I’ve wanted to write this for a while, but couldn’t find the right words.

Few weeks ago, I returned home from Isha prayer to find my wife in the living room watching a Reality Matchmaking show on Netflix. I laughed at her watching of yet another matchmaking show. So she asked why I was laughing. I just can’t understand y’all obsession with marriage. I said. She returned her attention to the TV or said something. I can’t remember quite well anymore. But one thing led to…

I started reflecting about what it is about marriage that makes people gravitate towards it and long for it. The Imam of our mosque just a few days before that night said that when he worked at the Department of Fatwa or something in Egypt they found out that 75% of all questions coming to them was about marriage, 15% or so was about inheritance, and the left 10% was about all other aspects of Islam and life. Again, this points to hugeness of marriage to people, to Muslims…

So, here comes the appeal:

I’m not patronizing here. Please. Marriage can make and break people. So, please be kind to your spouse especially if to her you somehow represent faith and she trusts that you’d do right by her not just because of love but also because of faith. I don’t want to say too much. I hope you’re able to read between the lines. I have heard and seen the devastating effects of bad behaviors in marriage from men on the faith of the women at the receiving end. It is an utterly heartbreaking thing to see. Yes, I know there are women who break men, too. That’s not the focus of this. I have seen more of the former than the latter.

Women who were steadfast, banking on faith, got married to Muslims they saw as their protectors, the ones whom they had pledged themselves to through Allah, and then at the end all they got were broken pledges, and in their heartbreaks things get blurred and convoluted, and there’s often a veering off the path. Subhanallah.

Okay, I don’t want to write a lot. So, I’ll leave you with this Ayah for you to contemplate. We’re not perfect. We’re going to fallshort here and there. But what we must not do is break our pledges under the oaths of Allah till the extent that we make people veer away from Allah as a result of our own actions. Nikkah is essentially a series of oaths or pledges. A contract that I’m saying I will do this and that. And one of the things you’re saying is you will treat the woman as God commands in the Qur’an. Now read this ayah:

وَلَا تَتَّخِذُوٓاْ أَيۡمَٰنَكُمۡ دَخَلَۢا بَيۡنَكُمۡ فَتَزِلَّ قَدَمُۢ بَعۡدَ ثُبُوتِهَا وَتَذُوقُواْ ٱلسُّوٓءَ بِمَا صَدَدتُّمۡ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ وَلَكُمۡ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٞ

Do not use your oaths to deceive each other lest any foot should slip after being firmly placed and lest you should taste the penalty for having hindered others from the path of God, and suffer terrible torment.

-Surah An-Nahl, Ayah 94.

Marriage is important to women, especially Muslim women. Brother, please do not be the reason a sister’s foot slips after being firmly placed.