<\/div>\n
I\u2019m a Facebook addict with about two thousand friends, and I have noticed a trend lately. \u00a0Many of the women are opining about the\u00a0impossibility\u00a0of finding a good husband, or complaining about the one they have, or dealing with living without the one they just lost. \u00a0This is not an occasional issue; I see it hour after our, status update after status update, from a wide variety of women. \u00a0A young niqaabi in Philly, a fortysomething revert in Michigan, a British woman with a new baby in London. \u00a0I see little soundbites from their lives, messages of sadness, depression, despair, in 425 characters or less. \u00a0It breaks my heart, but what can I do? \u00a0I\u2019m comfortable in a marriage to a scatterbrained bear of a man with a heart of gold who will fight monsters to save his family but can\u2019t manage to keep his gasoline receipts so I can do the monthly paperwork. \u00a0I can sit here on my oh-so-married soapbox and counsel women, tell them what to do and what they should have done, but that would be a complete fraud. \u00a0Many of these women did exactly the right thing. \u00a0They read their Qur\u2019an, read all the good books about marriage in Islam, went to the lectures, scoured the internet to find articles about how to be a better wife. \u00a0They post verses from the Qur\u2019an and favorite hadiths. \u00a0They appear to be normal, good women who simply ended up in crappy marriages or were abandoned by their husbands. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
For all of you women who are alone now, I wish I could offer you solace and tell you that there will be someone for you. \u00a0But I can\u2019t. \u00a0 Honestly, there might not be someone for you. \u00a0Oh, yeah, there are tons of guys out there, but a lot of them simply aren\u2019t good husband material and you\u2019d do well to run the other direction if one turns his attention towards you. \u00a0And, yes, many of the good ones are taken. \u00a0That leaves a relatively small pool of brothers who are looking to get married, and they naturally will gravitate towards the young, cute, never-married, don\u2019t-have-kids women in their community. \u00a0Plus there\u2019s the culture thing. \u00a0A Pakistani might occasionally break away from family pressures and marry someone who is not his cousin, but woe betide him if he marries, say, a Black American, even if she\u2019s a scholar in her own right and exudes intelligence and imaan. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It\u2019s a numbers game. \u00a0More and more people are reverting to Islam, and the majority of those are women. \u00a0So there are more women looking at fewer men who share not only their religion, but their cultural background. \u00a0Having someone who has lived in the same milieu as you have is important; one reason there are so many challenges in marriages today is the cultural disconnect between, say, an American woman and her Arab \/ African \/ Indo-Pak husband. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I\u2019m put in mind of an authentic hadith that tells us exactly what is to come:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
361.Narrated Anas (Allah be pleased with him): I will narrate to you a Hadith<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
and none other than I will tell you about after it. I heard Allah\u2019s Apostle<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
(peace be upon him) saying:<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
.<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
Religious knowledge will decrease (by the death of religious learned me(Religious) ignorance will prevail.<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
There will be prevalence of open illegal sexual intercourse.<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
Women will increase in number and men will decrease in number so much that<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
fifty women will be looked after by one man.<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
(Sahih Al-Bukhari Vol 1).<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
How can I offer \u00a0hope to my sisters in the face of this knowledge? \u00a0We haven\u2019t actually reached this point yet, but we\u2019re on our way there and the situation will continue to deteriorate. \u00a0What are we to do, knowing this? \u00a0What are we to do from an Islamic point of view? \u00a0What is my unmarried, or divorced, or widowed sister to do?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I could get all pop-psychology on you, or I could go the other way and quote verse from the Qur\u2019an and tell you to be comforted and to look for your reward in Jannah. \u00a0I know it\u2019s so easy to cut and paste a verse and then get on with my life, which includes someone to warm the bed beside me at night and help me with the kids and occasionally wash dishes. \u00a0I don\u2019t want to patronize you and I don\u2019t want to demoralize you, but neither will I lie to you. \u00a0No, my sister, there may not be someone out there for you. \u00a0I\u2019m sorry, and I wish it were not so, but that\u2019s the way it is. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, what can you do now? \u00a0Do you give up the search, take down your profile on the Muslim marriage site, change your status to \u201cI give up\u201d? \u00a0I don\u2019t advise that. \u00a0Even though there\u2019s not someone for everyone, the situation is not hopeless. \u00a0There are some good brothers out there, men willing to look for a wife based on her imaan and not the size of her, um, attributes. \u00a0There are men who don\u2019t need a virgin, can handle a woman with kids, who are not afraid of a woman with an education, and who would be happy with a wife who is more mature (read: over 25). \u00a0They are out there, and you don\u2019t know when Allah will put you two together, so don\u2019t give up.