Marriage & Love

Topic: Marriage and Love
Speaker: sister Noor Jehan


If we chase love, then we will find out the hard way that it is a lie and a deception. True completion can only be found in Allah swt. There are places in the heart that are made only by and for Allah swt. Not any human being, even a husband. If you put him there, you will suffer. A husband can be the coolness of the eyes -- not the air in our lungs.

All love should be for Allah's sake. We love what He loves, and hate what He hates. There is a love which is dependant love. It depends on what someone can give you. It is a very unstable love as it has attached to it expectations, need, dependence and resentments. A better love is an unselfish love where we love for what we can give to another. The unconditional love of a mother to her child is based on what she can give to them. She takes pleasure in giving, never expecting anything. Even giving up her own needs and comfort willingly. This is the kind of love to develop.

Do we set ourselves up for disappointments by being dependant? Do we blame gravity for breaking a twig when we lean on it? It was never meant to support our weight. There is no one who can support and help us except Allah swt. "whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things." (Quran, 2:256) There is a crucial lesson in this verse; there is only one hand-hold that never breaks. There is only one source from which to seek our ultimate happiness, fulfillment, and security, Allah. Let's learn to look in the right direction for our needs.

We often find ourselves seeking a way to fill our inner void with temporary attatchments and fleeting moments. Seeking to make them permanent. Instinctively our soul craves permanence as it was created for jannah -- which is permanent. This world is filled with hurt as it is by its very nature imperfect. It goes against what we crave. Don't make this life into what its not -- Jannah. It is like trying to dig in the concrete with our bare fingers. Painful and impossible.

Our pain and broken hearts (emotional pain) warns us that we have to make a change. We are too attached to someone or something. That which causes us the most pain is what we are most attached to.
When we talk about being connected to the dunya we often think about possessions, material objects. But love of the world can also mean being attached to people, moments and emotions. If we love them too much, we will have pain. Dunya is not perfect. If it was, what would the next world be called...?

We must also realize that nothing happens without a purpose. Nothing. Not even broken hearts. Not even pain. That broken heart and that pain are lessons and signs for us. They are warnings that something is wrong. They are warnings that we need to make a change. Just like the pain of being burned is what warns us to remove our hand from the fire, emotional pain warns us that we need to make an internal change. We need to detach. The more dunya hurts us, the more we inevitably detach from it. The more we inevitably stop loving it. And pain is a pointer to our attachments. That which makes us cry, that which causes us the most pain is where our false attachments lie. And it is those things which we are attached to as we should only be attached to Allah which become barriers on our path to Allah. There is a divine formula to change anything that we don't like about our selves, Allah says: "Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves."

Being idealistic means expecting people around us to be perfect. Expecting relationships to be perfect. Expecting so much from those around us and from this life. Expectations. Expectations. And if there is one recipe for unhappiness it is that, expectations. But our mistake is where we place our expectations and hope. At the end of the day, we do not place our hope and expectations in Allah swt. We instead place them in people, relationships and means. We place them in this dunya rather than Allah swt. Allah tells us in the Quran "Those who rest not their hope on their meeting with Us, but are pleased and satisfied with the life of the present, and those who heed not Our Signs" (10;7) What does it mean to place your hope in dunya? How can this be avoided? It means when you have friends, don't expect them to fill your emptiness. When you get married, don't expect your spouse to fulfill your every need. When you're in trouble don't depend on yourself. Don't depend on people: Depend on Allah.

Seek the help of people -- but realize that it is not the people (or even your own self) that can save you. Only Allah can do these things. The people are only tools, a means used by Allah. But they are not the source of help, aid, or salvation of any kind. Only Allah is. And so, even while you interact with people externally, turn your heart towards Allah. Face Him alone, as Prophet Ibrahim said so beautifully, "For me, I have set my face, firmly and truly, towards Him Who created the heavens and the earth, and never shall I give partners to Allah." (6:79) But how did Prophet Ibrahim describe his journey to that point? He studies the moon, the sun and the stars and realizes that they are not perfect. They set......They let us down. So Prophet Ibrahim was thereby led to face Allah alone. Like him, we need to put our full hope, trust, and dependency on Allah, and Allah alone And if we do that, we will learn what it means to finally find peace and stability of heart.

We have to attach our inner selves to that which is constant, stable and permanent. In the statement of Abu Bakr is a deep illustration of this truth. After the Prophet Muhammad saw died, the people went into shock could not handle the news. Although no one loved the Prophet saw like Abu Bakr, Abu Bakr understood well the only place where one's dependency should lie. He said: "If you worshipped Muhammad, know that Muhammad is dead. But if you worshipped Allah, know that Allah never dies"

To attain that state, don't let your source of fulfillment be anything other than your relationship with Allah. Don't let your definition of success, failure, or self-worth be anything other than your position with Him. And if you do this, you become unbreakable, because your hand-hold is unbreakable. You become unconquerable, because your supporter can never be conquered. And you will never become empty, because your source of fulfillment is unending and never diminishes.

InshaAllah you sisters found this beneficial. I pray that Allah swt grants us the ability to keep our hearts only for Him. The dunya we can keep in our hands.

See you all next week, inshaAllah! :)