New Beginnings
New Beginnings is pleased to present to you this monthly podcast for converts, by converts. Join our hosts along with special guests as they discuss issues converts to Islam face before, during, and after conversion. No fluff, no holding back, just honest conversation.
New Beginnings
Tips For a Successful Marriage - Part 1
Amanda and Bilal host relationship coaches Victoria Matesky and Tafazal Mohammed, founders of Tea For Two https://www.teafortwo.uk/ in this 2-part candid discussion on what makes a successful marriage and why our marriages end up in failure.
As-salamu alaykum. You're listening to the New Beginnings podcast. No fluff, no holding back. Just honest conversations about your journey as a new Muslim.
SPEAKER_01:Brought to you by New Beginnings, a platform that aims to support new Muslims on their journey through Islam from the shahada and beyond.
UNKNOWN:Music
SPEAKER_01:As-salamu alaykum and welcome back to the New Beginnings podcast. I'm your co-host Bilal Brown.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm Amanda. Thank you all for joining us. Today we're once again delving into the timeless subject of marriage as a convert to Islam. But this time we're moving past the contracts and the walimas and on to what makes an Islamic marriage really work.
SPEAKER_01:So in the past we've spoken many times about the fact that converting to Islam is not an event. It's a lifetime of challenges and the same can be said for marriage. For converts, these challenges can be more daunting. So gone are the days of dating for months or years before settling down. Now you're seemingly expected to meet someone, keep it strictly halal, and then somehow figure out if this person is the one within just a few weeks.
SPEAKER_00:Now, in previous episodes, we've discussed the fact that converts seem to have a comparatively high divorce rate. And we've emphasised the need for those who are new to Islam to take the time they need to grow roots as Muslims for themselves before marrying. But we also know that this isn't always practical or feasible. We also realise that even for those who have been Muslim all their lives, happily ever after isn't guaranteed. So how can we work towards a successful marriage?
SPEAKER_01:With us today are our guests, Victoria and Taff. They are a marriage couple who set up Tea for Two, which is a marriage coaching service to help Muslim couples achieve the strongest relationships they can with their spouses. You can check out their website. Please do check that out. I'll leave a link with the podcast as well. So welcome to the podcast, both of you. Victoria, you're a convert to Islam, while Taff is not a convert to Islam, but he's a Muslim, heritage Muslim. Can you... Introduce yourselves briefly, please.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sure. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for inviting us. And it's an honour to be here today. I'm Coach Taff and I've been working across the UK in the youth and community field for around about 30 years. So I've been kind of known up and down the country in a public way. I'm an award-winning relationship coach, so I guess what I have in terms of my experience is very relevant today. And I'm the co-founder of Tea for Two, like you said earlier, and that's with my wife, Victoria, who sat next to me. And I actually specialize in working with Muslim men, and perhaps later on we can speak about how that manifests itself. Mashallah.
SPEAKER_03:I'm Victoria Metesky. So good to be here with you both. And I've now been Muslim, alhamdulillah. This is, I think it's been eight and a half years. No, so I still feel sometimes like I'm a newborn in the faith, but other times I feel like I've been here for a long time. So I, as Taff said, I co-founded Tea for Two with him, and we are both certified relationship coaches. We have been trained by the world-renowned Gottman Institute. They're leaders and experts in relationship, and we're currently studying Islamic psychology with a local institute here in England. As you can probably tell by my voice, I'm not British-born. I'm from America. And yeah, so it's been, it's lovely to be here having this conversation today. We come with a lifetime of experience. Between us, we have eight children and eight grandchildren, alhamdulillah. Our oldest children are in their 30s. A lot of what we share and what we teach and what we share with our couples is based not just on theory, but on life experience. So we're really excited to bring that to this conversation today as well.
SPEAKER_00:Mashallah, eight children and eight grandchildren. And tabarakallah, neither of you look old enough to have grandchildren. Let me just say that right now, mashallah. So welcome, both of you. It is really great to have you both on. I'm really excited about the conversation that we're going to have today. And as we've said, today is not talking about the rules. of marriage. We're not talking about the rights, the duties, the responsibilities, and so on. That's another topic for another time. Today, we're talking to anyone who is thinking of getting married, who is actively looking to get married, and those who are already married. It's about how to be within the relationship in a way that will give it the best chance of success, inshallah. So, just to dive right in, We're just going to have, like I said, a very casual conversation about it. But the first topic that we want to touch on today is compatibility. We hear a lot about this. I, myself, as a convert, have struggled with this idea. What does it mean to be compatible? What is it? What is it not? And can converts and non-converts, heritage Muslims or non-verts, Be compatible. I remember being told very early on in my journey within Islam that Islam is your compatibility. Like as long as you were both practicing Muslims, that's all you need. You don't need anything else. You know what? I'd love to hear your insights on this. What do you think it means when you say that somebody is compatible?
