There's more than bed and pillows in marriage

It was dissappointing when I attended an Islamic pre-marriage course conducted by the State Islamic Department. All of us were familiar with a hadith from Rasulullah s.a.w saying Getting married complete half of a man's religion. The other half is to fear Allah. Yet during the costly and time consuming two days' course I did not get any feeling why was it that marriage complete half of a man's religion? In fact I did not recall the hadith being quoted in the course anywhere.

When Islam said that marriage complete half of the religion, half of a man's Islam, surely there is more in a marriage than merely sexual activities. Unfortunately many of the invited speakers during the course focused more and some solely on the sexual relationship between a man and his wife. I personally thought that we had wasted the time and the audience to explain Islam in a true manner. It was never easy to pull a crowd to talk about Islam nowadays and here we had a compulsion for all these males and females who wanted to get married to attend the course. Like it or not they must be there and complete it. Why had we not used that golden opportunity to inculcate into them all the Islamic values that they might lacked before?

Of course we did not expect an instantaneous change within the two days but at least we had used the two days to put something into their mind and hopefully they will ponder more into it later on.

Sadly the Islamic pre-marriage course had turned into something commercial and profit oriented. The organizer was more concern about the food, the laminated certificate, the venue of the course and so many other things but the comprehensive content of the course that was supposed to help these 'married-couple-to-be' built up half of their religion! Worse was when the pre-marriage course had become a forum where speaking about porns was allowed, the porns were carmouflaged as educating process.

I was stunned at how the speaker would speed up without elaboration on the crieterias a woman should look for in a man to be her husband such as fear of Allah, economically stable,..., good to his wife and here he will start to elaborate about sexual relationship, giving unrelevant and unnecessary examples and shamelessly telling dirty jokes sending the audience laughing their heart out.

There's nothing wrong in educating the youths about sex but how it was done matter! There was a speaker that asked the audience wether or not the couple stop for prayer on their dates. Was he trying to imply that if you watch your prayer you can go out on dates?(!) Another speaker suggested that even when the couple was dating they should discuss about religion such as stories of the prophets and the like. That would at least add some merits to their dating. La ilaha illallah. There is no dating in Islam on the first place. You can't cover a sin with a good deed that way. Like a stolen money is still a stolen money even when you use it for sadaqah.

The fact that the audience was not separated males from females worried me the most. Moreover many of the participants came with their future spouse. My concern was, having heard the same 'arousing' speech from the speaker about the pleasure of sexual relationship without enough stressed on other Islamic values, these participants will later went home together. I prayed that they got home safe and did not digress or did something they will regret later on.

I had asked a few persons, why was our pre-marriage course very casual. They told me it used to be very keen that many of the participants felt that marriage was too big to handle that they decided not to get married. They should feel that way! It was half of Islam. Of course it was big and the responsibility in it was enormous but it should be the role of the speakers to make these future 'husbands' and 'wives' to perceive marriage in the right perspective, as an ibadah. Their service to Allah. How?

Islam has forbidden adultery, zina and allowed marriage. Islam has never denied the need for sexual satisfaction in a person. Zina is one of the major sins because it does not only involve a man and a woman, it involves two families, the families' pride and honour, it involves feelings, emotions, desires satisfaction, bodily pleasures, love and a new generation honour (if a baby is concieved from the zina). Zina is a major sins because it involes so many of Allah's creation!

Now in marriage, nikah a person gets all that he/she can get from a zina but with honour and dignity. Of course a marriage in Islam is built with concious and full responsibility. A marriage will tie two families that were strangers into a bigger one, when a man sleeps with his wife and she satisfies his needs it is ibadah and in doing so they are 'creating' a new person that will carry forth the oath la ilaha illallah. They are 'creating' another soul that will live and serve Allah loyally as a servant and His vicegerant. Thus even in the sexual relationship between a man and his wife, it will be conducted in full morality and not merely animal like to satisfy the burning desires.

The responsibility of a man in educating his wife to obey Allah and to watch her that she never goes against Allah, bringing home food and money that are clean and pure, sheltering his family not just from physical nuisance but also the spriritual surely are not easy. In doing all the above, he is practicing his religion, he is completing half of Islam and if he follow suit all the dos and don'ts outlined by Allah then he has completed another half.

For the woman, her patience to serve her husband, to listen to him and obey him as long as he obeys Allah, to be ready to carry her husband's child in her womb, to give birth, to breastfeed because that is the baby's right and ordained by Allah are amongst the things that will complete half of her Islam and of course her fear of Allah and sincerity towards Allah will complete her religion.

There are responsibilities towards each other. To enhance the Islamic understanding and practices in the marriage, to learn from each other, to struggle together in improving the worldly life as well as the life in here-after. Those are the things that come in package with the pleasure of having a partner to sleep with.