle choice one may take or leave according to taste. It is prophetic practice, and to hold it lightly is to hold his sunnah lightly.

 

There is also another verse worth sitting with for a moment, from Sūrah al-Nisāʾ. Allah says:

 

"and they have taken from you mīthāqan ghalīẓan (a solemn covenant)" (4:21),

 

The mufassirūn have offered various explanations of precisely what this covenant refers to, but the sense given by the majority is this: a woman has not become lawful to a man by his own will, nor by the agreement of two families, nor by any word other than the word of Allah and His legislation.

 

That is the covenant, and it is why it is described as solemn. And it is solemn, too, because of what it comes to hold: the bond that forms between two people, the affection that grows, the intimacy that is shared, the secrets disclosed to one another that are disclosed to no one else.

 

A covenant of this weight, entered into on these terms, is not something to be treated carelessly, by either party, at any stage of the marriage.

 

Marriage, then, is a sign of Allah's existence and oneness; it is the sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ; and it is a solemn covenant, made lawful by nothing less than the word of Allah Himself.

 

It is worth carrying that weight into everything that follows in this series, because it is easy, amid discussion of issues and solutions, to lose sight of just how serious a matter we are actually discussing.

 

There is no shortage of guidance available to the Muslim on the subject of marriage; there are, in fact, entire libraries devoted to it, and no shortage of speeches, lectures, and khuṭbahs besides. It is not, therefore, more of the same that this series intends to offer.

 

What is often missing, in my assessment, is not more advice, but a clearer view of the system that advice is meant to operate within.

 

Marriages do not fail for a single reason or in a single moment; they fail, more often, at identifiable points, in identifiable ways, and it is only by naming these points precisely that the corresponding remedy can be applied precisely. This series will approach marriage, as such, not merely as a relationship to be nurtured, but as a system to be understood: its inputs, its structure, its processes, its capacity to adapt, and its boundaries.

 

Across the coming posts in our series, we will examine, together, why some enter marriage without ever having examined themselves; why hierarchy is so often mistaken for superiority; why the tongue does more damage than the fist in most Muslim homes; why so many marriages have no mechanism to learn from their own mistakes; why parents, however well-intentioned, can become an obstacle to the very justice they believe they are pursuing; and why the growth of one spouse, whether in dīn or in status, so often becomes the undoing of the other, rather than its cause for celebration.

 

By the end of this series, I hope the opening line of this introduction will no longer read as provocation. I hope, instead, that it will read as plainly true.

 

At the end of every piece in this series, you will find a short set of action points: concrete things you can try in your own marriage that same week, not just abstract encouragement. My hope is that each piece leaves you with both a clearer diagnosis and a next step.