What’s Love Got To Do With It?

[Roohi]

by Ustadh Abu Eesa Naimatullah

And as we know from before, Tina Turner put it even more bluntly in her next line of her hit song, “What’s love but a second-hand emotion?”

You have to give it to song-writers: they really do express the truth sometimes in remarkably effective fashion.

The issues of love, prospective partners, marriage, keeping the flame of love burning etc have been beaten to death by mankind since time immemorial. Everyone has had a say on the matter and quite right too: no human is free from the stresses, hassles and difficulties encountered in day-to-day life and everyone will have had some brush with the emotion of love at some time. Everyone will want to share their feelings on the issue, and the Islamic internet forums and chat sites seem to talk about nothing else or at least stimulate the most response from the community at large when the topic is addressed.

So why then, after so many thousands of years of human experience have we not solved all these problems and banished the ignorance surrounding it? And why in particular have the Muslims not left their baggage behind on the issue after receiving divine guidance as well? And even more damningly, why haven’t the increasingly “practicing” crowd of Muslims who really should know so much better, ranging from the just-started-to-practice-Islam-recently folks to students of knowledge to the scholars themselves, set a clear example to the rest of the community by becoming shining role-models of how relationships should be conducted?

The answer is because this is a human problem, this is a nafs problem, and this is a love problem. No-one is going to get away with an easy ride.

I wish to offer the following words/thoughts on this subject with my focus on the “practising” community because they should all really know better. Those who are just Muslim by identity will fall into all sorts of other cultural problems and barriers and will fall foul of much ignorance and require serious help, more than just a few words in an article, whereas I’d like to concentrate on those who clearly have a problem controlling their desires, have errors in their thought process and just need to be reminded really of what is expected from serious Muslims.

One has to be quite frank in dealing with this, and say things that will hurt people and possibly offend their feelings, yet without being honest about the real deep-set attitudes and problems that we specifically face as a community such as racism, sexism, apathy and misogyny, we’ll never reach an agreeable status quo.....

Pre-Marriage

I don’t feel like writing a fancy article to be honest, so let me ask some rhetorical questions and make a few more statements of rhetoric, all based on what I consider to be prevalent beliefs and truths amongst the Muslim community as someone who has advised and sat on the other end of countless marriage-hunts and subsequent marriage breakdowns, which unfortunately is becoming the only use for many Imams and scholars these days in the West, wa Allāhu musta‘ān.

Once someone starts to look for marriage, it seems that we lose all rational thought. Somehow we believe that we’ve all become super-special – why are you looking for the perfect girl, when you are not the perfect man? Why should your wife be an Hāfidha when you yourself don’t know a tenth of the Qur’ān? What exactly do you have to offer your wife-to-be instead of the other way round?

Have no doubt that in the meat-market that the marriage scene wants to become, only the best leg of lamb of will do, the best cut, the juiciest piece. But you’d better be prepared to pay a hefty price for such a nice piece of meat. And therein lays the reality: if you want the best woman, you’d better have a whole lot to offer.

If you want your wife to be the most beautiful girl in the world, humble as a villager from “back home”, smart as a PhD student at Harvard, to cook biryani like your mum, to have as much stamina as a long-distance runner, to be as brave as the strongest Mujāhidah, to be as savvy with current society and the community as a female politician and then as religiously practicing and devoted as ‘A’isha, then – other than having to wake up, make ta‘awwudh, and turn on to the other side – you had better be the Prophet Muhammad (sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam). And sorry to say folks, but that just isn’t going to happen now is it?

The concept of give and take, to be realistic, to understand and appreciate ones faults and weaknesses and then ever better, to accept and live with them in another person is actually rather difficult and requires serious control over one’s heart and desires. This is because when we look for a marriage partner, we make it completely synonymous with the concept of “falling in love” which is rather short-sighted. You see, as many societal scientists have asserted, one of the biggest misconceptions about “falling in love” is that this is love itself.

