For many people raised in the western world marriage is a scary thing. This is especially true for Sisters more so than Brothers as the level of change tends to be vastly different between the two genders. Sisters are required to integrate within their husband’s family more so than Brothers. Finding someone that you are going to spend the rest of your life with is not a trivial matter that should be endevoured upon haphazardly. Even upon getting married, a large percentage of them end in divorce as outlined in a survey conducted by Soundvision.

Their findings outline a number of issues:

• The leading causes of divorce was incompatibility. More specifically religious incompatibility
• The first 5 years of a marriage are key
• Women are initiating the divorces
• A large percentage of Sisters are marrying from abroad
• Family integration issues also lead to many divorces
• There is a strong need for family counseling within the Muslim community
• Brothers tend to remarry more easily than Sisters

What does this all mean? I would suggest that there are many things that need to be considered when looking for a spouse:

Religious Compatibility

Marrying someone who has the same level of religiosity is not only the key but the core ingredient of a successful marriage. If there is a large difference in a couples religious views then problems are sure to arise based on the fact that the expectation that both sides have are going to be vastly different. I would suggest that for Sisters, marrying someone who is focused on their religion is of even more importance than Brothers. As many esteemed scholars have suggested ‘Marry your daughters to someone who is pious and God fearing because even if he grows to dislike her he will never mistreat her.’

Understanding the Roles and Responsibilities in Marriage

How many of us understand what the Sharia dictates in regards to the roles and responsibilities of a husband and wife in marriage? Brothers, I will warn you in advance…you may not like what you hear. Allah created men and women equal but different. The responsibilities of a husband far outweigh his rights where as the opposite is true for wives. Having a clear understanding of what these rights and responsibilities are is key before you even consider getting married. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf has a lecture series entitled “The Rights and Responsibilities of Marriage” that is of great benefit to all those who listen to it. Knowing what is expected of you will help you once you are married by setting the stage for not only expectations but also communication between you and your spouse. Additionally it is recommended that one focus on their responsibilities to the other rather than the rights they are owed by the other.

The Change Them Mentality

Many marriages are based upon the premise that the other will change and adapt to the me. Sisters think the Brother will change. Brothers think the Sisters will change. Marrying anyone thinking that you can or need to change them is not realistic. A successful marriage require compromise from both sides on any issues that may arise. However, compromise shouldn’t be one sided. Going into a marriage thinking that your spouse is going to make major changes isn’t realistic. Think of it from the other perspective, how would you feel if they asked you to make major changes? If you feel that major changes are necessary on their part or even your part in order to have a successful marriage then you are probably not a good match for each other.

Priorities

A good exercise for one to complete is to list out what you’re looking for in a spouse. After doing so place a weighting on what are:
Deal Breakers – You couldn’t marry them if they didn’t have this trait
Must Haves – You could possibly get by if they didn’t have this trait
Nice to haves – You could definitely get by if they didn’t have this trait but it would be a bonus if they did

Limit yourself to 4 of each.

In doing this exercise it forces you to get a more realistic view of your priorities. Then proceed to rank each item as to how it pertains to contributing to a long term relationship. For example, if you had “Must love sushi” as a deal breaker, how does that contribute to the long term relationship? If they didn’t like sushi but they had everything else on your list would you consider marrying them? Use this to re-arrange the priorities and their rankings. It is highly unlikely that you will meet someone who meets every criteria on your list but if they meet the majority of them they are probably a good match.

Ultimately, we as a community need to realign our view of marriage and understand what is important and what is not. Happy marriages come from finding someone with similar priorities and a similar outlook especially when it comes to the religious outlook on life regardless of your level of religiosity. What Nikahfied provides is a means for you to understand your priorities and world view. It also provides a glimpse into the priorities and world view of others. We hope that our service will provide you with a head start in determining who might be a good fit and what types of questions and conversations you might have in order to unearth whether you want to get married but more importantly stay happily married by. If incompatibility is what is causing a so many marriages to fail, we feel that Nikahfied provides the Muslim community with tools to address comparability before getting married inshallah.

