True Love

Zainab bint RasulAllah (sallAllahu 'alayhi wa sallam) was deeply in love with her husband, Abu'l 'Aas ibn Rabee'.
However, when the command came from Allah that she was no longer allowed to be with him because he refused to accept Islam, her love for the Divine superceded her mortal love.
They were parted for some time, during which their love abided and never grew weaker. Zainab's sacrifice for her Lord was rewarded when Abu'l 'Aas finally decided to accept Islam. They were reunited, and their love was made all the sweeter and purer because of the turmoil that Zainab experienced due to her commitment to Allah's Pleasure over her own.

When Muslim women today try to justify the decision to marry non-Muslim men because "true love conquers all," they are unfortunately choosing to put their love for the transient and mortal over their love for the Divine.

If the daughter of the Messenger of Allah was commanded to leave her non-Muslim husband, who loved her passionately and never prevented her from practicing Islam, how can we make the excuse that our love for a non-Muslim is worth defying Allah?

It is sincere sacrifice, out of true love for Allah, that will grant us both the sweetness of mortal love as well as that of the Divine.

#ForgottenHeroines

Forgotten Heroines

Many Muslims like to idealize the stories of the Sahabah, especially the female Companions, and use them to impose an unrealistic definition of Muslim womanhood on the Ummah: an ideal that turns Muslimahs into paragons of piety, virtue, and docile submission, akin to Madonna on a pedestal.

What we forget are the stories of the Sahabiyaat who were not innocent, sheltered beings, but rather women with dark pasts and hidden secrets. 

Hind bint Utbah was a villainess before the Conquest of Makkah; al-Ghaamidiyyah was a married woman who had an affair, became pregnant from it, and publicly confessed her sin to RasulAllah himself, so that she could be purified of her sin. Her repentance was so great that it would have been sufficient for 70 of the people of Madinah.

Before we go about preaching a false image of what a Muslim woman should be, let us honor the #ForgottenHeroines of Islamic history... those who proved that Muslim women need be only one thing: sincere, true believers in their Lord.

#ForgottenHeroines

Is Youthful Marriage for Everyone?

Part 4 of the Youthful Marriage series, written for and published by SISTERS Magazine.

The advantages of youthful marriages are many, and often discussed, but there is another side to it as well. The truth is that youthful marriages face many obstacles, and can be even more difficult to sustain in the face of societal, family, and personal pressures and expectations.

From the beginning, let us be clear: youthful marriages are not for everyone. It requires a great deal of patience and strength of character to maintain a long-term relationship, especially one which begins when both partners are at an emotionally volatile point of their lives. Some individuals are simply not mature enough to handle the challenges and difficulties which young marriages entail. Others have ‘baggage’ which just make marriage difficult for the other party involved, and may even end up damaging the other spouse as well.

Harsh Realities

One purpose of marriage is to protect individuals from zina – so in this sense, yes, it can be successful, even if these marriages end in divorce. Many may consider this to be a harsh way of looking at it, but the reality of life in the West for young Muslims is such that it is literally a choice between halaal and haram – marriage or zina.