Marriage Between Partnership and Parity

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered at Masjid al-Furqān in Detroit on July 25, 2025Source: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

The speaker began by praising Allah and sending prayers and peace upon the Seal of His prophets. He asked Allah to write for those present the means of salvation in this world and the next and to make them see their own faults. Then he said that it does not befit a sensible person to speak before people without first opening his words with a special supplication for our people in Palestine: that Allah mend their hearts, ward off evils from them, protect their blood and their wealth, give them security in their persons and their homelands, keep them far from the scheming of the schemers, and not entrust them to an enemy. Then he asked Allah for fine speech for himself and fine response from the listeners.

Why Do We Talk About the Family?

He said: Tonight we are talking about an important issue, the issue of the family in general. And why this topic? Because, by virtue of the job we do as an imam, we see that homes have blown apart from the many problems, and that very many children have been cast out into the streets in thought, soul, logic and mind. Perhaps they remain in their homes with their bodies, but they are outside them with all these faculties, so the idea of loyalty and belonging to the home has vanished from within.

The Home of Yesterday: Outward Awe and Deeper Belonging

Then he took his memory back. He said: In the old days, when we were raised in our homes among our families, there was awe of the father, and fear of a mother who would carry the news to the father, and the imagining that a "plot" would be hatched and they would conspire against us. So we feared Allah, respected ourselves, walked "close to the wall," and avoided any trace of any problem. The problems were heavy back then, with pain from here and a knock from there. But there was life. And everyone who was raised in an upright environment remembers that pain today as bliss, and says quite simply: may Allah have mercy on your parents. Why? Because they raised in you the feeling of belonging to this place, and with them you felt safety, reassurance and tranquility. And even if the home faced material, economic or social difficulties, in the end you believed completely that everything here was yours.

Then he went on to say that he still remembers asking his father, may Allah have mercy on him, for an extra pair of trousers, and he would say to him: Didn't you buy your share this year? Didn't your portion reach you? And he would say to himself, by the logic of that time and that age: Have some shame! What is this injustice? This man is rich, he has land and money, he has "put his money over his heart" and does not want to buy me a pair of trousers. His father, may Allah have mercy on him, was a wealthy man, praise be to Allah, who had started from zero and reached whatever Allah willed him to reach, but he himself was looking with the eyes of a child at this wealthy, rich father, full of money, who denied him a pair of trousers. At the same time the father would say to him: My son, if I wanted to dress you in a new suit every day until the end of the year I could, but you would not become a man. The speaker said: I used to take these two words with the mind of a boy who does not understand, and I would keep saying: What is this injustice we live in! And yet I never lost one millionth of my belonging to the home. Because I knew that what was in his hands would one day be mine, and that this man whom I saw as unjust would never leave the system of this family, nor would he leave his belonging to us. So there is mutual belonging.

He added: Today I do not know what has happened; there is no longer real belonging from many fathers to their homes, and no longer real belonging from many mothers to their homes. What happened? I do not know, but let us discuss the matter calmly and in a few short minutes.

Do We Marry for Peace or for War?

He moved on to a logical question: why do we marry? But before this question, when the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, legislated Islam for us, what is its name? "Islam." Did this word come from peace (silm) or from war? And is this peace specific to the time of dealing with enemies, or does it fall within the framework of homes, material partnerships, companionship at school, brotherhood, and any area of life? The simple answer is that it falls within every part of life. If that is so: when I marry, do I marry for peace or for war? He said: And from the very beginning, do I enter peace or do I enter war? So we agreed that we want to enter peace.

Let us imagine that I entered in peace, and I said to the bride's father: Uncle Hajj, I want to marry your daughter lawfully, may Allah include us in His mercy, may we cover for one another and Allah cover us, and may we live a stable life. And he says to me: Be careful, you are required to pay ten thousand or twenty or fifty or sixty thousand. Is this entering peace or war? No peace and nothing! What makes me safe in that? I mean, should I demand sixty thousand from a big businessman who has many companies and much wealth, so that I treat the status in the way it deserves, and then a young man comes to me whose situation is already "scorched," and Allah knows best his condition, who barely scrapes together a couple of coins and pays the rent on the apartment he will rent, and wants to work in such-and-such a place? The sensible person who seeks peace says to him: Come, I have a set of conditions I must first have fulfilled. And what are these conditions? That I be assured of your character, assured of your trustworthiness, assured of your reputation among people and your good treatment of them, and that you are not stupid, miserly or complicated, and so on. If these conditions are met, which are the safety valve for the girl's life, then that's it, my son.