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Don\u2019t give up, but don\u2019t sit there waiting for your prince to come and sweep you off your feet, either. I mean, c\u2019mon. \u00a0You\u2019re a dynamic, smart, driven, faithful Muslim woman. \u00a0You don\u2019t NEED a man to feel validated and you are not less of a person without a husband. \u00a0So, while you are in your husbandless state, take advantage of your independence and freedom and work on living your life to its fullest. \u00a0Go back to school, learn a language, take some free online classes, teach yourself how to sew, become the best damn receptionist at your office and make yourself\u00a0indispensable, start a business, join the Peace Corps, learn how to skydive, take up extreme whittling \u2013 do something you love and take care of yourself for a change. \u00a0Yes, you do deserve it, and no, you\u2019re not being selfish and putting yourself first at the expense of your kids or some image you have of what a Muslim woman is supposed to be. \u00a0You did not have a lobotomy before you put on that hijaab, and you did not sign a contract saying your only job as a Muslim woman was to be a submissive wife. \u00a0You are not an\u00a0appendage\u00a0to a man, so stop acting like it and go grab the bull by the horns and all those other dynamic metaphors.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But I have three kids and I am on government assistance, or I live with my mom or I take care of my sick grandma or I have a special needs child or I have a bunch of other excuses. \u00a0I know, I know. \u00a0You can\u2019t just grab a backpack and tour across Europe; you have responsibilities. \u00a0But even in the midst of those, you can chip away at your lifetime \u201cto do\u201d list. \u00a0You won\u2019t be able to do everything you want to do, but you can do something. \u00a0You are not stuck in a rut with no way out. \u00a0Sometimes you have to be very aggressive to get what you want, and you have to be able to get by on little sleep and a lot of caffeine, but if you want something badly enough, you can do it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Look at me. \u00a0I\u2019m a stay-at-home mom with five kids and an entrepreneur husband, and a father-in-law who is in fragile health living with us. \u00a0As a matter of fact, he\u2019s in the hospital now after having suffered another stroke and we\u2019re all worried about how we can take care of his needs now that he\u2019s less able to take care of himself. \u00a0I am physically worn out after having had four babies in a row and as many miscarriages; I am mentally worn out by the economy having taken a toll on our already frugal lifestyles. \u00a0I am plagued my melancholy, which is a fancy way of saying I suffer depression and anxiety. \u00a0I am no model of perfection and I have days where I would rather pull the covers up over my head and let the world get on without me. \u00a0But even with all that pulling at me, I do what I am passionate about: I write. \u00a0I write, I try to reach out to others, I advise people privately when they ask me how to take care of a problem. \u00a0I am working towards my goal of having a website for Islamic advice. \u00a0I am starting to learn Farsi. \u00a0I am re-teaching myself how to crochet. \u00a0I am sharing recipes on my other blog. \u00a0I am writing letters to the editor right and left to try to get published. \u00a0I\u2019m about to embark on a letter-writing campaign to local churches so I can speak to them about Islam. \u00a0I am trying to keep the carpets clean and I\u2019m scrubbing the walls with a sponge to get the kids\u2019 crayon marks off. \u00a0I am LIVING and I am not waiting for someone to give me permission to do what I love. \u00a0I am blessed with a supportive husband, but I guarantee you if he were not supportive, I\u2019d be doing what I want anyway because I did not stop being me when I became a wife. \u00a0I don\u2019t have money to get a haircut and I haven\u2019t had my nails done, well, ever, but I save my pennies and take advantage of free stuff and make do with what I have and don\u2019t use that as an excuse to fail. \u00a0If I, with all my fragility and foibles, can do it, so can you.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, how can I wrap up this too-long blog post? \u00a0Well, let me just say to my unmarried sisters. \u00a0Yes, it sucks that your husband decided he didn\u2019t want to be married anymore. \u00a0Yes, it sucks that \u00a0you\u2019re forty-five and the only marriage proposals you get are from guys who want a green card. \u00a0Yes, it sucks that you were really thinking that that guy was going to make a good husband until you realized he had five other sisters on speed dial. \u00a0It sucks to not have a good husband to keep you warm and help carry the load. \u00a0I will make du\u2019a for each and every one of you to be blessed with a pious spouse who will help you complete half your deen. \u00a0But until that happens, or if, by Allah\u2019s will, it is not to be in this world, I want you all to get up off the sofa, put away the quart of Ben & Jerry\u2019s Pity Me Pistachio Ice Cream, get out of your ugly sweats, and figure out what you want to do with your life. \u00a0Get busy, and inshaAllah you\u2019ll be so satisfied being YOU that you will be able to get through the lack of US. \u00a0I love you for the sake of Allah and I know you are stronger than you think you are.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/8276196425188955527-1765433685068876356?l=muslimahinprogress.blogspot.com\")
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<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah I\u2019m an old married lady. \u00a0Forty-four, five kids, married almost twelve years. \u00a0I\u2019ve been Muslim for seventeen years, and through the years I\u2019ve seen most mistakes that men and women make on the way to finding a spouse. \u00a0I\u2019ve made a lot of those mistakes, too. I\u2019m a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n