SPEAKER_03:Now, this is a really good question because compatibility, so many people have a different idea, like you said, Amanda, about what it is. And it's about aligning your why. And we really, of all the work we have done for so many years with so many Muslims across the world, I think we've worked with Muslims from 11 different countries, is that it comes down to really two different things. And you touched on one. And we do believe that having an aligned faith is really a great foundation for compatibility. But what is an aligned faith? And we can talk about that from our perspective on a practical sense, on a day-to-day, like how does that look in marriage? Because we can all say we're a Muslim, but we practice that very differently. And that's really important. And the second thing is, is having a compatible purpose. And it doesn't mean you're on the path to the same purpose in life. It just means that you're not, I would say, interfering.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you are opposing the person in terms of your purpose and they want to play with you in terms of their purpose as well. I'd like to say that being compatible doesn't mean that you're identical, right? Sometimes some people set out on this journey thinking that I want someone who is like me, but you're not going to marry yourself, right? You want to marry someone else. And invariably, inevitably, you're going to find someone who is totally different to you. And the idea is that how different can you actually handle, so to speak? You know, how different do you want this person? What are the things that you can accept and what are the things that you can't accept or the red flag for you as well? We always talk about that, you know, on that journey to finding the one, really knowing yourself is the the first most important thing to really get a hold on in terms of what are my likes what are my dislikes what will i accept what won't i accept and then what are those boundaries within which i can stay in and boundaries outside of which you know i can't accept anything and that's fine so you can have the same faith and still have boundaries and say actually i'm not compatible this person so sister amanda like you said you know sameness in terms of faith doesn't necessarily mean that you are compatible and will live an amazing life journey with this person next to you as a muslim
SPEAKER_03:well one of the things we can explain uh we can get into it is what is an aligned faith from a psychodynamic you know aspect when we're talking about that because it really has three things it's about understanding where you come from spiritually. And some of us have a really difficult background. It kind of comes to coming up with faith and or an absence of it completely. And also, where are you now? But most importantly, where you want to be and where you want to be isn't just Jannah or heaven. You know, we all have a very unique learning style. Some of us don't really work well with others when it comes to learning. A lot of people coming into Islam They get married and they think, oh, my spouse is going to lead me and direct me to this faith and they're going to teach me. And some people aren't great teachers and that's okay. It's about understanding that. And when we talk about compatibility, it's about saying, this is the way I learn and how I grow my faith. How does that work with you? It's really important. And we can talk more about that. And it's something we developed actually for New Beginnings was the spiritual blueprint. It's a beautiful thing that helps people understand determine what those things are. It's really, really nice. But you said something really beautiful. You know, a lot of people I've heard this so often on so many different podcasts, make a list of everything you're looking for and then go become that list. Okay. That's nice. But to be honest, I'll give you an example. I'm kind of a passionate, anxious person. I get really, you know, anxiety ridden very easily. And I knew that If I married someone that was like me, it was going to be chaos. So I was looking for someone who tended to be more patient and
SPEAKER_02:calm. I'm the
SPEAKER_03:opposite. Yeah. He keeps us grounded and I keep our dreams alive. And so we make a really good balance. So sometimes similarity isn't compatibility. And this is so important about like what Taff said, knowing yourself and what you need. So when we work with people, even talking about this, whether you're a Muslim or you're a lifelong Muslim, it doesn't matter. You have to talk about these things because there's so many beautiful variables in people, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:So it's not about the similarity or just sharing a faith because people can actually be at different levels of religiosity as well. And it seems to be an assumption in our community, like the Hadith says, you know, choose the pious woman. Not every single woman is going to be at such a level of piety anyway. Neither are you in reality. And compatibility is something that I've actually mentioned frequently in looking for a spouse without actually defining what it is. Let me get this straight. It's actually looking for the why, the shared why. How does a person go about that then?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I agree with you. It's not only the why, but it's also the how. So if I, let's just say, for example, For me, attending religious services and being in a community where I'm actively seeking my spiritual connection is essential to my growth in whatever faith I am in. And the person I marry goes, absolutely not. I feel uncomfortable. I'm an introvert. We're never going out. This is uncomfortable. I'm not going to do it. It could really stunt your spiritual growth. So when we talk about compatibility, it's, yeah, the why and the how. It's very, very important.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. That's really, really useful. Another thing we wanted to speak about is culture clashes. Sometimes there is a clash of cultures. Have you experienced this with people you've worked with and how do you navigate this challenge?
