Middle-class “Deendaar Muslim" marriages protocol with "nO-dOwRy-dEmAnDs"

Middle-class “Deendaar Muslim" marriages protocol with "nO-dOwRy-dEmAnDs":

Girl should be beautiful like a model. Height, weight, colour, features, etc... Even if the boy is the opposite!

She should be doctor or engineer. But should be a good cook too. And of-course, she should be "religious" but willing to compromise the Deen when required by in-laws or society, serve all the house members with a smile, etc! Plus she should not demand her sharaee rights too.

And since she didnt bring direct dowry, she should be willing to listen to the regular reminders and indirect taunts from the mother-in-law about it. 

Her father should be rich. Should have own house and other property in "good areas of city". Should give costly gifts from before time of engagement till death.

Give good parties before and after wedding.

High class wedding feast in a posh marriage hall is a must. Because no dowry demand you see.


All her siblings should be well educated and "well settled".

The boy's father may be having "sunnah beard and dress" and the boy also "religious" and has a beard too and are namazi. They are "against" all Dowry and biddat. They are regular in ijtemas. Listen to Dars etc. But the boy's mother or sister or aunt or grand-mother or some one in the family have some "Armaan" (desires) regarding the wedding. So they have to be "accommodated" and boy or his father cant say anything to stop any pre-wedding or post-wedding rusumaat of their ladies (without using the usual terminology to avoid being called as biddat) which will mean more expenses to the girl's father. You see this is just for the happiness of the family elders! So dont bring shariah in this issue please. Anyway we are all Deendaar people and belong to this or that jamaat or organisation too and we want to spread the Deen!

And some people also have condition that they wont hire a maid for doing house work since it’s against their “principles”! So, the doctor/engineer daughter in law should do that work too apart from her job!

So, these are different forms of indirect “halaal” dowry... Some people marry professional girls so that she can earn and give all her salary (another form of dowry) to her in-laws or husband.

Agreed that there is problem on the girl’s side too. But in Indian society, the boy's side is more responsible for this mess. They dont see the oppression they are doing directly and indirectly. This leads to a feminist type of reaction from girls when they see how their mothers and sisters and cousins and friends are suffering. The result will be a destruction of Islamic family system. The most annoying aspect of this is that people who are otherwise "good" and Deendar" do all this and still consider themselves good "Muslims". We urgently Need to create awareness about this aspect of Deen. Otherwise, such Partially "deendar" people will bring bad name to Deen itself more than the ‘non-practicing’ people. It’s a big question mark on the real social impact of all our Deeni organisations and Daiees. 

Social reality of our society is very ugly. Just some superficial Deeni symbols cannot hide it for long. It's our thinking and our desires that are rotten and unIslamic and based on jahiliyyah and kafir cultures. That’s why the entire marriage system is imbalanced, oppressive and exploitative. 

We need a complete change and radical reform in this aspect. A strong and uncompromising will to follow sunnat and shariat to the core in all aspects related to marriage, right from the beginning of selection of spouse to every aspect of our marital relations. We need our young men and women to be rebels who are willing to change themselves and the norms of the society with out caring what others in the family or society say.

Two types of Ikhtilaf (difference of opinion):

Two types of Ikhtilaf (differences of opinion):

We have to differentiate between valid differences of scholarly opinion between the recognised Madhahib which come up due to multiple possibilities in interpretations of texts & multiplicity of hadiths on the one hand and invalid misinterpretations and distortions of the Deen by either denying the clear ayat and ahadith or interpreting them in such a way that is either not possible linguistically or that goes against all principles of interpretation.

 If an individual scholar clearly denies agreed upon matters of belief or rejects Sahih Hadiths or distorts the traditional fiqh, then other scholars have a duty to warn about it since thats a serious matter and people may get misguided due to such a scholar. 

This is not sectarianism. This is preservation of the Deen and a duty of the Scholars which is crucial. Allāh’s Messenger (ﷺ) stated: “This knowledge will be carried by the trustworthy of every generation. They will expel from it the distortions of those who go to extremes, the lies of the falsifiers, and the interpretations of the ignorant.” (Authentically Reported by Ibn Qutaybah in ‘Uyūn Al-Akhbār 2/119, Al-Bayhaqī in As-Sunan Al-Kubrā 10/209, Al-Ājurrī in Ash-Sharī’ah no. 1-2, At-Tabrīzī in Mishkāt Al-Masābīh no. 248, Ibn Abdul-Barr in At-Tamhīd 1/59)

The responsibility of the common people is to stick to the general body of Ulama of their school of thought whether Shafi, Hanafi, Maliki or Hanbali and not follow those who go against the general scholarly consensus. The problem is people get impressed by good oratory skills and then defend their favourite speaker / Daiee even when they have problematic positions.

