Request:
Assalamualaykum Mawlana,,
I’m a 29 year old sinner and hope to find Mawlana Shaykh Hisyam support and guidance.
After some istikhara, I decided to marry a woman who memorized Al Quran. She’s a simple villager, unstylish and formally uneducated. But my parents refused to give their blessing and don’t want me to marry her. They advised me to find another woman which is more modernized with formal education, wealthy one if possible. I don’t agree with my parents. Mawlana, I very much like to choose my chance towards akhira ya Sayyidi. Please help me Maulana, I’m humbly ask for your support, baraka, du’a, and guidance of what I should do.
Response:
`Alaykum as-Salam,
May Allah grant you every good here and hereafter. Mawlana Shaykh Hisham
will pray for you. Recite daily 100 times Astaghfirullah, 100 times Ya Salam and,
after every Salat, the du`a: Rabbana atina fid-dunya hasanatan wa-fil-akhirati hasanatan wa-qina `adhaba al-nar.
As for all parents, your parents’ comfort zone and what makes sense to them is someone more or less of your own social standing so that she may bring out the best in you as commanded in the sahih hadith: “Marry women and men of your own standing” (ankihu al-akfa’ wa-ankihu ilayhim) (Ibn Majah, al-Hakim and others). However, if parents veto, then they should also be in a position to help find someone suitable, instead of just tasking you to do so by yourself. I heard our mother Hajja Amine, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim’s beloved late wife, say to a middle-aged lady who was visiting them in their hotel room in New York in the early nineties: “Parents should help their children find suitable spouses.”
At the same time the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) emphasized a prospective wife’s righteousness (salah) and religion (din) as the overriding criterion – not material aspects the way most Muslim parents think – and he described the righteous wife as the best provision for this world a man can have. The one you found appears to fit that description, but it may be that Allah Most High is protecting her from an alliance where she is not honored as she deserves. The Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) defined the Qur’an memorizers as “Allah’s people and His elite” (ahl Allah wa-khassatuh); so Allah will not give away His elite easily.
Try to put it to your parents in a way that helps you and them to appreciate her status. More than “a simple villager, unstylish and formally uneducated” your choice is in fact much wealthier than most people will ever be, she has the style of the Divine Speech inside her, and she possesses the height of education a human being can have. Once this awareness sinks in, insha-Allah their hearts will be affected for the best and they will support you.
Hajj Gibril Haddad