SPEAKER_02:That's a great question, Sheikh Bilal. You know, there's intraculture and interculture and they're both complex terms. So intraculture will be you're from the same culture and you have a clash and you have interculture. And you still have a clash. So you have a clash that's a common denominator. And so when we look to this a bit more deeply, I give the example of the iceberg concept of culture. So, you know, the iceberg is we just see the 10th above water. So in this respect, you know, we see the identity marker. So someone wears a certain type of clothing, may have a beard or do something that you can visibly see. But beneath the surface, nine tenths of that culture is ice. hidden. So things like your norms, the stories of your culture, the ways you even communicate. So some people are very abrasive in the way they approach you and some people are very quiet and mild. And these nuances are so important for people to understand that you may come from a different culture and it doesn't necessarily mean it's a good or a bad thing. It means that you need to be very curious in terms of what has this person's lived experience been that has brought to this point in their lives, right? And how does that fare against what I've experienced in life? As long as two people are willing to open up a very healthy dialogue, and dialogue meaning, you know, you're not talking about just the what's, but the why's, you know, why do you do this in a certain way? You know, what does that bring you? I think at that point, people are able to understand each other far better. Now, Sheikh Bilal, you probably will cover this later on, but we know that everyone can have their culture as long as it doesn't contradict the faith. So wherever your culture has, as it's called, I believe that anything that, you know, within your culture is a tradition that's healthy and doesn't contradict the faith is fine. And I think there's a misunderstanding about that. You know, sometimes people will think that the minute I embrace Islam, I have to give up everything that I've ever experienced my whole life. And I think that's so sad to even hear about, which I hope that more people really understand it from a wider perspective.
SPEAKER_03:I would say we face it all, me coming from America as a white woman, as a convert, and Taff is a British Pakistani. So we face it all. We talk about even food, gender roles, expectations when it comes to culture, even ways of expressing love is very different. You know, I come from a completely different background from TAF, 4,000 miles away. And there were moments where I really felt like we were speaking different languages, metaphorically and literally. And so that took time. But, you know, one of the things that in our work we've discovered is that it's really important to know that there are over 2 billion Muslims in the world. And although Muslims can be found in any culture, any country, the majority of them are living in Northern and Central Africa, Middle East and Southeast Asia. This is so important to know. So if you are a convert coming to this faith, the likelihood of you marrying into another culture is actually a probability. So this is very important for us to talk about because it's sort of the elephant in the room. We have to know that it's going to likely happen. If you're coming in and you're not married already, you have to assume that that's going to happen. So you have to be curious. You have to ask questions. You have to be able to understand what is negotiable here on the table. What isn't. And we always, when we work with couples, it's so important. What is the ratio? 69% of all relationship problems, whether you are a Muslim, a Christian, doesn't matter what you are, are perpetual. You're always going to deal with them. You just have to ask yourself, what 69% of the problems do I want to deal with? So if you're marrying into another culture, you have to be really aware what comes with that package. And am I okay with it? Because there's going to be some negotiations and some compromise that has to happen inevitably for you to have an amazing, amazing marriage. And I would say, you know, one failed relationship doesn't mean the whole culture is incompatible. I think it's really important to understand that, like you said, there is so much variables within culture. And when I married Taff, you know, marrying into the British Pakistani culture, it was a learning curve. We've had our time of going... We've had some TED Talks. We've had some TED Talks. And I didn't understand it. You can't understand all of it until you're in it. So you have to ask yourself, am I with someone who's got the capacity to be patient, ask questions... instead of being judgmental. That's more important than knowing all the little details of a culture and understanding it. Is this person willing to understand me?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think you made a good point about not being able to fully understand something until you're actually experiencing it yourself and avoiding being judgmental. But I just want to touch on the 69% of perpetual problems. So let's say somebody's experiencing these problems very early in the marriage and they realize you know these things are just going to continue this is time to break away from from the marriage or would you say they should try to work on that that 69 or just curious about how the person would proceed at that point knowing that some a lot of these problems they're not really gonna just disappear
SPEAKER_02:yeah so that data is from the gotman institute and john gotman talks about this you know a lot and and says the the only thing that any couple can do is manage those issues so as long as a couple are willing to understand that for every day my desk will look untidy the victorian needs to be okay with that that's a small problem that's a small problem but it's a perpetual problem but if she kind of took that to heart and thought that I was doing that deliberately, then it would be not only a perpetual problem, it would cause chaos perhaps in some cases. So the idea is to understand that perpetual problems oftentimes will not change. And that means that there has to be some negotiation and some understanding on how to manage those problems. And that's the key.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, one of the things that we tell our couples that we work with is you have to become what we call a dream detective. You have to understand what is beneath. What's at the root of this problem? Because the problem is never the problem. It's something deeper. There is usually a dream or a value or something that's being trampled on or being taken away from the person. And if you become a dream detective and you can understand your spouse, it's unbelievable the amount of empathy and ability to be compromised in a category that you had. And this is another thing you said below. This is so important is that people think, well, Maybe the grass is greener, right? Well, I'll tell you what, you're going to get married to someone else and you're going to have a new 69% of unsolvable problems. So it's just about you understanding how much can we negotiate here? And we help couples really look at what is negotiable here and what am I not able to compromise on? There are some things we just can't compromise on and there are some things we can learn to live without.
