WASIA MASHOOR:
Marriage is a bond and not bondage. How much do the both ends of this bond comprehend it? How the two strangers are set in the most beautiful relation in the world. The concept itself makes it divine. In Quran when the bounties of Almighty Allah SWT are counted and highlighted in Surah An-Naba, among the mighty mountains, day and night, etc. it’s only the relation of husband and wife that has been mentioned, rather than any other relation even mother and child relation.
The essence of Nikah is that the two strangers become the soul mates. It is this word of Almighty that brings love and trust in this relation and makes it strongest of all. But in today’s world do we really realize it. I suppose NO. Today I feel marriages are meant to broken and soul mates have becomes participants of a race, where husband and wife count on their duties, rights, liberties and of course SELF.
Let me follow a chronology to make my point more lucid, starting with the essence of marriage. Though it is most beautiful and adorable relation but currently its being a source of trauma because we have manipulated this pious bond. Every now and then we comes across incidents like domestic violence, abuses and break ups.
Firstly, we get to understand the essence of marriage from Quran only. In Chapter 78 verse 8 it’s mentioned that “We created you in pairs” i.e. surely we have been bestowed with someone very dear to us. Again the next is chapter 25 verse 74 where your spouses have been referred as a source of comfort and happiness. Above all as I have mentioned earlier it is the only relation which Allah says is a form of its bounties. Thus it is the clear sign of Allah swt regarding sanctity of this relation. But again there is a question mark, do we do justice to this relationship.
Actually we have not adopted the purity of this bond. We have reduced it to an arithmetical logic where our only motto is to prove LHS (left hand side) is equal to RHS (right hand side), despite each has its own place and own value. Our vision has narrowed down and restricted to the concept of love “only” but we forget that in Quran Allah swt says “love and mercy” among spouses because love cannot go alone unless you don’t have mercy for your spouse. I didn’t mean you are merciless but the concept is based on a fact that with time even if the husband and wife do not find each other interesting but they should have mercy and care. What can be more pragmatic than this and it fits the today’s world so well where husband and wife on very petty issues move apart and dissolve all love but if they have this mercy alive in them, they will stand by each other.
Marriage as an institution is so vast to encompass whole of your life. Quran has illustrated the true nature of this beautiful relation but it’s we who fail to recognize and recreate it. In chapter 2 verse 187, spouses have been referred as the garments. Again to make us understand that they will cover you, your faults and they will protect you. Indeed, we never understand. Well said by Yasmin Mogahed, that a garment may or may not fit you well always but surely it will cover you rather than being naked. What my motive was to bring the true nature of marriage into limelight and then only I can compare it to what is happening today.
We should understand that every relation has a value and place in life. We have parents but they are not going to be with us always. We have kids but we can’t be with them always. And then you have a soul mate that is always with you. Then why we have made this relation most dreadful. Because we have given a least importance to this most important relation.
I personally feel Ahadith truly reflects the two sides of this coin. Whereas Prophet SAW said that the best of you are those who are best to their women. Again Prophet SAW said that if I had to order someone to prostrate than I would have ordered women to prostrate to their husbands, because Allah SWT has established a right of men over the women. Can you see a vast wisdom in this where a wife and a husband are brought to an equilibrium, neither feminism nor masculism.
But what we were supposed to do, we did an opposite of that, where husband dominated in supremacy and wife flew in a bid of liberty. And none stood for the peaceful coexistence. We were provided a beautiful path by Allah SWT and His Prophet SAW and were only asked to follow it. But Alas! We lost it.
TO BE CONTD…
(Author is a student of Islamic Studies)