I was once sitting in a religious gathering, when the preacher went on to narrate the story of a person. There was this person, who was in love with somebody. So he presents his case to somebody. He expresses his feelings for the girl in such words, ‘I feel a pure love for her …’ but he was cut short right there and admonished, ‘What do you mean by pure love? If your love is pure love, then what is impure love? Tut, tut, don’t you know that love between a man and a woman can only be an impure love. You must seek Allah’s forgiveness for your thoughts and feelings …’ I was aghast. And my mind raced back to Mother Khadijah RA who had fallen in love with Prophet Muhammed SAW. And she had expressed her feelings. And she had asked one of her friends to ask Prophet Muhammed SAW if he wanted to marry her too. What if Mother Khadijah RA had lived in these times? What is the response she would have gotten? What would have been our people’s comments?
Allah Al-Wadood says, that He has put love in the words of the Nikah. It means that even if you are having an arranged marriage, even if you are getting married to a stranger, Allah Al-Wadood will put love between the two of you by the divine bond of Nikah, condition that you have sought Allah Almighty’s consent by Isthekhara. However, some people are blessed by Allah, with the blessing of love even before that. Let me explain it to you by an analogy. If I ask you, how do children learn studies? You would say, school. Or even, homeschool. But there are some children, who have awesome learning powers. They learn so many things informally from nature, surroundings and even sibling’s study! They are usually called god-gifted children. So Allah Al-Wadood, blesses some of us with the gift of love, even before Nikah. As Muslims, our responsibility is to seal that gift with Nikah.
But it is a far cry for our present Eastern society to understand this. The only cry understandable to them is the cry of HAW-HAY to such talk. It baffles me really. For everyone nods happily to the love of parents and children, brothers and sisters, cousins and relatives. And it is easy to identify this love, for it is related to blood relations. You are born, and you know that this is your father, this is your mother, these are your siblings, cousins and relatives, and you are supposed to love all of them. Even if you don’t feel like loving some of them, you are kind of hammered by religious quotes, ethical values and guilt trips to love them. However, there are two relations, which Allah Al-Wali has already decided but kept as surprise gifts for us. One is friends and the other is your soul-mate. We do not know who our friends in life will be, but we find them on our way like the gift packs of Fun House. Our society has its heart and mind open to love for friends as well, but the soul-mate and love idea is still lined up next to wine, gambling and zina.
Soul-mate, huh? Sounds mushy, huh? Why not? Why should I not use the term soul-mate? It is Allah Al-Wadood Himself, who has said that He created everything in pairs. Then see the creation of Prophet Adam AS and Hawa AS. In fact, husband and wife are the first relation that Allah Al-Khaliq created. He could have started the human progeny with a miracle the likes of Sister Maryam AS. But He chose to create a husband and wife to tell that this relation is the basis of life. The seed of life needs to be full of love to grow and off-shoot human beings full of love, capable of feeling love and giving love. Look around you … do you see people full of love? No? Because we have been working on a failing formula. We want every relation full of love (miraculously!), except this one, which produces people who we want to be full of love. I know, I know, you are going to say that nobody condemns love between a husband and wife, we only condemn love between an unmarried boy and girl. Really? Think again. Recall again. I have heard the prayers of many mothers. I have heard the prayers of many fathers. I have heard the prayers of many teachers. I have heard the words, ‘May Allah bless you with … life, health, knowledge, wealth, marriage, children, happiness, deeds, success … I think I would not be exaggerating but I do not remember ever hearing anyone blessing anyone with the blessing of love … something like ‘May Allah Al-Wadood bless you with love …’ Have you?
Oh I know, you would say that love is automatically included in marriage. When we give somebody the Dua of getting married, we are giving the prayer of love. Is it? I am asking, does getting married automatically mean getting love? Look around you … how many marriages you find full of love. Oh no sir, marriage matches are maneuvered very carefully. We here in the East, do NOT want the boy to be in love with the girl, lest he goes blind in love and starts ignoring his family. So the smart plan seems to be to keep them out of love. One might argue, then why do the Eastern moms look for a beautiful, beautiful girl? Hmmm, that is a good argument. But the actual reason is that brides are also considered a decoration piece to be showed-off to relatives and friends at the wedding. And also for the ‘chemical reaction’ to produce beautiful children. Is this an allegation by me? I don’t know, but I can certainly quote a marriage proposal which specified that the girl should be fair, beautiful, tall, have a Computer Science degree but will not do a job. So what do you think they wanted the Computer Science degree for? Cleaning sponge?
So you see, we do not bless our children with the prayer for love. Not even the daughters. We have a different kind of fear for them. Lest they do something shameful. Why did it not cross our minds to teach our children about love and tell them how to handle it? Both boys and girls? I think that is something like wondering why African people do not wear fur coats? Because they have never experienced winters. Likewise we have never experienced love. We do not know the joy of it. We do not know the thrill of it. We do not know the power of it. It is so powerful that it gave Prophet Muhammed SAW a throb, across the years, when he heard Mother Khadijah RA’ sister’s voice which resembled hers. So let me start by myself. I pray that Allah Al-Wadood blesses my children with love. May they find the love of their life. May my children find their soul-mates. Ameen.
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