SPEAKER_02:And it's unfortunate that what happens is that oftentimes couples get to a point where they think that, I have these problems, and I can't solve these problems. And unfortunately, the worst case scenario happens, they end up divorcing, not realizing actually, if I had all the options and choices in front of me, I could make an informed decision. But oftentimes, they're making decisions without any real information, i.e., like, you know, we can actually manage some things, as long as we understand each other's perspective, then perhaps there'll be greater empathy, so we can move through this together.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's really interesting the point that you've brought up about this. It was a 68% of perpetual problems. 69. 69% of problems are perpetual problems. This is not culture specific. This is not just in an intercultural marriage. I mean, I am just thinking of couples who I know who are both the husband and the wife are white Welsh converts. And they still have this 69% of perpetual problems. They both come from, you know, the same type of background, the same type of spiritual journey even, subhanAllah. And yet, on paper, they would seem to be the most compatible, and yet they still have these problems. These are human things. And I think that we need to, you know, we need to understand this, especially as converts. What would you say to this, though? Like my personal experience, I've seen a lot of people who are converts who come into a marriage and there are differences, as there will be, because no two people are the same, but they blame the problems on the other person's culture. And very often both parties, both parts of the couple, both the husband and the wife, will lay the blame for the problem on the other person's culture being flawed. And sometimes it veers into racism, let's be honest. Sometimes it veers into, well, you know, you're from this background and so of course your people think this way. And sometimes the the non-convert part of the couple will be like, oh, well, that's because you were raised in that culture and that environment and your people are just down the pub all the time and et cetera, et cetera, right? And it can spiral out of control in a way. If things start to spiral, if the blame starts to be laid on the wrong place and we stop looking at what the actual problem is and start just sort of laying blame and sort of throwing blame out, how can we reel that in? How can we sort of recover from that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_03:Well, the first thing I would say is the moment you blame someone else for a situation you're in, you automatically give them the power to not only what they're doing to you, but also the power to fix it. That means that you're powerless. You can't fix anything. So there's a couple of things. Yes. Some of this is so true, Amanda. Like I'm not going to lie. There are, even for me as an American born white woman, there's a lot of things from my culture that I don't really resonate with. I don't feel great about. I don't like it. I don't want to see it. I don't want it on me in my life. But it is a part of where I was raised and how I grew up. And in some of these things, we have to understand that we have to be able to have a real conversation with our spouse and say what I like, what I don't like, and to say, what are you willing to leave behind or protect our marriage? This is a really big thing. I would say we're almost like a team. And If you're looking to come into marriage and just keep everything from your previous life, your culture, no matter what, even if it's hurting someone, then it's almost as if you're not really married. I would say. How do you how would you explain this? Because we've worked with a lot of couples who had this exact situation. I
SPEAKER_02:would say what's being said is something on a deeper level. So when someone is saying that I don't like this about your culture. Right. There's something that has deep down affected them. And perhaps it's something deep down within them that has been stirred. So maybe a sense of injustice is a real issue, not that your husband or wife is doing something. It's just this deep sense of your extended family don't treat you in the best way possible. That's what they're really saying. But they're saying it's your culture. Now, I think if we take away the culture and really focus on this person right in front of me, who happens to be my life partner, who I want to take to Jannah with me, inshallah, right? Then I have a different way of framing this, that I really want you to be protected and your family isn't really helping you. And I'm really concerned, how can we solve this problem? And sometimes, you know, when someone has an expectation of their spouse, and the expectation isn't met, we can oftentimes make sweeping statements. so really it's what victoria said earlier we look at the dreams the aspirations and the desires deep down what we have for our marriage what we had for our spouse and how we envision this future maybe that's being compromised right now so it's about having those deeper conversations in terms of not what's affected you but why has this really affected you And that's where dialogue is really important with an open mind, with empathy, not asking questions or saying things just to judge or to, you know, really put that person down to see it from their point of view. And I think that's the most important thing with any couple, no matter what. You could come from the same area, you know, and you could still argue. But the most important thing is the key ingredients are remaining curious. We always say always remain curious. Be willing to learn. Don't ask to judge.