Monday, Ramadan 22, 1440 AH (May 27, 2019)
In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all creation. May Allah extol the mention of the Prophet in the highest company of Angels and may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, his family, his Companions and all those who follow him exactly till the Day of Judgement.
Dear brothers and sisters, hope everyone is doing well by the grace of Allah. Today I’m going to discuss with you all about the topic of: ‘relationship outside marriage and its consequences.’
Respected brothers and sisters, love is true, the emotions you feel when you are in love are true. Love is selfless, love is caring, and love is having mercy for each other. When you love someone you want the best for them.
We all have a heart and we will certainly be attracted to someone and fall in love; this is natural. However, this doesn’t mean that you should give your heart away just to anyone. Your heart beat is special and you should keep it protected for that special someone. You should allow your heart to embrace halal (permissible) love, to experience this wonderful feeling and to not fall in haram (forbidden) love which is created by shaitan.
The problem is when you are in a haram relationship your love is not what is best for that person. This life is transient and will end, and your temporary love will end in hate. Know that no matter how much a person loves you in this world, if it is through a haram relationship, then they will hate you many times more than in the hereafter.
They will hate you, they will blame you, and they will beg for you to be thrown into the fire instead of them. I know this may sounds harsh, but you must know – nothing will benefit you in this world if it is not for Allah the Almighty. Not your money, not your looks, and not your love.
Whether you are married and living with your husband, or you are in a haram relationship, love that is not for the sake of Allah the Almighty will never benefit you. Love that traps you, love that distracts you from your purpose, and love that leads you away from your Lord is destruction.
A lot of brothers and sisters have a relationship outside marriage, and at the first step of love everything seems colourful and bright to them. But this love is for temporary; it will not last for long. It starts off with a smile but ends with a cry and tear. That’s how it is. This is what false love will give you; it cannot give you eternal peace and happiness. Always keep in mind “love before marriage is from shaitan and love after marriage is from Allah.”
I have seen how some people can get crazy for their significant other and not live a second without them, but then again you’ll see how easily they can break up over a little argument or misunderstanding. I have seen this and you definitely don’t call this love. As true love has a well-built bond between the two and it just cannot break that simply. The relationship is constructed by years of compassion, affection, love and forgiveness. People take the word ‘love’ lightly and say that they are in love without any feelings. However, love cannot exist by itself; it has wings of faith and trust which keeps it alive because without it love will falter just as a bird will if one of its wings is injured.
Love is a strong feeling; deep emotions which can lift you off the ground, increase you heart beat and turn your sleepy nights into restlessness. A lot of people who are in a relationship outside marriage easily break up over a small issue. They change their relationship status to single and update statuses like ‘I’m better off alone,’ ‘love hurts’ etc.
These people can simply fall in love and fall out of it again. They can break up with someone and then be with someone else again. Wallahi fellow Muslims, this is not what you call true love. If you truly love someone then you just can’t let go of them. You may say harsh words to one another but at the end of the day, you’ll feel bad and seek a way for getting back together.
Dear respected readers, what I’m trying to tell you is true love never hurts, and it never gives heartaches and pain. Therefore, do not ruin yourself with false love and false attachment.You will see how wonderful your married life will become if you just set your affairs to Allah and allow Him to choose an ideal person for you. Indeed He is the All-Knowing and All-Wise.
So if you are in a relationship where your love is so strong, then turn it into the best kind of love. The love that never fades away. The love that saves you forever.
If you really love someone, but you’re in a haram relationship, then have mercy on them. Do them a favour and make it easy for them to walk away from you unless you plan on marrying them. If you really love someone, don’t give them yourself – give them Jannah. If they comeback to you in a halal way, then make yourself a promise that the love that bonds you is fulfilled through your strive to get to Jannah together.
Love each other – and love each other for the sake of Allah the Most High.
In my opinion I think love should come to your life once and this should be the first and last love in your life, and it should only come to your life after you are married.
The feeling you will get when you are first in love is the greatest and best of all other feelings and you will not feel this way the second time you fall in love or give your heart to someone. Therefore, my fellow Muslims, why take out the blessings from your married life? You should keep this precious moment, this thrill of excitement for the person you will spend your whole life with. Your true soul mate, your true lover. Then why fall in love before your married, taste this feeling and ruin your married life? Tell me brothers and sisters, if you were to marry someone and then get to know that your wife/husband liked another person before and had a relationship then how would you feel then? You don’t have to tell me but I advice you all to think deeply, and see what your heart says.
Trust me brothers and sisters, this relationship you have with someone will never work out and if it does and you do get married you will still face hardship and pain in your married life. I have seen it and I haven’t met a single person till today whose relationship has worked out.
Brothers and sisters, stay on the right path and attain halal love, that which is good for your mind and soul. Pray to Allah to provide you with a perfect match, someone who is strong in religion and is a practicing Muslim. Find the person whose hand you can hold today, and whose hand you can hold as you walk through the gates of jannah. That person will be the greatest gift to you, because they will lead you to a perfect end.
Start praying from now and In Shaa Allah you will be blessed with the right person. My Du’as are with you all. May you be blessed with the right person you are seeking, and may all you hopes and dreams turn out exactly right, ameen.
Dear brothers and sisters, Islam teaches us to always be truthful and realistic. Usually, we love for the sake of Allah and we hate for the sake of Allah. Islam teaches us that a male and female can build up a good relationship founded on marriage.
