Parentally Arraged Marriages

[Br. Nur]

This was a response I made to a woman who wanted to know about Somali arranged families, enjoy reading, and your comments are appreciated.

 

 

Arranged Marriages

 

 

Islam stresses a strong family relationship, thus, a mariage is not the marriage of two individuals only, rather, it represents a new family link to a larger family, just like Data Networks. If that link is down, there will be a lot of service denials, including but not limited to visitation, help, and birrul waldeyn ( Parental goodwill)

 

As life itself is a journey, the new couple need to network with the rest of the larger family for guidance, unlike what we see today of couples who leave town and do not look back to their folks except when they are in trouble and need speedcash by Wetern Union.

 

A Muslim marriage connects the couple eternally with their folks as an extended family sharing faith and life together. A good example was Somalia's fall from grace when families banded together to help their loved ones out of warring clans and settled them in Norh America. If that family mechanism did not exist, the tragedy would have been similar to that of Ruwanda and Burundi in which over a million peole were massacred to death.

 

Based on th above logic, parents prefer to handpick the groom for their daughter, considering his family bacground heavily to guarnatee that tthe relationship with their daughter continues as before. The family bacground is seen as an important measure for the success or the failure of the proposed marriage.

 

 

So in a sense, and from the parents point of view this logic makes sense.

 

 

Now let us look things from the prospective of the young adult. She definetely wants to live her life, not her parents, this is after all her personal decision, as she will be judged for all her actions, good or bad. So why are her parents meddling in her personal life? which is a good question, whose answer when I think about it, and rely on the most reliable Fiqh sources that I came accross, I find that: No parent has the right to forcefully arrange a marriage for his daughter as a wali to someone she does not want to.

 

a parent, thus, has no authority for a forced marrriage, nor a denial of her choice except for cases involving that the daughters choice has Islamic or moral character problems.

 

A parent is further abliged to accept the marriage of his daughter to any Islamically qualified candidate which is acceptable to his daughter, if he does not, The Prophet SAWS said," There will Fitna and evil on earth"

 

But there are incidents that a parent reacts in an irrational way by forcing his daughter to marry someone because the parent is afraid if he does not, his daughter will join the Spice Girls.

 

In Kuwait, a father who loved his daughter very much noticed that she was crossing many decency lines, he bought her a very expensive car, put her in the best schools, only to see that she wanted more and more " Freedoms" and less supervision.

 

One day, the girl came to her dad with a bold proposal: to go to Britain for higher education. The Kuwaiti father knowing that they have no relatives in UK, and that his daughter would have to live alone, could not entertain the idea, but, he could not refuse it outright either as he loved his daughter and did not want to cause her anguish.

 

So he told her that he accepts the idea, but suggested that she has to go to Makkah for a pilgrimage before she goes to UK for school, alone. She accepted and the family packed to go.

 

The entire family took a driving trip to the holy land, including the spoiled girl. When they came close to Makkah, the father veered off road to visit an old friend of his who lived in a desert enclave inhabited by some bedouins who lived with their camels.

 

The bedouins welcomed the wealthy Kuwaiti family to their modest tents nearby their camels and sheep and offered some refreshments. The men sat in a tent and the women in another tent. After a short while of discussion, the father of the daughter asked a young camel boy if he wants to get married to his daugher in nearby tent. The young camel boy could'nt believe what he was hearing, specially an offer coming from a wealthy modern Kuwaiti family in vacation.

 

The young camel boy accepted the offer and the marriage contract was drawn without the consent of the girl.

 

The father, and the rest of the family packed and left the desert, leaving behind the miserably crying daughter in an environment she was ill trained to live, with someone she hardly knows how to talk to let alone conducting other relationships with.

 

Three years have passed, Her family came back to see how she was doing, to their surprise, they came to visit an extremely happilly married pregnant woman with two kids. The family shed a lot of tears, on each others shoulders and the daughter confided to her father that she never lived happier, sitting beside her smiling and happy camel boy husband who can not speak a word of English which she does. The Kuwaiti Spice Girl fan became, a camel milking girl. What a change of a course!

 

Now we can all argue, what would have been good for that girl, an Interior Designer trained in UK living in a small apartment on the Thames with a boyfriend unsteadily feeling used and abused, or a mother of three happily living in the desert. But it is only that Kuwaiti girl who can tell us which lifestyle would have been better if she indeed lived both lives, one at a time, but again, like Quantum mechanics, that is impossible.

 

 

Life is a big dream, it will all pass, and we can only capture memories of good and sad times, at the end, we will wake up to a new permanent reality, that of the day of judgement. A day in which all the measures of good and bad are not the ones we set, nor those our society accepts, rather, those set by Allah SWT. The sooner we align our wishes and desires to those of Allah SWT, the happier we shall feel.

 

Subxaankallahumma, laa ilaaha illallaha illaa anta, nastaghfiruka wa natuubu ileika.

 

Nur

[Nur]

Salaams Nomads

 

Since Marriage is on the boards, I thought reviving this article may be beneficial while the topic is under discussion with respect to sleeping with someone before marriage.

 

Nur

[Thinkerman]

Thx for the great post bro, it is a well made point and i think the Metaphor used is very accurate. I myself hope that this will be the way i meet my wife (inshallah)

[Nur]

Marriage bound Nomads, some insighs to help you chart your route in life, I pray you find the right partner, its a jugle out there, as Somali proverb says " dad iyo duurba waxaad kala kulantaa waxaadan fileaneyn"

 

 

Nur