We pray that you are doing well inshallah. Alhumdulilah, we have officially launched our website. Not only can you sign up for an account but you can now search and message potential matches.

The new features that have been added are:

• Search – Search for potential matches
• View Profiles – View the details and survey responses other members
• Messaging – Contact matches that you feel are of interest by sending them a message
• Block Users – Block members who are not interested in and they will no longer appear your searches, nor will they see your profile in their searches

Please spread the word about Nikahfied.org. The more people on the website, the better the chances of helping people find happiness inshallah.

Lastly, please keep us in your supplications (du’a).

We will be starting a series of blog posts outlining the considerations that everyone should consider before you start your search for a spouse. As we have highlighted in earlier posts, we at Nikahfied want to promote not only making the proper selection of a spouse but also educating ourselves about what it takes to have a successful marriage. In this series we will be going over many issues that many people don’t consider but should when looking for a spouse. We will be offering points of discussion for readers to part take in to allow a vibrant discussion with different perspectives inshallah. We will also be highlighting services offered by resources and organizations that may be of benefit to brothers and sisters in their quest to get married.

The series will begin in a few weeks inshallah. Stay tuned. Until then, please keep us in your duas.

It has been a long time coming however all good things take time. We are close to completing the initial version of the Nikahfied website and wanted to give you a sneak-peek on what you can expect from the website insha’Allah. We are hoping to have everything complete by sometime in June 2010 insha’Allah.

In the mean time, we hope to create a dynamic community around the website through weekly discussion topics and a growing marriage resource centre insha’Allah. Follow us on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook to keep apprised of our updates.

The first thing everyone is probably asking themselves when visiting this website is “Do we really need another matrimonial website?” We believe the answer is yes. The second question that may come to mind is “Ok…why?” To that we would simply ask you to try the following. Do a Google or Bing search for “muslim matrimonial”. You are likely to see a list of results such as the following:

SingleMuslim.com
MuslimMatrimony.com
Nikah.com
MuslimWedding.org

You can visit each of these and you’ll see pretty much the same thing. You can search of a brother or sister based on their age, affiliation/sect and location.

Now do a search of “online dating” and you will get a list results such as:

PlentyOfFish.com
KissCafe.com
LavaLife.com
Singles123.com

You can visit each of these sites and you’ll see pretty much the exact same content as you saw in our last Google/Bing search we did except for the ability to search by affiliation/sect. The first question we would ask is, is looking for a husband/wife the same as looking for a girl/boy-friend? Ask any married person an I guarantee you they would say that it’s no-where near the same. The reason many of these sites look and feel the same is that they are run by the same companies. Non-Muslim dating corporations that figure that it would be easy enough to meet a new target market by adding the ability to search by everything as well as which affiliation/sect you’re looking for. How can a non-Muslim corporation know what type of information Muslims are looking for when trying to find a husband/wife? There are a few Muslim run websites but they seem to be following the same model as the dating sites as well.

If we look a little bit deeper and click on a profile from either type of the site we will virtually the same generic and useless information:
“Hobbies”
“About myself”
“What I’m looking for”
“Partner preferences”

How does any of that information provide any information provide any insight as to what a prospective spouse is really like and what they believe? Now we’re not saying that any website can tell you what a person is really like because it’s easy to lie on over the internet but honestly…a person has about as good a chance of meeting a spouse using current matrimonial sites as they are by simply walking into a masjid and asking the first person they meet if they’re interested in getting married!