And in Egypt we have a saying: "We are buying a man." Then he asked those present: the one who buys, does he pay or does he take? So the logic of some people became that in order to get a husband for his daughter, he is the one who pays! Imagine, by this Egyptian logic: I am buying a man, so I will pay too, and even if you do not have enough, I will make up for you what is enough.

The Story of the Engagement and the Sum

He said: I remember, and pardon me, for my father's memory came up on this occasion, and perhaps Allah brought it so that your righteous prayers reach him, that one of the young men, who was a colleague of ours, went to propose to a girl, and the speaker himself intervened in the matter to intercede for him. The young man said to the girl's father: You are great people, wealthy, and I want to marry your daughter. The father said to him: Sit down, my son, and what do you want? The young man said: Rather, what do you want? The father said: You are the one who has come to protect our daughter for the rest of her life, so what do you ask of us? What do we pay in compensation and honor for this girl who will move from her father's guardianship to her husband's guardianship? The young man said: Uncle Hajj, what you say is shameful, you are insulting us; we are the ones who come to marry, so we are the ones who pay. The father said: Fine, pay, how much do you pay? The young man named a figure, and the father said: I am very sorry, I cannot accept this figure. And why, sir? He said: Because I paid for my son a certain sum when he went to propose to other people's daughter, and I will not take more than that; and what you offer is more, so I will take from you for my daughter the same as I paid for my son. The young man said: But that was years ago! He said: It does not matter, the matter is simple, and what else of gold? He said: What she has is enough. And so the matters went. [The figures and some details of the dialogue are disordered in the transcript, so only their meaning has been kept.]

Then he said: Now imagine, twenty years later, when I hear a young man say: The girl's family were harsh on me when I approached them as I was entering the house, and they received me with something like a beating, it seems^[3], not a physical beating but surprises, situations and harsh demands. This young man cannot, even after decades, forget the first moment in which he was received in the house of this girl's father. So how will his treatment of them be for the rest of his life? He has a stored, saved-up balance from the beginnings. From the start he deals with these people on the logic that they tried to prey on this prey and took from him as much as they could. And we forgot the question of peace.

Two Friends Competing Over the Bill

He turned the picture around, saying: Imagine you are going out with your friend on an outing, and the two of you are heading out to stroll and breathe the air, with harmony and ease between you. Who among us will pay the bill? Will we quarrel in front of the cashier or not? In any case we will quarrel, but over what? Over who pays! This one says: I am paying, and that one says: No, I am. And each swears to the other: By Allah, you will not pay, leave it to me this time. So if two people marry with this spirit of peace, each of them swears to the other that he alone will not take the "provision," the sacrifice, the risk-taking, the decision-making and so on.^[4]

The Mindset of the Tense

He said: We have a very large amount of feeling tense, on guard. And what does being on guard mean? I am always anxious, always on guard, always taking a preemptive step, my hand ready to strike immediately. Imagine you are sitting alone at night in your home, and you find unusual movement, doors opening, an unnatural sound, and you are in your bedroom with strange noises outside. What possibility comes to your mind? Is it one of the children moving around the house? No, they have all been asleep since early. My wife? No, she is sound asleep. Then it must be a thief. So what state of mind do you come out in to open the door? The state of someone prepared for what? For a thief, isn't it?

Then imagine that the one moving behind the door is your son or daughter, and you know they are still awake doing their homework, he has an exam tomorrow, and you heard a sound and became worried. In both cases, my brothers, you open the door. But in the first, it is the mind-set of the one on guard: there is a thief, and my hand is ready to strike with all my might. And in the second you open the door expecting that your son or daughter is the first person you will see in the opening. So think about the readiness of your hand and the looseness of your body as you open for your son or daughter, compared to the tension in the body as you open with the possibility of a thief in your mind: afraid he will hit me on the head or come at my eye. Understand?