We do not say love is halal (permissible) or haram (forbidden) because it is a feeling. Maybe it is not under control. You can judge what is under control. But people who fall in love are in many episodes away from the cleansed and pure atmosphere. Marriages that are usually good and lasting marriages are those that start at the least affection. That affection grows after marriage and maybe it will grow until the couples continue their companionship at the Jannah.
If you have any affection towards a person, you should ask yourself: why do you like that person? If you have good Islamic, reasonable justification, then you need not tell that person of what you feel. However, you can make a serious plan to make him ask for your hand. If you want to know the meaning of fitna, a great part of it is what people nowadays call love or romance. In this context, we’d like to cite the following fatwa that clarifies the Islamic ruling on falling in love:
“If we are speaking about the emotion which we call love then we are simply speaking of a feeling. What we feel toward a particular person is not of great importance, until our feeling is expressed in a particular action. Now if that action is permissible, then well and good. If it is forbidden, then we have incurred something that Allah does not approve of. If it is love between a man and a woman, the emotion itself is not the subject of questioning on the Day of Judgment. If you feel you love someone, then you cannot control your feeling. If that love prompts you to try to see that person in secret and to give expression to your feelings in actions permissible only within the bond of marriage then what you are doing is forbidden.”
Shedding more light on the issue in point we’d like to cite the words of Shaykh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He states:
“In Islam, it is not a sin if you feel a special affinity or inclination towards a certain individual since human beings have no control on such natural inclinations. We are, however, definitely responsible and accountable if we get carried away by such feelings and take specific actions or steps that might be deemed as haram (forbidden). As far as male and female interaction is concerned, Islam dictates strict rules: It forbids all forms of dating and isolating oneself with a member of the opposite sex, as well indiscriminate mingling and mixing. If, however, one does none of the above, and all that he or she wants is to seriously consider marrying someone, such a thing itself is not considered haram. In fact, Islam encourages us to marry people for whom we have special feelings and affinity. Thus, Islam recommends that potential marriage partners see one another before proposing marriage. Explaining the reason for such a recommendation, the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said:
“That would enhance/foster the bonding.”
This permission notwithstanding, we are advised against getting carried away by merely the outward appearances of a person; these may be quite misleading. Marriage is a life-long partnership and a person’s real worth is determined not by his or her physical looks, but more so by the inner person or character. Hence, after having mentioned that people ordinarily look for beauty, wealth and family in a marriage partner, the Prophet (Peace be upon him) advised us to consider primarily the religious or character factor over and above all other considerations.”
Islam does not allow any illicit relationship between a man and a woman. Allah has established marriage as the legitimate means for satisfying sexual desire, and through marriage a man and woman form a family based on the laws of Allah, and their children are legitimate. In Islam, there is no such thing as a girlfriend-boyfriend relationship. You are either married or you are not. To have a boyfriend or girlfriend, no matter the level of interaction and involvement, is completely haram in Islam!
Contact between the sexes is one of the doors that lead to fitnah (temptation). Shari’ah is filled with evidence which indicates that it is essential to beware of falling into the traps of the shaitan in this matter. When the Prophet (Peace be upon him) saw a young man merely looking at a young woman, he turned his head so as to make him look away, then he said:
“I saw a young man and a young woman, and I did not trust the shaitan not to tempt them.” [Narrated by al-Tirmidhi, and classed as hasan by al-Albani in Sahih al-Tirmidhi]
This does not mean that it is haram for a man or woman to like a specific person whom he or she chooses to be a spouse, and feel love for that person and want to marry them if possible. Love has to do with the heart, and it may appear in a person’s heart for reasons known or unknown. But if it is because of mixing or looking or haram conversations, then it is also haram. If it is because of previous acquaintance, being related or because of hearing about that person, and one cannot ward it off, then there is nothing wrong with that love, so long as one adheres to the sacred limits set by Allah.
Shaykh Ibn Uthaimin (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
“A person may hear that a woman is of good character and virtuous and knowledgeable, so he may want to marry her. Or a woman may hear that a man is of good character and virtuous and knowledgeable and religiously committed, so she may want to marry him. But contact between the two who admire one another in ways that are not Islamically acceptable is the problem, which leads to disastrous consequences. In this case it is not permissible for the man to get in touch with the woman or for the woman to get in touch with the man, and say that he wants to marry her. Rather he should tell her wali (guardian) that he wants to marry her, or she should tell her wali that she wants to marry him, as Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) did when he offered his daughter Hafsah in marriage to Abu Bakr and Uthman (may Allah be pleased with them both). But if the woman contacts the man directly or if the man contacts the woman directly, this may lead to fitnah (temptation).” [See Liqa’at al-Babil-Maftuh]
The permissible ways to get the one whom you love is by
i.e contact the wali or the gaurdian of the person whom you desire to marry, there is no need for haram means, but we make it hard for ourselves and the shaitan takes advantage of that.
And all praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May the peace, blessings and salutations of Allah be upon our noble Messenger, Muhammad, and upon his family, his Companions and his true followers.
Wassalamu Alaikum,
Written by your brother, Imam Murtadha Muhammad Gusau, from Okene, Kogi State, Nigeria. He can be reached through: gusaumurtada@gmail.com or +2348038289761.