All these websites do is provide a place with concentration of muslims allowing people to judge everyone simply by their physical appearance. Our beloved Prophet (pbuh) stated that there are four characteristics that one can marry someone for:

1. looks/physical appearance
2. wealth
3. linage
4. iman

He (pbuh) stated that only iman will stand the test of time. If we look at existing Muslim matrimonial sites, they all focus on looks / physical appearance or wealth. “Looking for a doctor, lawyer or engineer for my lovely well educated daughter” Sound familiar? It seems that everyone is looking for a fair skinned doctor that lives in the US. If you truly believe that these types of criterion lead to a happy marriage well, then Nikahfied.org (our website) probably isn’t for you.

Regardless of your level of religiosity, you probably have a rough idea of what you are looking for and what type of person might be a good fit for you. If you don’t, ask those close to you. As we stated earlier, we can’t tell you everything about a potential spouse…however, we give you a better idea of:

1. what they they are looking for
2. what their opinions on marriage are
3. what they believe the role of a husband and wife are in a marriage
4. what their level of religiosity is
5. how they handle everything from stress to relationships

We are able to provide this type of information by requiring all users to complete a detailed survey about themselves and what they are looking for. We use the information our users provide to make their search as easy as possible. This information will also allow others to get a better understanding of who you are and whether or not they believe you might be a good match for them.

The other distinguishing feature between Nikahfied.org and other websites is that the service we provide is completely free. As I mentioned earlier, if you do a bit of digging you will find that most of the other “Muslim” matrimonial websites are actually run by non-Muslim dating companies/websites that have no understanding of what the needs of our community are and are hoping to get you to pay a monthly subscription fee to use their website. There are many Muslim run websites that attempt to do the same but are unlikely to lead to a good end result.

At this point your probably thinking “what’s the catch?” and the answer would be absolutely nothing. We don’t sell your information nor do we share it with anyone. There will be a minimal amount of tastefully placed advertising on our website to cover operating expenses but nothing more. Any extra money we make through the advertising will be donated to a range of charities. Our goal is to help people fulfill the sunnah of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and find spouse to live the rest of their lives in happiness with insha’Allah.

The divorce rate amongst Muslims is rising around the globe. We believe that this is due to people not understanding what to look for in a spouse or how to make things work one they get married. To help educate our users about the Islamic perspective on marriage, we provide links to resources (courses, lectures, articles, etc.) about what Islam has to say about what to look for in a spouse and how to have a happy and health relationship. This too is offered free of charge.

So keep an eye out for the launch of Nikahfied.org which is expected to become publicly available by May or June 2010 insha’Allah. We may start allowing users to create accounts before our launch date insha’Allah. You can follow us on Twitter or Facebook to get updates on the status of the website. Let your friends know about us by forwarding a link to this post to others or by tweeting on twitter or posting a list to this blog entry on Facebook.

If you have any questions or comments please contact us at info@nikahfied.org or add a comment to this entry.
Please keep us in your duas.

How many of us have hundreds of Facebook friends, a large percentage of whom are of the opposite gender? How many of them would you consider marrying? It’s surprising to see how common this scenario plays out in the lives of most young Muslims. The question becomes, what’s the reason behind why we see them as not being fit to marry?

1. You see flaws in them that make you think a marriage with them won’t work.
   There are a number of things one needs to consider if this is in fact true. What makes you believe that you don’t have the same or equivalent flaws? If they are good enough to hang out with why aren’t they good enough to marry? If they are truly flawed/undesirable, maybe you need to consider finding better friends that are more in line with who you are and what you’re looking for.
2. They’re not the type of person your family would agree with.
   This is a common issue that many people face. Listening to the concerns and advice that your parents/family have is very important from both an Islamic and cultural perspective. There are few people (if any) who know know you better than them but more importantly, in getting married two families are joined. Ideally these families need to get along at some level or another. However, one needs to take a critical look at concerns they have. Are they valid from an Islamic standpoint or are they based in cultural/personal bias?
3. Your afraid to approach them because if they’re not interested, it may ruin your friendship.
   This is also a valid concern. If they aren’t interested then it’s highly likely that there will be a level of uncomfortableness between the two of you. Only you can determine if the risk is worth it or not.