He said: And we deal with our wives, and our wives deal with us, in many situations in the language of the one on guard. In Egypt we say: "She is standing over you for a mistake," or "she is standing over you for one." That means I am just waiting for you to say one word that is not right, and even if you say it right I will take it in an unnatural way, and say to you: Don't you know that you do such-and-such? And likewise I am lying in wait for her all the time. Why, my friend? Because the spirit of peace is not present in the home. So I deal not with peace but with what is called "parity" (nidd-iyyah, standing as an equal rival).

The Parity of the Conflicting and the Parity of the Complementary

Parity has two meanings. The first meaning is the parity of the conflicting: Do not impose your decision on me, you are no better than me, I am the one who will do such-and-such. And there is the parity of the complementary: How much will you pay? Five thousand? No, by Allah, I will pay five "and a boy."^[5] So there is parity, correct? I put my head against yours, but one puts his head against the other's to reach a solution, and one puts his head against the other's to defeat him. So which of the two is present inside our homes? Unfortunately, from what we notice in people's reality, there is what is called the parity of the conflicting, and we seek refuge in Allah. And to what level has the parity of the conflicting brought us? To the levels of divorce, disputes and quarrels.

The One Hiding Behind the Curtain

He mentioned that one of his teachers, may Allah have mercy on him, used to say: Spouses must be aware that there is someone hiding behind the curtain. So who stands behind the curtain in my home, and who is looking at me and my wife? The teacher said: Beware, there is a devil lying in wait behind the curtain, who blows into the words; so the wife speaks with good intention and you take the words in a bad way. And he blows into actions; as when you toss the pillow to one side and she says to you: You are never pleased with anything. And he blows into reactions; so you sit down to eat, and after the first spoonful of soup you say "Uff," and she says to you: So my cooking never pleases you? And you only mean: By Allah, it is lovely, madam, but it is hot, so I said "uff" because of its heat. Then each of you takes the situation off to other possibilities, and a battle breaks out from nothing.

Ninety-Five Percent Are Not Problems

And he said: As we said, if you had prayed Friday prayer with us today, by Allah, besides whom there is no god, 95% of the problems that come to us in the mosques are not problems for them at all. 95% of the people who sit in front of you as a shaykh in the mosque and tell you their problem, you say to them: Fine, and he tells it for an hour and tells it for two hours, fine, all right, so where is the gist? Where is the problem? He says: How, shaykh, didn't I tell you? You said a lot of empty talk. Just get hold of one thing for me, tell me: this man's calamity is in such-and-such.

So if two come to me, "a fine couple," two sweet little chicks, beautiful, the man and this young woman, I say to them: Sit down, children. And I say to the man: How long have you been married? He says twenty years. And to the wife: And you, our noble sister, how long have you been married to this man? She says: The same twenty years. Then I say to her jokingly: And you still haven't finished him off! Then I say to them: Send blessings on the Guide, the Bringer of good tidings, and with your permission take two blank sheets: write on one the positives of the other person, and on the second his negatives, and give the same sheet to the other party to write likewise. So what do you think you will find? You find, for example: generous, trustworthy, of good character, fears for his children, and so on and so forth. And on the other side: he never brought me a dress, he does not say good morning to me, he does not say thank you to me when I prepare the food, and things of that sort. So I say to her: And what do you want from the makeup of a man after he has been trustworthy, of good character, truthful, protective, and jealous for you and your children? What do you want beyond that? There is nothing, for this is the nature of men, and this is how Allah created us.

And you come to the man and he says to you: Among the positives, by Allah, is that she guards my honor, shields my children, takes care of the home, and then you look at the problems and find: she talks a lot, and she talks a lot about nothing. So I say to him: Fine, their machine works like this, and this is how Allah created her, and it is perfectly natural. Just as Allah created your machine silent all the time, and she wants to hit you so you will say a couple of words: Man, speak up already, you came into the house and we in the homes are mute! This is natural, this is what we have and this is what we are capable of, dear father. And you come to the other side: she talks! O Lord of the worlds. So that is how we complete people.

Understanding the Other's Human Nature

He said: So what do you seek from the other party? I conclude from these words that understanding the other party's human nature makes it very easy for you to deal with them. Then he gave an example from work: Suppose I have a worker who works with me with utmost trustworthiness. Someone who has, say, a "glass store" or a mechanic's workshop, and has a worker of utmost trustworthiness: does he steal or not steal? He does not steal. Excellent. So you gathered a sum of money to buy a deal, and you put it all in a bag, and it reached, say, a quarter of a million dollars or half a million, any of these crazy numbers, and then you left the bag and forgot it in the shop and walked off, you were distracted and said such-and-such and we went on. So who is the only one in the shop? Our friend here. That's it. And you are at home now, what worries you: that he stole it or that he did not close the door well? Do you run in anxiety, or do you pick up the phone and ask him: Did you close the door well? And he says: Yes, and I found money in the bag so I put it back in its place and locked it up. So you relax, is the money safe or in danger? Safe.

Then he said: But beware, this trustworthy man is a little lazy, he comes to work ten minutes late, and may sit a whole year before he gets up to answer the customer. So what do you think of him? He is trusted with millions but at the same time he is lazy. Do we fire him and bring another, who might rob the shop and the tools in it but is very punctual? Or what do we do? Imagine that some people throw away this whole mass of trustworthiness for the sake of a set of other formalities. He said: I only gave an example, so if we apply it to our homes...

My Friend and the Mercedes

And he related that he was walking with some of his friends in the street, and a Mercedes passed by, one of those very wide, huge ones, and their friend looked at it and said: How wonderful for people who live in all this grandeur! The speaker said to him: And your wife at home? He said: Yes. He said: Are you sure? He said: Yes. He said: No, no, you must be sure your wife is at home. He said: What is wrong with you, shaykh, it is two in the morning, and where would she go? He said to him: I mean, it is possible she has gone out and gone off with someone, right or left. He said: You imagine madness, you are speaking about my honor, you are crazy, my son, how can you speak? He said to him: So this certainty you have that your wife is in your home, with her door locked on her, covered and protected, for how much would you buy it? He said: For the treasures of the earth. He said: So why then do you look at someone else's car? Why do you not gather yourself? Imagine the amount of blessings we live in in our lives and we are not paying attention to them! And one word comes out of me by mistake and causes a case, and the case grows and I lose in it the people of my household who were for me the safety valve. So would I thereby have sold or bought? What do you think?

The Eye That May Stray

And he said: Often a woman comes to me and says: My husband looks at other women and has it in mind to marry a second wife. I said to her: Fine, and what is the problem in this? She said: What are you saying? What is the problem? I am telling you he is looking at a woman he wants to marry in addition to me. So I said to her: Just between you and me, O Lord, may my wife not be watching this video, because I am live, O Lord may she not be watching from behind. I said to her: Listen, daughter of the people, there is no man in the world whose eye does not sometimes go to another woman. She objected to that, so I said: By Allah I am not crazy, I am telling you the truth, do you want me to deceive you and make a fool of you? There is no man complete in his manhood, with his instinct strong, and life going on, whose eye does not at times get cast in some direction. She said: How is this? This is forbidden! I said to her: And why did Allah make lowering the gaze in the first place? For whom was this legislation made if not for men? Is there a little child who looks at a woman and says to her: Your hair is pretty or your eyes are green? Are you crazy? It is the man who looks at the woman. I said to her: He lowers his gaze and closes this door.^[6]

He said that the Prophet ﷺ did not deny the human nature that exists in us. [The transcript is disordered in the context of what he mentioned about some of the Companions here, so it has not been kept.] Then came the question of the remedy: how do we treat it? The speaker said that he is not talking about a man whose nature is to look at women and whose eye is "brazen" or wide or deliberate, but about what overcomes a man's state at some moments. If this happens, it is evidence of his manhood, and you need to deal with him. And this is a different term from the straying eye, but there is a possibility that it happens. So I said to her: You, madam, tumble about in the house, and play the "magician" and play the "monkey," and switch off all the fuses he has, and leave him without energy as he goes out in the morning. This is your job, not ours; these are your own skills, to make his eyes pop and twist his ear inside the house, and make him know that there is no harem in the world other than his wife, the beautiful moon, the cute, sweet one who always pays attention to me and looks after me. But to neglect the man's right and then come to me wanting to put him on trial because he looked at one with her hair let loose, while you are creating suspicions for him at home, that is a different matter.

Every Demand Has a Counterpart

He said: Be balanced, "make sense." For us to ask for something we must pay what corresponds to it. So in order for you to keep your husband's eye from roaming outside, you must be, on earth, the most complete of women in beauty, chic, elegance and manner.^[7] And in return you, husband, enter the house and say: Man, this woman does not know what the women we see in the street look like! When we go out we find the world like this and that, and I come in and find our lady thrown in the kitchen and smelling like that. Did it happen or not? Then he turned to those present, joking: Are you afraid? Did any of you bring his wife with him? I am the only one praying to Allah that my wife does not watch the video.

Then he said: So when she asked the man for what she does not give the counterpart of, we called her unjust. And in turn, when I ask my wife to get ready "to the nines," to the nines or not? In Egyptian: when she gets ready in the most complete way, what have I provided for her so that she gets ready like this? And the Egyptian proverb says: "Cook, O maidservant," and she says: "Provide the means, my master." He says to her: Cook, O maidservant, and she says: Provide the means, my master, you want all this cooking from me, so give me money I can spend on the cooking. But you give me ten piasters and ask me to make you a hundred-thousand meal! "Make sense." So the matter is one and the same: I want her to be in a certain form, so let me fulfill what she wants, and she wants him to be upright, so let her meet what he wants, and she beautifies and perfects herself so as not to leave him an opportunity to be in such-and-such.

Peace at Home: Have You Come to Know Whom You Live With?

Then he said: Let us return to the matter of peace. This peace at home: have I understood the nature of the other party or not? Am I dealing with a person with whom I have friendship and affection, or one with whom I have bickering and quarreling all the time? Have we given ourselves the chance to get to know each other in reality, or was it a physical acquaintance in bed, may Allah honor you, and that's all? How do you know your wife? Do you know her by her mind? Or did we know only bodies? Or did we mix together until we produce two children and throw them in the street, and after that neither can our minds meet nor can our souls become upright? If this equation were adhered to inside homes, you would find life going on with uprightness, ease and a calm without equal.

How Many Times Did the Prophet ﷺ Insult a Wife?

And he said: I asked a question in the Friday prayer in the sermon and I will ask it again: how many times did our master the Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, in his whole life, and it was about thirty-eight years of marriage, right, or am I mistaken? How many times did he insult one of his wives, or say a shameful word to her, or belittle her worth, or demean her standing, or reproach her for an act? How many times? Not once. And how many times did he strike her on the face or with a stick, or imprison her, or pass judgment on her? Not once. And we, whom Allah raises and teaches, saying: ﴿وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ فِيكُمْ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ﴾ ("And know that among you is the Messenger of Allah")..., everything we do in our homes of deeds: is it from the deeds of the Jāhiliyyah or from the deeds of Islam? In utter simplicity.^[1]

Then he said: But there is a moment in which a person becomes clear and frank with himself, and this is the point we do not try to reach. And therefore, as we said, in all situations of disagreement between spouses each of the two goes around looking for how to throw the blame on the other. You find each of them looking at the other and throwing mistakes at him, and she too throws at me, and none of us says: By Allah, I was more worked up than I should have been, or: By Allah, I said a word that should not have been said, or: By Allah, a stance came from me that she could not understand, so I need to explain it to her a second time.

The Incident of the Slander: The Harshest Thing That Could Be Said

Then he asked them: What is the most hideous thing in the life of any one of us men? And I am speaking about men, not about males. In the life of any one of us, is there anything harder than that his wife be accused in her honor? Imagine our master the Prophet ﷺ when Lady ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) was accused in the incident of the slander (ḥādithat al-ifk). Is there anyone among you who says to me that a harsh or bad word or reproach came from the Prophet to his wife? The most the Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, did, when she said to him: You doubt me, was to say to her: "If you are innocent, Allah will clear you."

And he asked those present: Is there not in this statement a kind of accusation? One of them explained that it carries the meaning of casting doubt that a person is respectable, honorable or trustworthy. The speaker answered: May Allah reward you with good, but with this interpretation of yours, I look at the matter differently; as if it were a kind of reassurance to her, and she is certain she is innocent, so Allah will clear her, and as though the matter is only a matter of time. Then he asked: And since that is so, why is he sad? The answer came from those present: Because a volume of problems resulted from the situation that was greater than he could bear, and the speaker said: Exactly. And therefore when the Prophet ﷺ went up on the pulpit and spoke to the people, he spoke to them with the logic of: What is the matter with people who harm me in my honor? That is, why are people talking about me, and what proportion of doubt do you have? So imagine that the lady is accused in her honor and yet the Prophet ﷺ did not speak a single harsh word.^[2]

Then he said jokingly: Folks, by Allah I pray to Allah that my wife does not watch this video, and it looks like I will fall into it in a little while, what shall I do? I am making problems for myself today.

Men Seek the Health of the Home

And he returned to the logic of manhood and said: Men seek the psychological and mental health of the home and those in it. And so that I keep my glass intact, I always clean it and take care of it and look after it, and I do not let anyone with a stone pass by my shop, and my eyes and my cameras are always open. If we were truly attentive to our homes to this degree, there would be no problems.

The Boxes of a Man's Mind

Then he went back to understanding the other party's nature, and said: One of the scholars or speakers in the field of the nature of the male mind and the female mind made a very nice video, in which he said that a man's brain is a set of boxes side by side. And the man deals with these boxes with utmost precision, so before he approaches one of the boxes he opens it slowly, then sees what is in it, then goes into it and sits inside it. So if he is watching television, and I am speaking with the men, and your wife is talking and speaking to you, and you are focused on the television, then after three hours and a quarter she says to you: You haven't told me your opinion. And he asked those present: Isn't that natural, or am I the only one who does it? When those present answered in agreement he said: This is natural. For you have moved from the television box to the work and numbers box, and you find him sitting with the television on and the children around him, and you say to him: Did you see how the hero did such-and-such? He looks at her: What hero? Where are you? You are at work. He is sitting with his body only here, but his brain is with the one who has the money and has not come with it until now, what shall we do with him and how shall we plan? And you draw up a plan for the Middle East and the Far and Near East while sitting in this seat, with your eyes on the television itself, looking with them, but the television box is not open.

And you come to the sleep box: I want to sleep, I want to sleep, and the boy is sick and wants to go to the doctor, and the man says: And they blame us, folks, our brains are only the size of us, we are poor souls, please do not wrong us and do not ask more of us. So imagine, for example, that one has gone to sleep, and the boy wants to go to the doctor, but he is certain that his mother can take him, and that his sister can, and that his older brother can, so there are alternatives. At that hour he takes this "anesthetic" out of the box and puts it in a second box on its own, and this box is "making sure of the boy" when he comes back, perhaps two months later, say, so we check on him, it is not important now, but I want to be reassured. And so on.

And the point of the speech is that these boxes come out of one and enter into another, and our lady talks to you about one topic and finds you on another. So naturally is she upset or not? She is upset of course, and she says to you: He doesn't pay me attention, he doesn't care about me, he doesn't listen to my words, he doesn't give attention. So I say to her: Madam, by Allah the factory made him this way, this man was set on the mold and the nuts were tightened this way, so do not try to take him out of it, he is like that.

And the Woman's Mind

Then you go to the other side and find your wife; he says to you: The brain there is a set of tracks connected to each other and running at the same time. She works in the kitchen, speaks on the phone, deals with such-and-such, and says to the boy: Your socks are in the room in such-and-such place and under such-and-such. Madam, what great faculties! Allah created the brain this way. And therefore you are sitting talking about one topic, and with all due respect to our sisters, and if anyone is listening to us, may Allah bless them, you start speaking with her about one of the topics of the home: we want to do such-and-such, fine. And suddenly, by some power, you find her talking about something called the "ganbiyyah" that got torn somewhere,^[8] and about the husband of the sister of the daughter of his paternal uncle's maternal aunt, who I do not know what he did, because his wife said such-and-such... And you say to her: Madam, excuse me, can we go back two steps, "reverse," you took the left exit, stay with me in this circle. And as we are going along in the same topic, suddenly, glory be to the Able, the husband of the sister of the daughter of his uncle...

So when you speak with her starting from these boxes and she has gone off like that, you get angry because she has taken you out of the place where you were thinking, so your reaction is emotional. Because feelings are what enter into thinking, and thinking enters into will, and will enters into the word you said, and all of that based on this disruption that happened to you, so you entered with her into the story of feelings, and you say to her: Madam, we are talking about one topic, you will drive me crazy!^[9] So she says: Yes, you always see me as crazy. And you know the rest. And in the end we find him coming to the mosque with a bump on his head.

A Summary in Points

Then he said: I do not want to prolong things for you or say too much, but I will simplify the speech into a few very simple points. When Allah, the Most High, legislated religion for us, He legislated for us a religion called Islam, whose basis is peace. So if someone comes knocking on your door, deal with him by the logic of peace, not the logic of war. And if you stormed into a house and entered it and took from them the delight of their eyes, their daughter, and she became a trust with you, then we deal with her with peace. And if Allah, the Most High, entrusted a sister of ours with a husband of hers, and a man who was under her care, in her trust, in her shade morally, psychologically and so on, then he is in her trust, and she deals with him with peace. And if we agree to deal with logic, reason and calm, we will not reach the stage of quarrel or fighting or disputes or courts. And if we make our minds govern us as men, in that we deal with a different nature and a different psychology, you will find yourself patient.

Then he said, to anyone who has a shop: If we had a "salesman" standing dealing with customers all day, by Allah, would he restrict himself to dealing with the sensible only, or is there a possibility that a crazy person enters his shop? When a crazy customer enters my shop, do I bear with him until he buys from me, or do I say to him: Get out, you are crazy, my son, I only deal with the sensible? What do you think? We, as a skilled salesman, any customer who enters my shop^[10] I deal with as a skilled salesman. And at home he deals with all the shifting situations within this feminine mentality that Allah created this way.

We Do Not Belittle Our Women

And he said: And we, by the way, do not fault her, and do not belittle our women or our wives; on the contrary, the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, completed them with what we cannot do. And I always ask my brothers and ask myself: when my wife gives birth to a new child and there is a new voice in the house, a crying baby, you by your nature as a man say: Take this son of yours and go out with him to the living room, I have work in the morning, my head... So our sister says: Don't you see? He cannot bear me, and they never bear responsibilities. No, the matter is not so; he has other responsibilities, and this part is not among the boxes in the brain, so do not wrong him as well. And the Lord of the worlds gave you an amount of feeling, tenderness and emotional responsiveness. As for us, we are "rugged" people, we do not have that thing, we do not understand this subject, and it is no shame. And I have toughness, strength, taking the lead, dealing with people and penetrating societies as we were talking today, so I raise my son to be tough, strong, forceful, and I raise the girl to be in the inner chambers, and you know how it is. And therefore the reward of one who raised a daughter and entered Paradise with her; why? Because she needs special treatment. [This sentence is disordered in the transcript, so what was established of it was carried over without attributing a ḥadīth.]