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and I would say the last one we always say is don't ever expect someone to be a mind reader, talking about expectations. And when you have an uncommuted expectation, that is just a dream. It's nothing more than a dream. So, and I will be honest, Amanda, maybe we'll go into this conversation, but a lot of these differences, they come down to gender roles. When we talk about cultural clashes, it's, well, the women in my culture or the men in my culture. And that's really where I would say the majority of these expectations are coming from.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so this is a topic that we wanted to touch on. Next is the gender roles and the expectations. And we see TAF posting a lot about positive masculinity. And we see some Muslim men, they've adopted these toxic behaviors. narratives following some problematic personalities and influences and currently the whole nation is uh having a discussion you might have seen the series adolescence that is the whole nation is is speaking about it but kimmy badenock hasn't been bothered to watch it apparently she's not seen it yet the whole entire country is speaking about this program so uh Can you give some insight into that? What do you mean by positive masculinity to begin with? Can masculinity be negative? Is that what you're saying? There are two sides to it. It's a
SPEAKER_02:really thought-provoking topic. And like you said, the adolescence series, we watched it in fact, has created a national debate on masculinity, positive, negative, the nuances in between and the role of a father. We have
SPEAKER_03:five sons
SPEAKER_02:between us. So it's a very important topic and we can't escape this topic. And I actually wrote on this as well. I created this handy nine-point response almost to the adolescence program in terms of how our young sons can actually look at the lens of being a young man through the prism of us being Muslims, in fact. One of the things that positive masculinity isn't It isn't someone who's controlling. And that key word I'd like to emphasize that whenever I look at men who are touting this toxicity online, they're talking about control, domination, gaining, coveting, taking, you know, the alpha in the pack that you need to take all and sundry. Otherwise, you're not a real man. And the problem with that is that I've worked, like I said earlier on, almost 30 years in the community, and I've seen many alpha men who are broken men. And I don't say that lightly. One to one, in a quiet room, when you speak to these men, for some of them, it's a facade, it's a mask, right? To mask the boy who's inside, who really had a trouble to bring in, who wasn't able to express himself, who wasn't able to find any comfort, safety, stability, especially in a role model that was male. So some of those young men who didn't have, they had fathers, but they had absent fathers, and they had surrogate fathers on the streets who really gave them everything in terms of the kudos and the positive talk, quote unquote, and the boosting of their ego to say, no, you can do anything that you want to do. I'm with you. I have your back. Whereas if we look at positive masculinity, it's about having strength. but also having humbleness. It's having this sense of I'm a protector to my family, but I'm also gracious. I'm also a soft place for my family to fall back into. Men who are emotionally available, who can have a conversation, who can really process their emotions and be able to then guide their family members, their sons, their daughters in terms of what emotional availability means. Now, if a man hasn't done that himself, how can he actually exhibit that with anyone else? How can he actually model that for someone else? So for me, positive masculinity means that someone has been able to process their thoughts, their emotions, and is someone who is grounded. Someone can relate to different situations and be able to respond in an appropriate way. And it might sound cliche, but we know the Prophet was a different person and everyone understood him in a different way according to how they were facing life, as it were. And if we look at the Prophet
UNKNOWN:,
SPEAKER_02:he was a protector, he was a stabilizer, he was a man of dignity, a man of honor, but also we look at how he dealt with many, many people in a soft, calm and compassionate way. So there's a huge balance to be attained or I'd say reclaim so we have to reclaim masculinity especially for us muslim men to understand it's okay to be emotional and it's not a sign of weakness in the right place and it's okay to be someone who stands up and says it's not acceptable but in a kind and compassionate way to be able to articulate what's really going on and it being a blueprint for especially our younger men the younger adolescent men who are really growing up and seeing, like you said, Sheikh Bilal, you know, these quote unquote role models who, to be honest with you, put on the front, but behind closed doors, they're someone else.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. And I would even say that a lot of converts that come to Islam, especially women, were raised with the Western mentality. And that is, we are to be the man. We are to do it all. We've got to work full time, be educated, raise the children, take care of the house, make the decisions, be the boss babe, as you know, people say. And that's beautiful. And it's wonderful when it works. But then when it doesn't work, we struggle to allow the man to show up in our life. And I'm not talking about the man within us. I'm talking about the real man, the husband. And so there really is this balance. And a lot of times we're helping couples recalibrate. And it's not about a woman always living in her softness and femininity and a man being that demanding, commanding protector 24-7. It's about a fluctuation and them learning how to to kind of be compatible and share that journey together. So no matter where you come from, that is a journey. But I do think in today's world, it is much more difficult and it is hard. Gender roles and expectations is probably one of the biggest difficulties when you're thinking about coming into marriage, especially walking into this faith.
