The Family: Friendship Between Boys and Girls

Amr Khaled

Translated by the www.daralislamlive.com team.


Introduction

In the family episodes, we learn about the family and how to bring love back to our homes. We decided to make the episodes of the family have the same title of the series “the beloved companions”. The aim behind this is to remember the houses of the companions of the Prophet (PBUH). By this, we will always keep in mind that while talking about our houses today, our reference to love will be the love in the houses of the companions of the Prophet (PBUH). 

In fact, we thought about a motto for the next family episodes. We decided that our slogan will be “the return of love”. We chose this motto especially because when God spoke about the family, He made love its foundation. God says in the holy Qur’an: “And among his signs is this, that he created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquility with them, and he has put love and mercy between your hearts: verily in that are signs for those who reflect”.

It is talking about the boy and the girl. We are talking about how God wants our houses to be. God says friendliness is love. Mercy came after tranquility, as houses can go on with love and tranquility. But if tranquility vanished, at least there must be mercy. The man should have mercy on the woman and the woman should have mercy on the man. By this, tranquility will return between them. It is as if God has put mercy after tranquility. It is one of God’s gifts that He has put these two traits in your hearts. So, you shouldn’t lose them.

In this episode, we are talking about the main concepts that helps love either to prevail or vanish from our houses. In fact, the last part of the previous episode was an introduction. At the end of this introduction, I said that the main problem lies in knowing what the exactly the priorities of the husband and what are those of the wife are. The priorities of the husband are raising the children then spending money over his house. While the priorities of the woman are tenderness for her husband and raising the children, then work.

In fact, I received many comments concerning these priorities. I said that the priorities of the man are: 1) raising the children 2) spending money over his family. So many people objected, asking me: “where is the tenderness that the husband is supposed to give to his wife? So, the woman is supposed to be tender to her husband while the man is not supposed to be tender with his wife?” Thus, I decided to correct this. 

Frankly, I want to correct what I said before by saying that the main role of the husband, besides raising the children and spending money, is being tender with his wife. Also, if we go back to the houses of the prophet (PBUH) and his companions, we will find that the prophet (PBUH) used to give Lady Aisha affection and tenderness. So, he never called her by her name, he always called her by her nickname ‘Aish’. He also used to give her food in her mouth. Also in the menstruation period, usually any woman is not very happy. When Lady Aisha was on her period, the prophet (PBUH) used to search for the traces of her lips on her glass and drink from the same part of the glass to make her feel his tenderness. He also used to take her out every week. 

On the other hand, nowadays, the husband always tells his wife: I am not free, I have a lot of work; you take the children out.

Here we have the prophet (PBUH) who is the busiest person, but he used to take Lady Aisha out and to play with her. He also used to ask her to have a race with him and she would win the race. So, he put in mind that he will feed her more to make her gain weight by the next week, so that he will be able to win the race. So, the next week comes and they go out together, he asks her to have a race with him and he wins. At this moment, she understands. So he tells her: this is for that. This means that he has plotted a plan the whole previous week to win the race. So how is the wife supposed to feel when she finds her husband doing all of this for her sake? Very happy of course!

The wives of the prophet (PBUH) said that he was always laughing in his home. They also said that the prophet (PBUH) used to talk to them and they talked to him, but once he is called for prayers, it is as if he doesn’t know us and we don’t know him. Also lady Aisha used to talk to him for hours and hours, telling him long stories and he was always there listening to her. She also used to ask him how is your love to me? And he would tell her: it is like a strong knot on a rope. She narrates that: I used to leave him for days and then come back and ask him: how is the knot? And he would reply: it is still as it is. Amr ibn Al’as once asked the prophet (PBUH): who do you love most? And he would reply: Aisha.

