Sunnifornication

Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim

Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah

This is a “mature” topic so don’t let the middle schoolers read over your shoulder. Or perhaps you should, because this is a cautionary tale.

The status of marriage in this world is troubled, to say the least. Here in the U.S., fifty percent of all first marriages end in divorce. Muslims here are running as fast as they can to strengthen this statistic, sad to say. There are so many things wrong I don’t know where to begin, but I guess I’ll start with a conversation my husband and I had the other day.

We live in a suburb of a large metropolitan area. There are thousands and thousands of Muslims in the area who hail from just about every corner of the world. We have lots of masaajid and many people who consider themselves Imaams and teachers of Islam. Yet we also have a problem with rampant serial marriage in our area. It is just barely on the halaal side of marriage, leaning dangerously towards clear prostitution. Muta’a for Sunnis, as it were.

Here’s what I’m talking about. Let’s say Bob and Sally (both Muslim, but I won’t use “typical” Muslim names to avoid making anyone think I’m talking about a particular person) are married. The marriage does not work out because Bob is a man who likes to beat women, and Sally does her best but can’t get him to stop. Now they are divorced due to no fault of hers. She is a lovely girl, but now she has a “used” stamp on her forehead and this limits her prospects, which are already limited because the Pakistanis only want a Desi girl and the Palestinians only want a girl from their country, etc., etc. So the Imaam of her masjid, thinking for some reason that if he doesn’t immediately marry her off she’ll disappear in a puff of smoke or something, hastily arranges a marriage with a different brother. Sally has been taught that marriage is sunnah so she should hasten to remarry rather than – gasp! – be on her own in the big bad world.

Well, what the Imaam failed to learn about this brother is that he smokes and drinks and likes to buy lottery tickets. He didn’t look any further into his acceptability as a husband beyond the fact that he prays in the masjid a lot and comes to Friday prayer all the time. Oh, and he doesn’t really have a steady job, so Sally decides to do babysitting to make some money. Oh, and she’s still “legally” married to abusive husband number one, so this second marriage is done Islamically but not registered.

So, life goes on. Over time, Sally realizes that the drunken lout on the sofa is going to stay there for the next few years. She tries and tries to be a good wife, coming to him when he desires her, working, feeding him, and then raising the two kids they have. He is under the thrall of his first love, alcohol, and he never manages to overcome it, sinking further and further into a dissipated life. Eventually, Sally gets up the courage to give him an ultimatum – shape up or ship out. Next day, he’s off the sofa, out at his girlfriend’s house, and she’s abandoned again. Being a strong woman who has no more tears to cry, she picks herself up and dedicates herself to raising her children as best she can.

Years pass, and Sally heals from her difficult past and thinks about marriage again. Unfortunately, she’s now saddled with lots of baggage – two failed marriages, kids, and not being a cute young virgin. The proposals she gets are unsatisfactory. Be a secret second, or third, or fourth wife. Marry but work full time and stay in your house. Marry but send the kids to live with their dad. Now, Sally has needs and she fears coming close to fornication, so she picks the best of a bad lot and marries Brother Fly By Night, who stops in for a bit of intimacy when his schedule allows but pretty much otherwise leaves her alone. The contact temporarily satisfies her physical needs but leaves her empty inside; she walls off her emotions and considers that this is the best she can get. He tires of her after a few months, divorces her, and is off to look for the next Mrs. Fly By Night. She carries on, single until her loneliness and desire threaten to overwhelm her, then she starts the whole sad sorry process over again.

A pattern is being established. It becomes known in the community that there is a woman who can be married very easily, and you can “try her out” and if she doesn’t suit you, no harm no foul. Just divorce. This world slips off the tongue as if it were of no importance, rather than one of the hardest, harshest words in Islam. After a few years, Sally has a string of ex-husbands (all pillars of the community) and is still just as alone as she ever was.

Now, you might think this Sally is a bad woman, a woman who is selling herself, but I tell you the fault does not lie with her. It lies with the entire community. It lies back in her home country where she grew up believing women were second-class citizens and commodities. It lies with her family that married her off to an abusive man and didn’t protect her. It lies with the Imaams and other leaders of the community who think a bad marriage is better than no marriage at all. It lies with the men who chase skirts and try to put a stamp of Islam on it by having a nikah with little intention of making it a lifelong commitment. It lies with good Muslim women who have really good Muslim husbands, but they are so jealous that they won’t allow their husbands to take a second wife to relieve a divorcee or widow from hardship. It lies with all of us who allow this cycle to continue. By not fearing Allah and following the true Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, we are sliding down the slippery slope to open prostitution as we force women to offer their bodies for a small price.

What can we do? Huh, where do I start. In this day and age, this is but one small example of our return to jahiliyyah and our lack of Islam. I don’t have a simple answer because it is not a simple situation. But I can pray to Allah to help my sisters and I can wish for them what I wish for myself. We can make damn sure that when a brother presents himself for marriage, the Imaam or another strong brother in the community gives him the third degree, talks to him, does a police background check, drug test, sexually transmitted disease test, whatever is necessary to show that he is sincere and to protect a woman who most times does not have a wali. We can make sure the woman is also sincere – this is a game that can be played by both sides and some women are only out to get as much as they can from a brother before dialing 911 to have him imprisoned or deported. We have to, have to do a better job or we’re going to have fractured communities where women are passed around more than a biker chick at a Hell’s Angels convention. Astaghfirullah!

Think about it. Think about what is going on in your communities, wherever you are. Stop closing your eyes to abuse and alcoholism and fornication and all the other ills that are going on in society. Speak out on the minbar and in the lectures and at tea with the ladies. Do something because otherwise we are on a sure path to destruction, one devastated family at a time. I ask Allah to give me the strength to help my sisters in Islam, and the brothers too, and to be a good role model and an active participant in my world so I can change someone’s life in a positive way. I ask all my brothers and sisters to relieve a burden from someone, be there to listen, help when you can, advise, show compassion, imagine it’s your brother or sister or son or daughter, and don’t just wrap yourself up in your own life and say “every man for himself”. Yes, the Ummah is in a bad way and yes, it seems like we’re approaching that time when we need to just take our sheep and run away to a field far away, but the time is not yet. There are still people we can help. May Allah help us.