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`Nikah
(marriage) is my Sunna. He who shuns my Sunna is not of me.' (Hadith from
Muslim)
With these famous words, the
Blessed Prophet left his followers in no doubt of his own personal approval of
marriage, and, since his way of life was to be `the Quran walking', we know that
the sexual relationship really is the will of Allah for His subjects. It is
worth stressing this point, for some people have a tendency to turn away from
the `things of the flesh', and regard the pleasures of marriage and sexual
fulfillment as if they were self indulgent evils!
As is well known, the Christian
Church has had a tradition of asceticism which encouraged men and women to give
up their sex lives in order to concentrate on their prayers and piety. As is
also very well known to older people, many ordinary men and women who fall a
long way short of sainthood would also like to be able to give up their sex
lives too, not for religious reasons but because they have proved so traumatic
and disappointing and humiliating. Many people find the whole subject of sex
dirty and degrading, and their unfortunate experience so unpleasant and
unfulfilling as to reinforce these notions.
This is not the attitude to sex
revealed to Muslims through the Blessed Prophet (s). There is nothing in Islam
which encourages shame of the sexual urge. As Allah Himself has made clear, He
has created life forms in pairs, including the human couple. When something is
created as one of a pair, it is clearly incomplete without the other. It takes
only the most rudimentary knowledge of biology to notice that male and female
forms were created to `fit together', like a jigsaw puzzle, and when things are
as they should be, the moments when they do so `fit together' are moments of
great love, joy and fulfillment. As one of the ulema has affirmed:
`Sexual
intercourse provides pleasure and energy, it refreshes the soul, banishes
sorrow, anger and dark thoughts, and is a prevention of many diseases.'
(Zabidi, Ithaf al-Sada al-Muttaqin, V, 371)
More than that, Islam teaches
that in the act of sexual union and fulfillment there is a sign of Allah's
greatness and compassion, and of His relationship with all humanity that turns
to Him.
`A
Muslim man can acquire no benefit after Islam greater than a Muslim wife who
makes him happy when he looks at her, obeys him when he commands her, and
protects him when he is away from her in herself and in his property.'
(Nasa'i)
`The
most perfect believer in faith is the one whose character is finest and who is
kindest to his wife.' (Tirmidhi and Nasa'i)
In all these statements the
Prophet (s) is addressing men; just as the Quran usually uses grammatically
masculine expressions. However, the ulema say that this does not mean that the
comments are exclusively meant for the male sex: by extension the same ethos is
encouraged in women. Allah has made it quite clear in verse 33:35, for example,
that the basic moral instructions of Islam are given to both men and women.
The Prophet (s) set a wonderful
example of a husband devoted to his womenfolk, and in his case he had more than
one wife to consider. He did not marry until the age of 25, and then remained
content with the one wife until she died 25 years later. When he was over 50 he
married other women, and when he died at the age of 64 his household included
many women, who all loved him very much.
It is amusing to read the words
of eccentric writers who are embarrassed by the thought that the Blessed Prophet
could have been a fulfilled and happily married man, insisting that these wives
of his middle age were all taken on out of pity and charity, most of them past
the age of any interest in a sexual relationship. As it happens, the only wife
the Prophet (s) married who we are certain was older than himself was his first
wife, Khadija, who gave birth to six of his children when she was already over
the age of forty, and who shared his bed and enjoyed the comfort of his arms to
the exclusion of all others until she was 65 ! All the other wives, except
possibly Sawda, were younger, and their stories will be considered in the next
chapter.
Sa'id ibn
al-Musayyib recorded the Blessed Prophet's opinion of a loving sexual
relationship as follows:
`When
a Muslim man intends to come to his wife, God writes for him 20 good deeds and
erases from him 20 evil deeds. When he takes her by the hand, God writes for him
40 good deeds and erases from him 40 evil deeds. When he kisses her, God writes
for him 60 good deeds and erases from him 60 evil deeds. When he comes into her,
God writes for him 120 good deeds. When he stands up to make the ablution, God
boasts of him to the angels and says: "Look at My servant! He stands up on a
cold night to wash himself of impurity (janaba) seeking the good pleasure of his
Lord. I bear witness to you that I have forgiven him his sins".' (Maybudi,
Tafsir 1, 610)
The scholar Maybudi goes on to
point out the importance of human beings granting their rights to each other.