When I talked about raising children and spending money, I was obliged to mention tenderness too. The husband must help his wife show her tenderness. Many husbands hurt their wives when they ask them to stop being romantic and when they tell their wives: stop saying this nonsense. The prophet (PBUH) used to say loving words to his wives. So it is a shame that you say to your wife this. By doing this you are hurting her feelings. Seena ibn Abas, one of the companions of the prophet, was going to the barber shop, and after that he put perfume on, so they said to him "no one goes to his home like this". He answered "I am getting ready to see my wife, I like to be adorned to my wife as I like her to be adorned to me”. 

I will narrate a very strange story. One day I was surprised when one of the ministers of endowments in a Muslim country, was talking to his wife on the phone saying "yes, sweetheart, your wish is my command”. There was a man behind him, a servant, who asked him “who were you talking to?". He replied "to my wife". Then the servant said "you talk to your wife in this way?” The minister said "I can not answer her on the phone in another way except this". Then the servant calls his wife saying "yes, my heart". She answered him "do you know who I am?" as he had never talked to her in that way. 

Never think that the work of the woman is not important. On the contrary, we want her to succeed in all fields and make something useful to the community. Succeed in the benevolent associations, guiding people to the religion. We want a successful woman and this is an Islamic target. 

When we return to the homes of the companions (of the prophet) you will find that the Prophet opened a hospital for Salama so she could cure the people. Omar ibn Khattab appointed a woman to be responsible for the precision of the market. So your rule and intelligence is in making a balance between your tenderness for your husband, raising the children and your work and success in society. 

Raising the children is how to correct their manners, how to find their talents and encourage them to succeed in life. Being successful is part of your religion. 

We said before that the cycle of the family life is:

1- The youth before marriage. 
2- Finding a wife. 
3- Engagement. 
4- Before marriage. 
5- The wedding. 
6- The honeymoon. 
7- The first year of the marriage. 
8- Pregnancy. 
9- Lactation and weaning.
10- Raising the children until 5 years old.
11- Choosing a school. 
12- The raising from 6 years until the age of adolescence. 
13- The dealing of the parents with the children after any sins 
14- The continuity of love.

Our aim is to talk about each stage in the episodes of the family.

The first stage: The youth before marriage

In this episode we are going to talk bout the first stage, which is ‘the youth before marriage’. We will talk about a serious problem that concerns homes before marriage, as well as love after marriage and love relationships before marriage.

Before marriage, guys like to have girlfriends with whom they can exchange love.

To define this kind of relationship, we can say that it usually starts before or during university, when guys and girls are 16-20 years old. If you asked the girl about this relationship, she would say that she loves her class mate and he also loves her and they could not leave each other, and don’t worry, they will get married in ten years, as soon as he is ready to get married. Furthermore, she actually considers herself betrothed to him.

Then we come to the question; that how this relationship begins, and where does it start? It starts at university, at school, private lessons (i.e. educational institutions), summer resorts, or malls. Also it may start in a traditional way, which is on the telephone, or the internet.

This kind of relationship appeared during the last sixty years, which means that such a relation did not exist in the 40’s, as people were not in need to have such a relationship.

Another question; is this kind of relationship legitimate or prohibited? The answer is that this relation is prohibited for sure and this is mentioned in Qur’an once for men and twice for women.

If we want to know why this relationship is prohibited we should first learn the motives and the results behind such a relationship. The first motive is the need for love, to be modern, family separation and weak belief; all these end up with this relationship.

A survey was carried out to discover the motives behind this relationship and we found that:

1.32% loneliness and diversion.
2.12% love.
3.9% marriage.
4.38% desire and instinct.
5.8% others.

This was for guys’ point of view, while the following was a vote from the girls’ perspective:

1.33% loneliness and diversion.
2.22% love.
3.19% marriage.
4.11% desire and instinct.
5.12% others.

And I want girls to take care of this percentage. See his impulse is different than yours. Some people ask why such kind of relationships between girls and boys are forbidden. I want to tell those people that 95% of these relationships don't end with marriage and this is according to a statistic that takes place in Ain Shams University and the American University. 85% of the voters say that this kind of relations doesn't end with marriage. 

