marriage, family, gender
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How Sins Can Destroy Relationships of True Love & Friendship
THERE ARE A PLETHORA of verses in the Holy Qur’an and prophetic hadiths that speak about how the consequences of sins impact upon the well being of the social order. Their ill effect upon individuals is no less debilitating. One hadith tells us that: مَا تَوَادَّ اثْنَانِ فِي اللهِ جَلَّ وَعَزَّ أَوْ فِي الإِسْلاَمِ، فَيُفَرِّقُ Continue reading
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Navigating the Husband, Wife & Mother-In-Law Matrix
The husband, wife, mother-in-law interplay is often a very sensitive three-way dynamic. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of marital or family relationships. When it works well, it brings joy and warmth into the family; when it does not, it often makes life a living hell! Usually it’s the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dynamic which is the most fraught Continue reading
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The Goal of the Shari‘ah is Justice, Not Equality
IN SPEAKING OF JUSTICE, many well-intended Muslims are unconsciously secularised. For their discourse about justice (Ar. ‘adl, qist) is so often scarred by failing to grasp its Quranic essence: ‘To put a thing in its rightful place.’1 Which is to say, justice is to give things their proper due – at the due time, the due place, and in due measure. This requires Continue reading
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Striving in Allah’s Path Through Our 9 to 5 Jobs
Q. I’m not the academic type, but I keep getting told how important gaining knowledge is in Islam. Some of my friends go to many of these religious weekend courses in their quest for knowledge, but that’s just not me. I have a husband and children who I’m devoted to, hold down a good job, Continue reading
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Seven Principles of Marriage in Islam
1. Marriage (nikah), the shared life of man and woman, is commended in Islam as being honourable and good. It was the way of God’s prophets and messengers, with the notable exception of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. The Qur’an says: وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا رُسُلاً مِنْ قَبْلِكَ وَجَعَلْنَا لَهُمْ أَزْوَاجًا وَذُرِّيَّةً – We sent Messengers Continue reading
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The Male Lust, the Female Form & the Forbidden Gaze
Allah ﷻ informs in the Holy Qur’an: Made beautiful for mankind is the love of desires for women and offspring, of hoarded heaps of gold and silver, of branded horses, cattle and plantations. [3:14] Although such things are elsewhere spoken of positively in the Qur’an, as blessings for which people should be thankful, here they are Continue reading
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Divorcing the Wife at the Behest of Parents
Q. Is there any religious requirement in Islam for a husband to divorce his wife merely because his parents are displeased with the marriage, or continue to disapprove of it? Didn’t the Prophet ﷺ endorse the decision of ‘Umar who ordered his son to divorce his wife? Is the son being disobedient if he refuses to do so? ♦ Continue reading
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Going In Sorrow, But Not in Grief: Islam, Tolkien & Dying Well
It was the summer of 1979 that I visited the local Harrow Green library to borrow Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Around about four years earlier, over the course of a few months in morning assemblies, the head teacher of my primary school, one silver haired Mr. Smith, read to us Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I was expecting Continue reading