God, as Creator and Sustainer, has rights over all of us, but He so often
tempers His divine Justice with His divine Compassion, and so forgives and
forgoes His rights. Human beings, on the other hand, are required to be just
towards one another, and if they have transgressed against any other person, to
realise that Paradise is withheld from them until the claimant against them is
satisfied.
The
Messenger of God (s) once said: "Do you know who is the bankrupt?" and we
replied: "The bankrupt among us, O Messenger of God, is he that has neither
dirham nor dinar to his name, nor any property." But he said: "The bankrupt of
my Umma is he that shall come forward on the Day of Arising with the Prayer, the
Fast and the Zakat, but having insulted this person, and abused that person, and
having consumed another's wealth, and shed another's blood, and struck yet
another. Each one of these shall be given a portion of his good works, and
should these be exhausted before his obligation is discharged, then he shall be
assigned some of their sins, which will be heaped upon him. Then he shall be
cast into Hell."' (Muslim)
The Blessed Prophet stressed so
often that men must be careful to consider the rights of all Muslims, which
includes their women, and not just their male brethren and friends. It is so
easy for some husbands to forget that their wives are the people they are
perhaps most likely to insult, abuse, consume the wealth of, or strike. Muslim
men must not overlook the rights of their wives, or forget that their lapses
will be recorded against them in their `Record'. The
Prophet (s) taught:
`I
counsel you to be kind to your wives, for they are your helpers. You have taken
them only as a trust from God, making their private parts lawful through a
word.' One day Umar ibn al-Khattab said: `O Messenger of God, what should I take
from this world?' And he replied, `Let each of you take a tongue that remembers
God, a heart that thanks Him, and a wife who has faith.' (Maybudi, I, 613)
The Prophet (s) placed a pious
and worthy wife next to remembrance and gratitude to God. Imam Maybudi comments
that one of the blessings of having a beloved and worthy spouse is that it
allows a man more time to be free to engage in the work of the next world.
`When you keep to your
worship,' he observed, `if a boredom should appear such that the heart is
wearied and you should fall behind in worship, looking at her and witnessing her
gives intimacy and ease to the heart. That power of worship will then return,
and your desire to obey God will be renewed.'
The author can bear witness
that, as usual, the same applies when a wife can look with love upon a pious
husband!
For Muslims, the Blessed
Prophet is by definition the most perfect human being and the most perfect male.
His love for women shows that the perfection of the human state is connected
with love for the opposite sex, and this is part of love for God. If we cannot
love the beings that we have seen and amongst whom we live, how can we claim to
love Him Whom we have not seen, and Who lies beyond our powers of understanding?
`Three
things of this world of yours have been made beloved to me: Women, and perfume,
and the delight of my eye has been placed in the Salat.' (Nasa'i and Ibn
Hanbal)
Some pious folk fry to insist
that the sexual act should only be indulged in for the procreation of children,
and not simply because it gives pleasure. This is not what is taught in Islam.
In fact, Islam teaches that the joy given in the marital act is a sign of what
is to come, a foretaste of the joy of Paradise. This is proved by the fact that
the inhabitants of Heaven have sexual relations simply for pleasure, and not for
the procreation of children.
`They
shall dwell forever with what their souls desired.' (Quran, 21:102)
`You
will not have true faith till you love one another.' (Muslim.)
`My
love is obligatory for those who love each other for My sake.' (Hadith Qudsi
in Malik, Muwatta')
`Love
for women is one of the things through which God favoured His Messenger (s); for
He made him love them in spite of the fact that he had few children. Hence the
desired goal was nothing but the marriage act itself, like the marriage act of
the people of the Garden, which is strictly for pleasure and not for producing
offspring.' (Ibn Arabi, Futuhat, 11, 193)
Occasionally, men argue that
love of women is sinful because it distracts them from God. But would that which
drew him away from God have been made lovable to the Blessed Prophet? Of course
not. He loved only that which drew him closer to his Lord! In fact, a good woman
is a source of ihsan; she is a fortress against Satan, and helps a man to keep
to the Straight Path. The caliph Umar said: `After
belief in God, a man can have no better gift than a virtuous wife.' And Ibn
Mas'ud used to say: `If I had but ten days left to live, I would like to
marry, so as not to meet God as a celibate.' This love that the
Prophet (s) bore for women is obligatory for all men, since he is the model of
perfection whose sunna it is the duty of Muslims to try to copy in their own
lives.
Written by Ruqayyah Waris Maqsood
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