So when you have a society that is areligious, it’s not religious. It means anything can be mocked whether that’s the prophet whether that’s religion whether that’s God whether that’s marriage. for us, It’s a different discussion. There are certain things that are Sanctified and they cannot be mocked or joked about. I truly feel that marriage Falls in that department because look at how Allah Almighty he spoke about it. And look at how the messenger sallallahu alehiwassallaam spoke about it. And therefore when you see these types of things whether it’s through a WhatsApp image that you share whether it’s a tweet, whether it’s a meme whether it’s a caricature image of some sort, you are mocking fatherhood, you mocking motherhood. You’re mocking marriage, you’re mocking the abilities of one or the other to fulfill their responsibilities. You have the young who are hearing this or the older, you have been the happily married or those who are not so happily married and whether you realize it or not, you are sending subliminal messages in their mind to not take the institution of marriage Seriously.

It’s like anything else and therefore therefore. It should be a red line and what surprises me personally my dear brothers and sisters is that a lot of these jokes are issued by so-called life coaches, brothers Who are they are delivering courses like this and lectures at universities and delivering recordings for social media, but for the purpose of being light-hearted and to make the people laugh and to get the mood going we crack a joke here and there about how useless men are, how useless women are, how useless marriages, and and you get these, you know condolences, types of jokes, right? And it’s a brother for example who could have been crying to you a few years ago saying I need to get married and I’m struggling I I really need to find a wife and and and and and then the moment Allah gives him with marriage What does he start doing? to show that he’s a man, right? He’s married. Yeah, I’m married now, condolences Oh, I mean congratulations and I’m thinking to myself. Wow. It’s like you have forgotten yourself. You have forgotten who you are a few years ago. Now that Allah has blessed you, you are mocking it. This is not an institution to be mocked. You hear jokes like a person saying we saw a man who was at the funeral of his wife and he was standing at the grave of his wife, making Dua to Allah seeing all Allah she is divorced.

She is divorced, talaq, talaq They said to her why you trying to divorce her she’s already died. He says just in case she follows me into Jannah. She is my wife in jannah and we take this light heartedly is this an institution to be joked about? I would argue certainly No, in fact, one of these brothers himself during the course, he said sisters and he’s trying to be funny and I guess he says if you fall out, if you have a, if you have a Calamity in life, generally speaking try to keep a photo of your husband in your wallet, why he says so that whenever you were going through trauma in your life on a major Challenge and a big obstacle just take out the photo look at it and say to yourself if I can deal with that I can deal with anything else in life, and it will make you be able to deal with your challenge. How can somebody take marriage seriously after that it will send a message. If I am constantly mocking your car; your Vauxhall Astra, your Banger, You4 wreck, your HEAP of junk, your bone Rattler this that the other. will it not get to a point where you would look at your current think, you know what maybe it’s time for me to change, it if somebody is constantly dropping jokes about your looks, your ears, your nose, your color, your height your with, your way. Will you not go home and eventually look into the mirror and say my goodness, I need to be a little bit more self-conscious. Right? if somebody is constantly drumming into your head that marriage is ridiculous. Marriage is a cage, marriage is a project in prison blah blah blah blah. It has to affect a percentage of people. in that is the purpose of satire, satire By the way is not just about making people laugh that’s comedy. It’s about changing perceptions through amusements and ridicule and we can afford to do that when Allah Almighty said about this institution as what? A firm Covenant, what is even more worrying is that we are ridiculing the institution of marriage when the opposite is being glorified and promoted. So you … what am I left with? if the only Halal option which is marriage is being ridiculed. And we live in a society when the alternative is being promoted glorified, beautified What do we do in that situation?

And even in the Muslim filled themselves when for example a brother who’s having a hard time at home with his with his wife then he goes on to social media and he sees this beautiful reporters, beautiful presenters, carefully curated images, edited Instagram photos. What is he thinking? those jokes they start coming back and similarly a sister who may be having issues with her husband at home. Like we all do with our spouses and then she goes to the masjid, He goes to the University lecture Theatre to hear any Islamic lecture and they’re in front of her, is a Sheikh who looks ten out of ten. The beard is carefully trimmed. Maybe he Dyed to cover the greys and topi maybe that Im mama is absolutely picture-perfect crisp. He smells Gucci, Chanel everything and then she begins to compare what my husband does not speak that eloquently. He doesn’t look that good. My husband’s knowledge doesn’t come half to this man’s knowledge. And then the poor lady ends up thinking that this man looks like this 24 hours a day like he wakes up in the morning with Im mama on his head. He comes out of the bathroom with the carefully iron thobe the point of mentioning this year brothers and sister is that when we are mocking the institution of marriage, even if lightheartedly and on top of that add another layer of complexity the ooppoiste it is being glorified and Everything is exposed and we can see everything about everyone’s life today. What are you left with? we are left with a problem. You have James Sexton who is a divorce lawyer and he’s been in this field dealing with custody disputes for 20-odd years and there was an interview between him and someone called Sean ailing, Sean ailing he said to him. In your experience, you’ve had thousands of people coming in and out of your office dealing with marital dispute. What is your number one bit of advice for those people who are looking to get married? And what was the advice?

He said take marriage very seriously. And then he goes on to say consider it like a car and he says I hate to give the example of a car because some people Unfortunately they give more respect and more thought to the buying of a car than tying are not with another human being. He says like a car if you were to ask the average person. What is your dream car? What car would you like? You would say? I’d like a Ferrari. I’d like a Lambo. And then if you say to that person hold on a minute, the car that you’re going to have is going to be your only car and it will be with you for the rest of your life. Will it be the Ferrari or the lambo or will he required to re-evaluate the answer? He will re-evaluate the answer. Why? because we recognize that the car that you desire when you’re 20 years old is a little bit different than the car that you desire when you’re 30 years old, when you got two or three kids now wanting to join the ride. Take the marriage seriously. And understand that this is not just about pacifying, passion dealing with the romance with a person that you have just Crossroads with. but you are coming into the one of the biggest contracts in existence. Whereby when you are involved with this person. You are also involved with Allah. remember brothers and sisters that this man he is dear sisters your Paradise or your hell and remember dear brothers that this woman that you have married has taken from you a firm Covenant and I believe that many of the problems will be flushed out just by virtue of realizing the weight of this marriage and that can come through reading, through consultation, and through the attending of courses like this and others.