SPEAKER_02:And the most important thing I think you touched upon there at the end is that it's going to look different for every single couple. So your unique blueprint, as it were, as a couple is going to look different to your neighbor next door. So it's about the couple saying, okay, what do we expect from each other? And what are our roles? And you talk about these things openly and work something out that works for you too, not necessarily for the Johnsies. It works out for you. And that's the most important thing. There's nothing that's like a blueprint that says it must look like this because everyone's situation invariably is going to be different.
SPEAKER_03:I remember when we first got married and we, I met Taf's family. They're all Pakistani, beautiful family, mashallah, I love them. And I remember the first big dinner we had and all the girls cleaned everything up, subhanAllah. And I was sitting there and they wouldn't let me touch a thing because I'm considered an elder, auntie, I'm an auntie. Auntie, you sit, don't touch a thing. And I was so shocked and surprised because where I come from in America, it's like, if you're the host, you don't let any guests touch a thing. And I had to be, and they were in our home at the time they were in our home. And so it was really strange for me. And at first I thought, this is really strange. I don't like this. Why are the girls supposed to do it? But they really enjoyed it. They loved it. It was their expression of love and respect to me. And so it does take time, you know, to understand these nuances and some of them are actually, even though they're very different than what we experienced growing up, they're actually really beautiful. So we have to allow some of that in and be okay with it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a different love language, isn't it? One of the things, you know, that baffles me about all of these, you know, influencers that promote this narrative, the Muslim men that take this on board, that none of it is really rooted in Islam. It has no religious basis. And you reminded me actually of the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, which is the sound narration, where he says, which means just treat women kindly, you know, make sure that you treat women kindly. And the Messenger of Allah said that with the woman, the female was created from the rib, you know, meaning Eve, peace be upon her. And if the most crooked part of the rib is the top part, and if you try to straighten it, you will break it. And if you leave it, then it will stay as it is. So treat women kindly. So the message of the law is telling us that, you know, if you try to be harsh with women, and, you know, there's a huge responsibility upon men here as well. If you try to be harsh with women, if you try to be domineering, it's not going to work. So you need to really be gentle. with with women but um we don't you know refer to these religious texts in any of that discourse unfortunately
SPEAKER_03:no there's this beautiful verse in the quran we some of us have heard so many times it's that they are garments for you and you are garments for them and so that verse it reminds us that marriage is mutual it's respect protection and comfort not just for the wife, but also for the husband. So imagine that it's for both. And it's not about a hierarchy or ego. It's so important to remember that our faith has this beautiful blueprint of what love looks like and marriage looks like. And oftentimes, you know, it takes people a while when they come into Islam from our perspective of separating what the faith is and who Muslims are. You know, we're human and everyone's perfect.
SPEAKER_02:And one of the things that you alluded to, Victoria, was that the difference between demanding respect and commanding respect. And I think this is where the toxic males online really hit it hard. They tried to demand respect. Commanding respect requires so much work, so much inner work, so much self-reflection, so much curtailing back your ego. And for me, it's the hardest work to be able to really get to a point where you're really challenging yourself, right? To get to a point where you can emulate a character which is really attractive. People are gravitating towards who you are now. And because they love who you are and they love what you do, they say, oh, I want a piece of that. I want to be like this person because of what they have. And I think probably the biggest takeaway for me is that when we as men as believing men were able to really be these models who've done the work on ourselves and there's a statement i heard many years ago that really resonated with me i think it's relevant that the best form of dawah, the best form of calling someone to Islam is with the least words. And that really hit me hard because it's all about your character. People will judge you by what you do, not what you say. And I think it's so, so poignant to be able to focus on your character.
