Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah<\/p>\n
Marriage is hard.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care if you grew up on the same street, fell in love in grade school, have the exact same ethnic background, and have a million dollars and mansions in five countries.\u00a0 Marriage is hard.\u00a0 When you marry someone from another culture, marriage is harder.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spoken about marriages between people of different faiths from time to time.\u00a0 In general, though men are permitted to marry chaste women from among the Christians and Jews, I\u2019m against it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like it was back in the time of Prophet Muhammad, may Allah\u2019s peace and blessings be upon him.\u00a0 But that\u2019s a discussion for another time.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking now about a marriage between a man and a woman, both Muslim, who are from different countries or cultures.\u00a0 And I want to talk to you guys.\u00a0 Arab guys, African guys, Indo-Pak guys.<\/p>\n
Okay, first things first.\u00a0 Marriage to, say, an American in the year 2011 is different than marriage back in the olden days.\u00a0 First of all, she doesn\u2019t need you.\u00a0 I mean, NEED need, like if she doesn\u2019t marry you she\u2019ll end up a beggar in the streets or selling her body to get money for food.\u00a0 American women are educated and talented.\u00a0 Even a woman with no more than a high school education can usually find an adequate job and can get a place to live, put food on the table, and manage to rent the occasional $1 movie from Redbox.\u00a0 So consider that.\u00a0 If you end up being a dirtbag and a wife-beater, she doesn\u2019t have to stay and put up with you because she\u2019ll starve otherwise.\u00a0 She can leave you and go get a job.\u00a0 So you have to bring more to the table than simply being a provider.<\/p>\n
That cute American girl that you saw waitressing at the local pancake restaurant is also not a quiet, submissive woman who believes that men should talk and women should say \u201caiway Bey\u201d.\u00a0 Yes, she\u2019s Muslim, but she\u2019s an AMERICAN Muslim.\u00a0 She brings to her religion a background of independence and outspokenness.\u00a0 She will listen to what you say, but if she disagrees she will let you know it.\u00a0 She expects you to consult her before you buy a car and before you drop $5,000 on some business venture with your cousin.\u00a0 You know that cousin, the one who always has a great idea?\u00a0 Yeah, that cousin.\u00a0 He lives in his mom\u2019s basement and eats government cheese.<\/p>\n
The American Muslimah will bring the idea that men should participate in household work.\u00a0 Oh, and she\u2019ll have the daleel for that, too.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t YOU know that Prophet Muhammad, may Allah\u2019s peace and blessings be upon him, used to do work inside the home when he wasn\u2019t busy with affairs of state?\u00a0 You can bet she\u2019ll know it.\u00a0 The American Muslimah will expect you to take out the trash and sometimes wash dishes and \u2013 gasp! \u2013 change a baby\u2019s dirty diaper.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because in America, that\u2019s what men do.\u00a0 And if you stick stubbornly to a culturally ingrained habit of having little to do with babies exept for the occasional toss in the air, if you think you can sit behind your newspaper or chill on the couch watching al Jazeerah while she does every speck of housework, well, you\u2019re going to have one pissed-off little missus.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
You\u2019re going to have a woman on your hands who will not let you get away with living an unthinking life.\u00a0 She will challenge in many respects.\u00a0 Not by standing there wagging her finger in your face, but with words.\u00a0 American women are really, really good with words.\u00a0 Islamic words, too, because she\u2019s read the Qur\u2019an and Sahih al Bukhari and Riyadh as Saliheen and been to Paltalk lectures and has Yusef Estes as a Facebook friend.\u00a0 So if you want to tell her to do something, or you want to do something, or you want to get out of doing something, if you try to put the label of Islam on it you darn well better be able to back it up.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
She will want you to talk to her.\u00a0 Really talk to her, like you are friends.\u00a0 See, I don\u2019t want to characterize all, um, traditional men this way, but so many of them don\u2019t relate to women as their friends.\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about going to lunch with the cashier at the grocery store.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about having a good relationship with your wife, talking to her about all the important and unimportant things going on in your life, sharing your fears, hopes, and dreams with her, and giving HER the same attention you give your buddies down at the hookah place.\u00a0 The wife is not just some mysterious creature who irons your shirts, feeds you, gives you marital rights, and births your babies.\u00a0 She is your friend and companion.\u00a0 Think about that for a minute.<\/p>\n
Okay, I know I\u2019ve given you a lot to chew on, and I have to take my kids to swim class in an hour so it\u2019s time for me to run, but let me close with this:\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of you single guys out there, and a lot of divorced guys, too.\u00a0 You really\u00a0 want to be married but you don\u2019t always think long term.\u00a0 Marrying someone who is not from your culture is a challenge, and if you are weak in your religion you won\u2019t be able to substitute religion for the culture you\u2019ve been carrying around your neck all your life.\u00a0 If you can wake up and learn, then alhamdulillah, you can make an inter-cultural marriage work.\u00a0 But if you are too traditional, too cultural, too set in your ways to learn how to talk and work and play and live with a woman whose outlook on life may be far different from yours, then at least don\u2019t screw it up for the American girls who might fall in love with your handsomeness and not realize in time that you\u2019re a caveman.\u00a0 Marry someone who has the right expectations of you so you won\u2019t have to fight this fight.\u00a0 Because it can be a really nasty fight and no one wins in the end.\u00a0 Word to the wise.<\/p><\/div>\n
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