After passing through this painful experience, the girl who imagined that she was going to marry her boyfriend is broken hearted after they leave each other. Most girls think that this relationship will end with marriage. And when the girl finds that marriage will not take place, she starts to suffer from psychological pain, which is harder than the physical one. In other cases, every one of them recognizes that they were not mature enough, when they formed this kind of relationship and they say: we were living in a dreamy romantic world and not a real world. And this is something natural, as they were teenagers and they are not mature and responsible enough TO lead such relationships that as they used to think would end with marriage.

So, because Allah cares a lot for your feelings and He doesn't want you to be broken hearted, and because He knows that such pain is difficult to bear, He wants you to reserve these pure feelings of love inside you, till you get married, in order to be able to give and to gain, and surely you will lead a happy life after marriage.

There is another problem; most of the psychiatrists say that more than 75% of the cases of divorce are a result of the love relationships before marriage. As he/she after marriage in his/her unconscious start to compare between his/her former lover and his/her husband/wife even he/she is no more in love with this person. Of course this is a terrible thing and this comparison is by all measures an unjust one, because he/she compares someone responsible by an irresponsible one and it may lead the woman after marriage to be confused in her feelings. And what is more terrible is if he/she still loves his/her former lover because this is regarded as unfaithfulness to his/her husband/wife.

That is why Allah doesn't want you to be broken-hearted. Allah says in Chapter An-Nisa (The Women): “If any of you have not the means where with to wed free believing women, they may wed believing girls from among those whom your right hands possess: And Allah has full knowledge about your faith. Ye are one from another: wed them with the leave of their owners, and give them their dowers, according to what is reasonable. They should be chaste not lustful taking paramours”.

There is also another problem. Allah says: “It is no virtue if ye enter your houses from the back: It is virtue if ye fear Allah. Enter houses the proper doors: And fear Allah. That ye may prosper”.

This is considered as a kind of deceit because if you’ve known this guy behind your parents’ backs in that way, you are deceiving them. Moreover, you should take care of an important thing: that on the Judgment Day, a slogan will be raised for every deceiver, written on it that this person deceived. So, what a shame if you come on the Judgment Day to be known as a deceiver! What a hard situation!

The direct consequences of boy/girl relationship are:

First, the girl’s heart will be broken, as actually 99% of such relations don't end with marriage. Second, you will suffer a lot from being involved in such a past relationship, because usually this kind of relationship leads to a sort of confusion in the marital relationship if you got married to another person, and not your lover.

Some girls say that they don't consider that going on such a relationship is a kind of cheating or deceit to her parents, because her mother knows and approves on it. Well, I would like to say shame on such mothers who want their daughters to get married in such way.

I want to tell these mothers that by approving on such a relationship, she has done two things: Firstly, your daughter is no more now a precious stone that one may long to possess it. Secondly, you have neglected the important role of the father, whom your daughter should have respected his trust in her. Moreover, you will be the only one to blame at the end when your daughter’s heart is broken, even if she was happy then. Wake up, mothers, wake up girls and don’t fall in such a mistake. If the family of both the boy and the girl knows of such relationship and that they had postponed it for a month or a certain period, this is something different.

How does love begin? Since Islam is a comprehensive and complete religion, Allah created us as equals. For example, if we say that each one of us has a hundred units of love, so, let us see how this great religion, Islam, had distributed these units. 

First, by getting married in an early age. Second, the society helps to facilitate the marriage of the youth, so that the youth can express their feelings toward one another. Third, the society and the hope to make a family. Fourth, the love of Allah and his prophet Mohamed (PBUH). Fifth, the love of your country. Sixth, the sisterhood and the brotherhood in Allah.