SPEAKER_00:The point about the difference between demanding respect and commanding respect, I think is incredibly important. And I would have to say that in my experience, All my long years on this earth, all of the men who I've met who command respect are not men who are seeking to get respect from others. They're just being humble, being themselves, being the best people they can be, fearing Allah, and that leads people to respect them. But the ones who are demanding respect, who are seeking it from others. They're seeking validation, basically, whether they deserve that respect or not is a whole other matter. And I think that's really what it comes down to. And I'm glad that you've brought that in. And I think to be utterly fair, it goes for women too, you know, and I think there's a lot of us as women who, because as women, we do have a vulnerability in society. And this is true in non-Muslim society and in Muslim society, we have a vulnerability, we don't have the same type of influence necessarily as men have. And this is a problem. with what feminism has taught us as Western women. And, you know, Victoria, I'm the same as you. I'm a North American white woman here coming into Islam and having been taught that I can have it all and do it all and be it all. And then I hit my 30s and I'm exhausted because I've been trying to do it all and be it all and have it all, you know. And that isn't how humans are created, let alone women, you know. We should be there to help each other and support each other. But I think having that humility, you know, women, when we're coming... out of that way of thinking but we're still looking for well okay it's the man's job to do this it's the man's job to pay for everything it's the man's job to support me it's the man's job to and I shouldn't have to do anything and his money is my money and my money is my money and this kind of mentality that's sort of starting to permeate the communities these days and I think too we need to step back and have a little bit of humility about this as well and think you know okay is is this really how it is like if I'm if I'm getting married yes okay yes my husband is responsible for certain things but what if he falls on hard times. Shouldn't I step up? Shouldn't I, if I have the capacity to, shouldn't I do something to help? And, you know, and so on. I see a lot of women online, for better or for worse, I don't know why I've joined these things, but I'm a member of a few Facebook groups for sisters who are looking for marriage and they're helping each other, supporting each other, advising each other. And some of them, they can be really derogatory towards men who are just honestly trying. Do you know what I mean? And men who are like, you know, okay, I'm still studying and I can't pay 100% of the bills right now and maybe I will be able to in five years, but for now I can do, can we do 75-25 or not even 50-50 kind of thing. And the women are so derogatory about it, calling them princesses and, you know, oh, he just wants a free ride kind of thing. And I think as women, we have to look at the bigger picture as well and think about, okay, in terms of the gender roles as Muslims, how should we be? And who are our examples? Are influencers online our examples, or are the mothers of the believers our examples, and how are they, subhanAllah? When we talk about alpha males, you know, Sheikh Bilal, subhanAllah, you said that none of that ideology is rooted in Islamic teachings, and yet they will co-opt Islamic teachings. They will take whatever verses and hadith they can find to back up what they're saying, and women will do the same. And yet, subhanAllah, if you want to talk about properly alpha men, who was the ultimate male? was the Prophet ﷺ, and yet he wasn't according to what the modern alpha male would be defined as, subhanAllah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's sad how polarised the whole discourse has been,
SPEAKER_00:you
SPEAKER_01:know, especially on social media. And I've seen Muslim men and Muslim women misquoting verses of the Qur'an and misquoting hadith or just posting half of a hadith, you know, to suit their own agendas. But none of us are really going back to the scholars and back to the primary texts or looking at what the religion has to say in a holistic manner and having a discussion about that. It's just, you know, we're using this scripture to attack one another and support our agendas.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, what you said, Amanda, was really beautiful. When Tav and I were courting from 4,000 miles away from each other and we were getting to know each other, I'm not recommending this for anybody who's listening who's not married, but for me it worked. I never asked him how much money he made. I never asked to see what his car looked like, what his house looked like. I was much more interested in who he was, what mission he was on in life and whether or not we were really compatible because here's the thing, looks come and go, money can come and go. And this life is so short and you need someone by your side who is able to pivot, who's open-minded, who's able to understand you and build something with you. Even if you want to be the housewife, even if you don't want to work, that's one thing, that's fine. As long as he understands that and that works for him too and he loves that. Or maybe you want to work. And so I think it, you know, for me, it was important for me to let Taff know what was important to me and ask, are you able to provide that life and build that with me? And he had to ask me the same questions. This is the journey I'm on, Victoria. Are you able to do that with me as well? And that was really important for us because I always say, you know, I married the Volkswagen Golf. But I've got the Mercedes now. Alhamdulillah. So you never know many years later what marriage and life brings you down the road. You could marry a very poor person. And subhanAllah, God may give you so many riches in this life in other ways, whether it's monetary value, other blessings. You're right. You know, these women looking for men who, the 50,000 endowery mahar, you know, it's a little ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01:The key is go for the gulf.
SPEAKER_03:Go for the gulf. You never know.
SPEAKER_01:Golfs are good cars, actually, if we're not belittling Volkswagen cars.
SPEAKER_00:At all. I think Volkswagens are pretty good cars. Let's move on to our next topic then. And this is perhaps a bit of a sensitive topic, which is intimacy. You know, many of us who are converts, we come to Islam. as adults with adult experiences. We may have had intimate partners. We may have been married before. We may have children already. Even if we've not been married before, a lot of us come from cultures. I would say most of us come from cultures that don't stigmatize premarital physical relationships. And so we've had those experiences. And because of this, we can become it can be quite a daunting thing to think about that I'm going to get married to somebody without having tested the water, so to speak. And what if we're not compatible? What happens then? What if on our wedding night, I discover horrific things about him or her that I, you know, that I can't deal with, or it just, it doesn't work or whatever, you know, without getting too graphic. Is this really something we need to be worried about?