From an Islamic standpoint, one can marry a person for 4 general reasons:

1. Personal wealth
2. Lineage (they are a descendant or relative of someone notable/famous)
3. Physical beauty
4. Iman (faithfulness to Allah)

Now a potential spouse could possess one or more of the above attributes. Our Prophet (pbuh) and our scholars make note that only iman persists over time and the other three are of little to no benefit in the long run.

Regardless of your level of religiosity, the goal we all hope to achieve when getting married is to have a happy and healthy marriage. We all aim to get this right the first time . In doing so you need to know what you have to offer and what you’re looking for. Be reasonable. No one (including yourself) is perfect so every marriage requires compromise at some level. Acknowledge this from the beginning and your marriage will last. If you are set in your ways, life will be miserable for all involved.  At the very minimum, brothers need to look for someone who has the potential to be a good wife and mother and sisters need to look for someone who has the potential to be a good husband, father and provider.

The only other advice I can provide is that when entering a life long commitment such as marriage you need to live by the following principle (and find a spouse who also lives by the same principle):

Fulfill the rights of others and your responsibilities towards them without worrying about whether they reciprocate.
Over communicate. Don’t keep things inside and let them fester.

It seems that in this day and age if a women has been part of an unsuccessful marriage that lead to divorce then they can never re-marry. What is it about a divorced woman that causes people to shun them as potential wives to another brother? Is it that the perception is that they were the reason the marriage ended in divorce? That maybe they are horrible, overly demanding and stubborn women? Or maybe it’s due to the perception that there are an overwhelming number of single women available so why bother with a divorcee? It seems rather odd that one very rarely hears of a community that shares the same stigma when related to a male divorcee. Why is that?

Our shariah gives women and men the right to divorce. As we are all aware, all but one of our beloved Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) wives were divorced (A’isha (may Allah be pleased with her) being the exception). Why is it he (pbuh) had no hesitation in marrying a women who had been in a previous marriage? Granted one doesn’t find many hadith encouraging one to marry divorcees’. In fact you find many hadith that encourage the opposite:

”Marry virgin women for they are sweeter in tongue, more fertile, and more content with little.
(Mishkat al-Masabih from Ibn Maja andal-Bayhaqi).

It is narrated from Jabir ibn ‘Abdillah (Allah be pleased with him) that we were on our return from a battle when I informed the Messenger (upon him be peace) that I had recently married. He asked if it was a virgin or divorcee. I informed him that I had married a divorcee. He remarked, “Why not a virgin so that you could have played with her and her with you?”
(Sahih al-Bukhari & Muslim).

Mulla ‘Ali al-Qari in his commentary of the Mishkat al-Masabih states that here is an indication that marrying a virgin is superior.
(Mirqat al-mafatih 6:270).

The hadith above would seem to be clear recommendations to prefer marrying a virgin over a divorcee. As we are all aware, one should never take hadith literally without knowledge of the context within which they were spoken. Never the less, these would simply be recommendations and not obligations. Scholars have noted that during the time of the Prophet (pbuh) that a divorcee would have no problem re-marrying once if not several times. By no means are people of this age as righteous and dignified as those from the time of the Prophet (pbuh) (which in itself could be part of the problem).

I often hear brothers say that even when they are interested in marrying a divorced sister that their parents are against it. This puts the brothers in a hard place…displease their parents or continue this oppressive practice.

This widespread stigama as it stands today seems to be a case where culture has superseded religion. What are your thoughts for or against marrying someone who is divorced (male or female) and the sigma attached primarily to divorced women within our community.

In the name of Allah. The Nikahfied blog is about providing a perspective in regards to what we are doing here at Nikahfied along with our thoughts on various issues related to marriage and the Muslim community. Also, check out the resources section on the blog and find links to various marriage related articles, lectures, podcasts delivered by Islamic scholars worldwide.