That's because, many people cannot identify problematic opinions of some famous writers or speakers. That's why such individuals have a large following of awaam. Informing about their pitfalls is a duty of those who know about the issue. It's an amanah. 

Just like when an individual doctor has a problematic treatment protocol which goes against the mainstream medical knowledge, then it's the duty of other doctors to warn the people against him. So, just because there's a controversy involving one doctor, patients cannot stop going to all doctors! Those who warn against him are not creating fitnah, rather he was the one who is creating fitnah and the others who pointed it out are only doing their duty and it points to their sincerity and well-wishing for the society. It also indicates that the system of medical practice is having effective and robust mechanism for preventing it's misuse and abuse by any erring individual. This mechanism should actually increase the credibility of the system and strengthen the trust of the people in it.

Female scholars in history vs Modern working women:

Female scholars in our history generally took the knowledge from their mahram relatives, who were scholars themselves, at home. And their numbers compared to the total number of scholars and Imams is small. 

A good example of women learning from their mahram relatives is Imam Ala' al-Din al-Samarqandi's daughter Fathima. Imam Al-Kasani was a student of the Hanafi legal scholar 'Ala' al-Din al-Samarqandi (died 1144), the author of Tuhfat al-Fuqaha'. Al-Samarqandi's daughter, Fatima, was also trained in Fiqh. Fatima al-Samarqandi was highly sought after for marriage. Fatima and her father only accepted Al-Kasani's proposal after he wrote Bada'i As-Sana'i as an explanation of Tuhfat Al-Fuqaha, and Bada'i As-Sana'i was accepted as a Bridal Gift for Fatima. This book is considered as one of the authoritative Hanafi fiqh books and is even today taught to fiqh students in madaris. 

However, such examples simply cannot be used to push the justification of modern universal female employment in factories and general offices. There have been some excellent fighters among sahabiat too that we read in history but it was not the norm for ladies to fight. Exceptions were there and will always be there and it cannot be used to generalise that for all. 

Ayesha siddiqua RA narrated 2100 ahadeeth in her 63 years of life. The Sahaba used to come and ask her from behind a curtain or used to write a letter asking the questions and she used to answer them by narrating the ahadeeth. It cannot be compared to the modern jobs that women do in any way. The female Hadith narrators (who were generally elderly in age) afterwards too used to listen to the ahadeeth from behind a curtain and give ijaza of that Hadeeth to the seekers who used to read out the Hadeeth loudly to her from behind a curtain. 

Their example simply doesn't justify modern women working in factories and general offices. 

Some people use the names of Hadith female narrators to make a claim that women used to learn and teach every where in society even in mixed gatherings. First of all we should know that every narrator of Hadith was not a scholar. Even common people used to memorize some ahadeeth and narrated to others. It doesn't make them scholars.

Islam doesnt discourage females from learning or teaching ilm but it has to be with the conditions stated by Shariah. Learning relevant basic Deeni knowledge is compulsory on every male and female. So definitely we need female scholars too to teach the women. 

Islam has a general scheme of social and family roles for males and females and it cannot be changed at our whims and to match the modern trends. The consequences of altering it will be disastrous. Let us keep all the genuine exceptions given in Shariah for women to work outside as exceptions without upsetting the divine balance.

Most of the Female Hadith transmitters were not scholars:

Most of the Female Hadith transmitters were not scholars:

"Due to the paucity of female authors in Islamic history, there has been a temptation to assume that any Muslim woman who was involved in hadith transmission was a scholar. 

Davidson thoroughly demolishes this assumption on the basis of his careful analysis of al-Sakhāwī’s (d. 902/1497) famous biographical dictionary, al-Ḍaw’ al-lāmi‘, and audition notices preserved in Damascus. 

He shows that a very small number of female transmitters were in fact scholars, such as Karīma al-Marwazi-yya (d. 463/1070) and Zaynab bt. al-Kamāl (d. 740/1339), which the vast majority of them were lay women. 