SPEAKER_03:This is such a good question. It's natural to worry, especially when you've had past experiences and now you're approaching intimacy through more of a faith lens. You know, when Taff and I got married, it's really important for anyone listening to this, Taff and I had been married twice before we married. This is our third marriage. And we were grandparents when we got married. So of course we come with a history and we can't erase our history. It's part of who we are. But it's really important to know that intimacy is is so much more than just physical. It's about trust, safety. It's so many different levels, intellectual connection. And it's way more important to understand the person beyond their physical history and more so on their ability moving forward. And I remember so funny when I was courting TAF because we were long distance. I had several friends who were not Muslim. And they said, Victoria, you haven't even kissed this man. You never even held his hand. What if he's a horrible kisser? And I said, you know what? Anyone can learn how to kiss. It's okay. We got this. It's not a big deal. And you have to have that mentality going into it. It's not about, we don't have a try it before you buy it policy. And I will tell you something for the first time in my life, having that beautiful waiting period period before marriage, it really made it so much more beautiful as getting us getting to know each other. And I didn't, I think coming from a Western background, we forget that there's a gift in that. There's a gift in waiting for something and working towards it. And when there's this beautiful level of commitment and sharing something, it's incredible. So I'll let you, I know you want to pop in here, Taff, say something, I guess.
SPEAKER_02:I'll have to correct you. What you said was that I'll teach him.
SPEAKER_03:I'll teach him, yeah. I'll teach him how to kiss. Let's keep it rated G.
SPEAKER_02:Intimacy, obviously, is one of those sensitive topics and it's a valid topic. question and query by people, you know, am I going to be compatible with this person? Again, what does compatibility mean? And do we reduce it just to the physical aspect or do we talk about the emotional intimacy, even the spiritual intimacy, you know, with another person, intellectual intimacy? So different levels of intimacy itself. So the advantage that we had, we didn't have physical proximity and that was our advantage, in fact. So we were able to really delve into the human being know who is this person what really drives this person why are they coming from what you said earlier victoria you know do they have a purpose do they have a long-term vision you know what they want out of life because i know this for a fact that you know when you're connected to someone on a different level emotionally intellectually spiritually i mean connect in the sense that as much as possible in a halal way without being married, meaning that you've asked enough relevant questions to know this person, that in and of itself can create such an attraction to someone, right, on a different level, as opposed to being just solely attracted to somebody because of their physicality. I'd like to shift the paradigm in terms of how we even engage in this conversation and how we even approach this, that if you've been trying that before, and in some ways it hasn't led you to desired place then let's try something different just try it just look at you know the the spiritual aspect someone said that you know we're not human beings having a spiritual experience but we're spirits having a physical experience if we start from our spirituality and we're spiritual beings man that just opens up a new door of communication with someone and they say that you know when you're connected to somebody on a spiritual level, that even engaging in the physical act can take you to a different level altogether, right? So imagine that what you thought was a ceiling is actually perhaps just the beginning. So the whole notion that, you know, you have something that's incredible may not actually be the threshold. It could be something far above and far deeper than what you envision.
SPEAKER_03:But let's talk about what you said. is the luggage we bring, the packages we bring with us from our past, okay? Your past doesn't disqualify you. Your presence, your intention, your effort, that's what matters. And it is really important. We work with a lot of people who are healing from failed relationships, whether they were married before or they just had a courtship that didn't work or even if it was a relationship, just they were dating someone. And we have to be really careful of what energy we bring into a new relationship. It's not about lying about your past experiences. It's about deciding, is this serving me well to constantly keep remembering and bringing this up? And we have to be really cautious about what we share and tell somebody because that inevitably will create an energy that's really unhealthy in any relationship. So you don't have to necessarily... go into detail about your past. And I think sometimes it's not about ignoring that it happened. We had a past, we have a past. It's just about what details do I share? What's important and relevant now here in this relationship and for me who I am today. So we don't have to relive. And the thing is, is look, as humans, we're jealous. And jealousy is really the fear of loss. And some people are more jealous than others. You gotta be really cautious. But we have to just be careful that we're not purposely making a situation worse than it could be. I would say that.
SPEAKER_00:Unfortunately, we've run out of time. So let's continue this discussion in part two, coming soon, inshallah.
SPEAKER_01:Until next time, assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