Of course when you’re looking for a prospective partner, you’re looking to develop love for the other person but we give a disproportionate bias to the actual emotion of “falling in love” which is almost exclusively a sexually-motivated feeling that is completely temporary. This is not what we call deep love. The whole experience of falling in love, the giddiness of just being with him/her will disappear as quickly as it came. This is just human nature.

The type of love that you have for your children or your parents has nothing to do with sexuality or eroticism, rather it is deep-seated appreciation for the other person due to factors of loyalty, closeness, friendship, care etc. Naturally the love of one’s wife has the extra aspect of sexual love and desire which is very important but certainly not the key factor for the marriage. It’s amazing that the statement of the Prophet (sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) concerning the fact that a man will be truly successful if a woman is married for her religion is so well-known yet so discarded when it comes to the final decision on a prospective partner.

Obviously the beauty, wealth, and who the woman actually is (i.e. her lineage) are valid important factors as confirmed by the Prophet (sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) but the secret is a not very well kept one: if you really want this marriage to last and be built upon a solid foundation and not just become a one-night stand based upon looks, shape and eloquence, then look for the one who fears Allah most, who is most conscious of Allah at all times and who will never turn away from what Allah and His Messenger wants. It goes without saying that our women should demand the very same in their hunt for a good man as well.

This is how it would be in an ideal situation( Referring to the above situation mention earlier) but clearly with the proliferation of matrimonial sites and marriage meetings and the like, we’ve come to realise otherwise. The Muslim community is rammed to the rafters with sub-quality men and women, diseased by their surroundings, obsessed with materialism and the visual stimuli and beauty that the world demands all of us to be signed-up members to, ideologically battered into accepting value systems that are alien to our theology, and all suffering a lack of god-consciousness at almost epidemic levels. And now they’re desperate. And now, anything is worth a try.

It is through this quagmire that men go “back home” for a traditional girl. It is through this mess that a woman demands a doctor for their husband. And neither party can be blamed. Personally I support the concept that “let the best man win” and encourage both parties to fight for the very best, as this can only be healthy for the community at large. If a person is going to be lazy enough to not work hard and study, or is going to be lazy enough to watch TV rather than memorise the Qur’ān, or a girl wishes to study for a degree as opposed to learn the intricacies of child-care and teaching, then leave them alone and they’ll find someone who they deserve.

If you’ve put the sacrifice in, then you should look for better. Go and memorise the Qur’ān and then demand a Hāfidha. Spend your teen years learning fiqh and theology and then demand a scholar for a husband. Study hard and show yourself to be perceptive, intelligent and insightful and then demand a scientist/professional man.

Cut yourself off from the normal haunts of society such as the school and work parties, the constant socials with the boys, the weddings and the other places of lewdness and low standards and then demand a woman who rightly hasn’t been seen or touched by another man. In summary, the general rule of “you get what you deserve” normally works out true. And in this dog-eat-dog world, if you’re the best, expect and demand the best.

As for the rest of us not so blessed with such values and such an ethic of sacrifice, then I guess it’s credit crunch time and we should just make do with whatever we can and hope for the best. If we’ve all become beggars due to the economy, then beggars can’t be choosers.

Finally, the practising Muslims out there have an extra responsibility to stamp out the ignorance that affects their own kind. The obsession for the white-convert girl for their much coveted skin colour, the avoidance of black-convert men and women, the avoidance of arab women due to their perceived strength of character and knowledge of female rights in Islam (!), the preference for Asian women due to the perceived ignorance of female rights in Islam (!) and all the other truisms that experience has shown to be very much alive and kicking in our communities needs to be tackled.

Sure, there is no problem wanting certain people, preferring certain cultures, accepting parental and family preferences, but when you let that preference develop into a bias and a deep-seated belief, it only feeds the ignorance and xenophobic attitude that some Muslims suffer from today.