Thus, we have different things, which deserve our love and that our love should not be concerned with a certain kind of love over another. But, what happens nowadays, and what led to the emergence of what we call boyfriend and girlfriend, and which is also one of the consequences of a broken family, is that the amount of love that each one of us have is not distributed or shared equally among these various sects.

We also have thousands and thousands of films, whose main aim is to show how a boy and a girl fall in love with each other. So that, an exorbitant scene in a film becomes less dangerous than an idea that may spoil a boy or a girl and lead to their confusion. (For example, this stereotype of a young cute boy who knows how to make girls fall in love with him, so that all boys and girls want to imitate this image).

You, youth, say that you want to be like the western people. So, why do you not you take a look at how the circle of the western people happens? Well, first we have the relation of a boy and girl friend which starts at the age of eighteen, and then it develops into an open sexual relation with the family’s approval, and then they have what they call partner: which means that both of them are living in the same house. Afterwards, the boy may marry his girl or he may just go and leave the girl and thus, she would become a single mother, and she would tell her children that she was living with their father but he had now left them. Then this woman looks for another man who may also leave her and so on, so that she would always remain alone and this kind of relationship is of a great percentage in the west.

Boys! Girls! You will lose many things, if you did not follow what Allah tells us in the Holy Qur'an. You will lose yourself by feeling that you are a sinner, and you will lose Allah’s blessing on you. Allah loves you but once you fall in such a sin, Allah would withdraw his blessing on you.

There is a very beautiful story, which tells us about the value of Allah's blessing. It is about a boy who was a student in the faculty of Engineering. This boy fell in love with a girl and they loved each other so much. But the boy started to recognize that he could not go on in such a relationship, as he still had three more years to graduate.

So, he told the girl that he would stop leading this relationship, so they could only keep in touch through his sister. He told her that he would let her speak with his sister, in order to check on him. And he told her that they would stay like this till he finishes his studying after three years and that afterwards he would go and propose to her. The boy succeeded in his plan and he got married to the girl and he is now a father of five children from this girl. This man says a very strange thing which is that: I have had five children from her, yet I still love her more than I used to love her before marriage. He says that this happened because they didn’t do something that would annoy Allah, so, Allah blessed them.

So, I like to say to the girls who are passing through this forbidden relationship: stop it immediately. If you feel that you are not able to do so, because you love him and cannot live without him, I advise you to give your lover a small test, since you are riding the car with him; tell him that you see your sister sitting there with a strange guy in a car. Certainly he will do one of two things: either he may leave you, hurrying to see his sister, in this sense you will know that you are not as precious for him as his sister. Or, he might not care. It is okay; it is not a something to worry about. At this moment, you will know that he is not a respectable person, as he doesn't care for his sister being with a strange man that he doesn't know.

Please, dear girls, target your love for Allah, our prophet Mohamed (PBUH), your parents, your sisters in Allah, and believe me this will help you a lot in stopping this relationship till you get married.

Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) said: I don't see a way of happiness better for lovers than marriage. So, Islam is not against love, on the contrary. But try not to fall in love, except when you feel that you are capable of marriage. And if you fall in love and it is out of your hands, try to be patient till you get married and turn this love to a lawful relationship.

Allah says in the Holy Qur'an: “ye who believe! Follow not Satan’s footsteps: if any will follow the footsteps of Satan, he will (but) command what is shameful and wrong”.

You have to follow Allah's orders and stop this relation immediately, and after that you have to repent and there are three conditions for repentance: First, you must regret what you have done. Second, stop this sin immediately. Third, promise yourself that you will never return to this sin again.

Of course most of you noticed that throughout the lecture I was targeting my words to girls in many things and that is because the key for solving this problem is with them.

Conclusion

Finally, do not go on such girl/boy relationship of love and you can direct these feelings of love inside you to any useful work that may benefit Islam as well as the society. Try not to think a lot of love and love affairs until the suitable time for marriage comes. Then you find yourself capable of leading a marital relationship.





Translated by the www.daralislamlive.com team.

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