Part of his evidence for this argument is that these female transmitters were only sought out and audited when they were in their seventies and eighties, once their chains of transmission had become shorter than those of their contemporaries. Given that women who survive childbearing generally live longer than men, the Sunni quest for elevated chains of transmission presented long-lived women with an opportunity to become valued hadith transmitters. 

However, this same culture that valued elevation also did not demand that the transmitter be literate or a scholar, and this fact is reflected by Davidson’s finding that female transmitters were always passive participants in their audition sessions and rarely described as having scholarly credentials. 

In other words, a man read the hadith book out loud to the audience in the presence of the elderly female transmitter, like what we saw above in the case of al-Ḥajjār. This finding is especially devasting for a book such as Mohamad al-Nadawi’s al-Muḥaddithāt: The Women Scholars of Islam (Oxford 2007), because it means that the vast majority of women mentioned in it almost certainly were lay transmitters who lacked the basic credentials associated with Muslim scholarship." 

- Scott Lucas, Associate professor of Islamic Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA, in his review of the book Carrying on the Tradition: A Social and Intellectual History of Hadith Transmission across a Thousand Years (BOSTON: BRILL, 2020) By GARRETT A. DAVIDSON in American Journal of Islam And Society 38:3-4 

https://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/2992/2648

Why the Deeni Madrasas are the most important assests of the community and why we need to support them?

Why the Deeni Madrasas are the most important assets of the community and why we need to support them?

Madrasas are the most productive institutions today when we consider the amount the community spends on them (compared to other institutions) and their crucial services to the community. Madrasas play multiple roles. Our investment on them is almost totally from zakat which any how we have to give as a fardh. 

Apart from imparting free Islamic education to the poorest of the poor, the madrasas provide them free food and shelter for 8 to 10 years & with dignity. Many of these madrasas have orphans too making them the largest network of orphanages in the community. Madrasa system not only gives their students Taleem and academic certificates but also do their Deeni and akhlaqi tarbiyat & make them responsible & morally much better human beings. I don't know which modern schools do such fine deeni tarbiyat. All the Deeni services needed for the community are provided by the graduates of madaris whether it's the basic level like regular imamat of masajid, khateebs for Juma and Eid prayers, funeral services, teaching Quran to children, giving duroos in the masjids etc to the higher level roles like managing various community organisations, providing milli leadership and guiding the ummah in Deeni matters and the highest and most important role of preserving the knowledge of the Deen and passing it on to the future generations to safeguard the Deen till qiyamat and protecting the Deen from Tahreefaat and distortion. Basically it's the madaris and their graduates which keep the Deen alive in the community by acting as a link between the Deen and the masses.

There are different categories and levels of madaris just like in modern schools and colleges there are different levels. So definitely all madrasa graduates are not at the same level. The top madaris have produced and continue to produce some of the best Ulama whose erudition and authority is widely acclaimed in the Islamic world. Most of the milli leadership is comprised of Ulama from these madaris even today. In the matters of Deen, the modern educated people generally cannot compare with them in both ilm and taqwa. It's almost impossible for those like us who have studied under a secular educational system since childhood to be totally free from it's ill effects which have seeped in to our way of thinking, our priorities, our way of looking at the dunya, our weltanschauung & our response to various challenges of life. Those who studied the Deen in madrasa system don't have that spiritual and ideological disadvantage. Their minds and hearts are purer, more natural & aligned with Islam.

It's not an exaggeration, this is what one feels again and again when one sits with them. 

Even knowledge wise, the ilmi depth of the curriculum they teach in madrasas is way beyond what most of the modern Islamic schools teach. There is no comparison. One just needs to go through the books they teach to realise this.

Some exceptions are there everywhere. But we have to see the general picture.

Many people mock the madaris that they teach only by rote learning and that their syllabus is outdated.

We should know that the Memorisation based learning is done only at the level of Hifz of Quran and few initial Alim course subjects where one has to memorise Arabic grammar rules, Sarf and vocabulary. After that it's mostly an understanding based learning with some amount of necessary memorisation. Most of the Darse Nizami books are so voluminous that its impossible to do rote learning! 

Infact the darse nizami syllabus teaches Logic and philosophy too which teach critical, coherent and systematic thinking from a young age. