format_quote Originally Posted by
*charisma*
If you have the resources to get married, get married. No one is telling you not to. But if you cannot, then do you really have a choice other than to refrain from haram? And there are a million other things you can do to keep yourself occupied from committing haram acts. I'm not a guy so I can't 100% speak on the urges men face, but we all have our weaknesses and there shouldn't just be one way to prevent our downfall.
I disagree with you here because the responsibility for this specific thing is not on the scholars. The way you get married is detailed in the Sunnah. A man who really wants to get married, and I mean truly, legitamitely, with all of the maturity it requires, will be prepared for it in EVERY. SINGLE. WAY, from it's acceptance to it's rejection. You want them to embellish the idea of marriage, but the reality is marriage is not something which needs embellishment. The mahr should not be extravagant, I agree, but again this is already in the Sunnah. The people should be willing and open, again I agree, and again it is already outlined in the Sunnah and Quran. You want them to teach Muslims that marriage is wonderful and it will save you from sins, etc. etc. but the reality is every marriage is unique and different. It definitely has it's benefits, but to really obtain those benefits you have to be PREPARED as a PROPER MUSLIM, because a benefit for example, could be gaining patience during GREAT difficulty/trial. Just because you are married doesn't mean the trials of fitnah end. You will experience fitnah for the rest of your life, marriage does not stop it. From fitnah, you can be attracted to another woman and unattracted to your own wife. So you need to establish your foundation of marriage BEFORE you get married. And no one can ever help you do that but yourself. Get what I'm saying? There is no embellishment in marriage but it absolutely is preferable than wasting your emotions on haram love. I can't tell you marriage is going to be perfect for you and it will "save you" so that your mind focuses on that instead of the haram because your mind should never be focused on the haram in the first place. So where does the encouragement for marriage come from? You talk about it as if the only reason to get married is to refrain from urges. It is much more than that, and this is what you need to understand. Your intentions in everything should be first and foremost to please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Say even if you were prepared to be married, and for whatever reason you just couldn't; It wasn't written for you; It's not in your destiny...what do you do?? Do you just lead a haram life?? No. You persevere and you continue with your life because it should not be dependent on whether you get married or not. YOu find an alternative to live a life that fulfills your obligations as a Muslim. And I know you want to have something to look forward to, I get that, but in those cases you also have to remember this life is quite temporary.
I know, but how do you know that there was no background check done in those cases as well?? Or that the person just changed after marriage? Or that his wife wasn't active in helping him change..etc. Likewise, those types of people could become better after marriage. Not praying, womanizing, smoking, etc can't really be hidden. I mean a woman can't be that gullible. And it's actually weird that you say that because "background checks" is one of the reasons that people are having a hard time getting married. If you're from a different culture, and I don't know anyone who knows you, why in the world would I let you marry my son/daughter? Or if the people who knew the "sinful" you were asked about your character and you have since repented, how does that work in your favor? It doesn't. That's the idea of where background checking fails. Also, if you know those types of people, then you have an obligation to help them change their ways. If a close relative like you is unable to do that, then you can't expect scholars to have an effect on them.
I still don't agree with that. Subhanallah the sunnah has allowed men to delay payment of the mahr, to give anything tangible as mahr, and stresses the importance of not making the mahr or weddings extravagant. THe rest is on the people. Bros should be saving for their mahr while they are young and their parents should be encouraging them. They should be making sincere du'a and praying istikhara. And to be completely honest, the world is wide and vast..there are tons of women who would be willing to get married with very little if mahr is the issue. It's just a matter of preference I guess. A lot of what you're asking to be taught, should be taught by your parents. And when you come of age and realize right from wrong and understand issues, then it's on you to teach yourself what you haven't been taught whether it is by attending lectures, searching, asking questions..whatever. And if the people around you aren't willing to find you a wife, maybe there's a legit reason for that and no one is actually giving you any constructive criticism to your face.
Okay, so here is what i understood from yourpost in general (and you can correct me if im wrong). You emphasize on the factthat marriage is not obligatory hence we should not promote it as much as wepromote the warnings of doing haram. You seem to suggest that just becausemarriage helps in making a halal outlet for the sexual desires of people, itshould not be portrayed as the only solutions as there are other problems thataccompany marriage such as the burden or responsibility and providing for thefamily and all of these extra chores. Your basically saying that marriage has alot more problems to it than the benefit of sexual pleasure and what not, thusit shouldnt be regarded as the solution.
Lets look at how a normal conversation between ateen and the arab community goes ...
1- teen requests to get married because they arestarting to feel like adults underneath their belt. They are told to get a holdof themselves because they are being immature and just hormonal. They shouldwait until they become a bit older when their brains are more developed.
2- The teen becomes a young adult then requeststo get married again. They are asked if they have a good academic status first.The young adult then goes off to develop their academia.
3- By then the young adult has entered their mid20s and looks for a spouse again. They are asked, do you have a decent incometo support a family? The young adult then goes off to work their bums off todevelop their career so that they get paid a decent amount to support a family.
4- By that time this person has probably reachedthe age of 30 or 35 years old without a husband or wife.
5- By then when that person proposes to someone,(if he is a man) he is told "your too old for my daughter" or (if sheis a women) she is told "your too old to bare children of my son".
ALL this because we dont trust these young adultsthat they will be able to support themselves and their spouses in the future.ALL of this because we still have this stupid concept that marriage is only forthose who wants to start a family and shouldnt be for 2 who simply love eachother and just want to be together. All this because we cant stand the thoughtof having a couple that are incapable of living together at least for the timethey are trying to progress their academia. (just a side note to that, see if youcan ask your parents how old they were when they got married, chances are theyprobably got married around the age of 22 or younger. Meanwhile today we arebeing forced to wait even longer than that all the while haram things aregetting easier and easier to obtain)
And with regards to your comment about porn. Youd be surprised how easily guys get exposed to pornography these days. Maybe its not the same for women but its getting worse for them too. I am a clear example of how bad things have become. I, for one, heard about pornographic things at the age of 9 or 10 (before I even knew how babies were made) and was exposed to it at around 12 through my peers at school (some whom were older and others younger). I was so oblivious to it back then I thought it was something new in this world and that islam doesn’t know about it or says anything regarding that matter, let alone knew whether it was haram or halal. I finally got the talk about “IT” by the age of 14 or 15, but by then I was already hooked. I didn’t think too much of its prohibition since I was only warned about it a few times. Later on, when I started to actually think for myself I searched about it and found out how haram and big of a deal it really was. I was bombarded with videos that call people to watch these things every name in the book. Disease hearted, soul corrupted, deviant, non Islamic, muslim faker, transgressor … and the list goes on. As you can imagine the amount of self-hatred that’s started to develop within me overwhelmed me. I started losing my focus in education, the bonds I had with my family worsened, I started to develop depression, started inflicting physical pain to force myself to stop (if I told you what kind of things I did to myself you’d throw up!) and much more, but to no avail. So many bad things happened to me since then. Worst of all? I started resenting islam because it was conflicting with what I have fallen pray too and brought me nothing but an internal mini war in my brain that caused me much pain! AND ALL BECAUSE OF WHAT?
This all could have been avoided if the umma didn’t have that kind of stigma about these topics. If they were able to openly discuss solutions to these problems without getting all worked up about it. If I was taught earlier by my parents about these things, I wouldn’t have exposed myself to these things willingly before I knew it was haram. And guess where this stigma comes from? Probably from their forfathers who were also taught the same way that we were, … through the scholars of islam and their successors. Through stigma and awkwardness, and look were that method got the umma to? If we keep ignoring these problems and discard them as feelings that can be easily overcome by our will then we will have a serious problem on our hands like we do now. If there isn’t a legitimate outlet to these feelings in a world that amplify these desires insanely then we will be sure to find the majority of the people facing this problems finding illegitimate ways to go about fulfilling these desires.
I apologize if I may seem a bit aggressive in this post but its only because I have experienced the problems that come out of this way of thinking and I have suffered immensely from these limitations (this topic truly strike a nerve for me and hits me hard to my core). My main concern in this post is to let you know that marriage is a much needed solution to fix the very problem of all sexual desires that affect the youth ( I am aware of that marriage can actually amplify these desires, but that problem goes under a different heading. Marriage is meant to address the basic need of sex and other needs, not a cure to psychological problems). So it shouldn’t be thought of as a tool that’s only meant to start a family and not meant for lovers who want to just be together. Because it is meant for people like that as well. And as for my initial post, that was meant to address the problems of misunderstanding and misinterpretation OF, and BY the scholars. The way I see it … it is because of the umma’s short comings that I had to go through what I suffered, and it is because of the scholars and their successor’s short comings that brought the umma to this state. The funny thing is that in the end, I am the one that gets blamed for all I went through. I am the one that gets called “Disease hearted, soul corrupted, deviant, non Islamic, muslim faker, transgressor”! And its my fault that I didn’t do enough research that could have saved me all this even though I was only 12. And for those who will say “but its your parents fault, not the entire umma.” Guess what? My parents are also part of this umma and they were taught about islam the same way that most of the umma do if not better!
No more will I allow myself to be judged and affected by the umma for their short comings. No more will I allow myself to blindly follow fatwas made by knowledgeable people who used to live 5 centuries ago and don’t know anything about the current world is today. No more will I allow myself and wellbeing to be at the mercy of the umma who cant even tolerate each other for having different opinions. Even if that means that id have to become a scholar myself! I will go through all that just to avoid what I suffered from self hatred and depression. Because out of all the things ive mentioned, it is that(depression and self conflict/hatred) which hurt me the most.
Edit:
During the heat of the moment of angry. I incorrectly blamed the scholars of the past. I apologize for that. What i have an issue with is when our modern scholars still use the old supplementary rulings of the previous scholars to govern new problems that emerge in our world today. These rulings are sometimes incompatible and cause great problems for the umma. The other problem is that these modern scholars are also (based on what i have heard and understood) unwilling to give new fatwas that would deal with the problems hindering our society today out of fear that they dont want to change the religion and the rulings that were passed down from our forfathers that seemed to work well with them or, if they must, they usually give the safety fatwa which deems things haram based on very basic reasoning and logic.
I do understand the immense responsibility of giving a new ruling and all, but it is still their responsibility as leaders of the umma to guide us. And if they are going to make everything haram and difficult then dont expect people support of follow everything these scholars say. Because at one point, if these scholars keep tightening the circle of halal on the muslims then some of them might break.
Again i do apologize for blaming the previous scholars of our deen. But majority of their supplimentary rulings cannot be used for our world today as it was meant for their time and conditions. If the olama' wants us to still follow their rulings then the umma needs to bring back the conditions of the world our forfathers used to live in else the previous rulings have to be amended or changed and in both cases im more than willing to help!