Peace at the Beginning and Peace at the End

Then he said once more: Peace at the start of living, and peace at the close. The happiness you cannot find now because you bicker with your wife so much, you will find if you preserve this home. If you preserve the home and we gather the matter together, then a grandson or granddaughter comes to you from your children. He looked at one of those present who had smiled and said: Look how he smiled a lovely smile, because he remembered the beautiful part of his life. The first moment this little child enters on his grandfather, he forgets his problems and the problems of his mother and of those who brought him and who bore him, and says: Man, what happened? I have forgotten everything! Imagine twenty years, twenty-five, thirty years of bickering going back and forth, of estrangement and closeness and so on, then a child enters, your grandson, and you are walking, at sixty or seventy, with a child of ten or twelve beside you, a grandson walking beside his grandfather: I will take you to the mosque, grandpa. How much are these moments worth in a person's life? By Allah, do they not make you forget all the pain you have seen in your life?

And he said: Imagine the mother who bore with us. I, for example, my wife has borne with me, and I always say to her: If you enter Paradise by a direct cause, is not your patience with me more rewarding for you than your prayer? I say this to my wife, for this is my nature, and I know myself, may our Lord cover us, O Lord may she not watch the video because she will taunt me with it in a little while. Send blessings upon our master the Prophet. By Allah, this is quite a job! But I imagine this lady who has been patient with me all this length of time: what do you think, what is her psychological state on the day of her daughter's wedding? Never mind her son's wedding: the day her daughter marries, she looks at your face and says: By Allah, we have grown old, father of so-and-so! What is this state of contentment that came suddenly? Really, you are smiling! And do you know why? When did this smile come out? When she sensed a moment of true happiness in her normal life. And from there we sensed the delight of life's fruit. So this son of yours who walks beside you makes you patient with anything in the world, because every time you look at his face he fills your eye, your heart and your soul, and makes you glad with the future you are building after twenty or thirty years.

And he concluded that the whole matter rests on the fact that Satan always tries to destroy our homes over us with as many tricks as he can, and lies in wait for us at the weak points he sees in our souls, our minds, our eyes and our insights, so that he can inject his poisons into the midst of this beautiful, refined, wonderful home, by the leave of the Lord of the worlds. And he stopped at that point, and asked Allah, the Most High, for himself and those present, acceptance.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: This is what the speaker said in his discussion of the Prophet's ﷺ conduct with his wives; and among what is authentically reported on that is the saying of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her): "The Messenger of Allah ﷺ never struck anything at all with his hand, neither a woman nor a servant," narrated by Muslim. The verse fragment as recorded is what the speaker uttered, and its location is [al-Ḥujurāt: 7], and its full text is: ﴿لَوْ يُطِيعُكُمْ فِي كَثِيرٍ مِّنَ الْأَمْرِ لَعَنِتُّمْ﴾. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The story of the slander is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs from the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her). The two phrases attributed to the Prophet ﷺ were recorded by meaning, as they came in the speaker's words. What is established in the two Ṣaḥīḥs is that the Prophet ﷺ said to ʿĀʾishah: "If you are innocent, Allah will clear you, and if you have committed a sin, then seek Allah's forgiveness and repent to Him," and he said on the pulpit: "O company of Muslims, who will excuse me regarding a man whose harm to my household has reached me?"; so the wording "what is the matter with people" is not from the wording of the story. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The phrase "they met me with the owl" is disordered in the transcript; what is recorded is an estimate by meaning of the speaker's words after it, "not a physical beating but the surprises." ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The word "provision" (al-rizq) is an approximate reading of an unclear word in the transcript ("al-rizk"). ^[5]: Editor's documentation: "Five and a boy" as in the transcript; what is meant by it was not clear. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The transcript has "he takes a fingerprint, he closes this thing"; what is recorded, "he lowers his gaze," is an approximate reading. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: Here the transcript has a disordered phrase ("the lady of the women of the worlds… burden him with what he cannot bear"), so only its general meaning of beauty and elegance was kept, and what was not clear was removed. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: The word "al-ganbiyyah" as in the transcript; what is meant by it was not clear. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: The attribution of the speech here is disordered in the transcript ("you are ... madam, I ..."); it appears to be the husband's speech, with the wife's reply after it. ^[10]: Editor's documentation: In the transcript "ay spoon"; what is recorded, "customer," is an approximate reading.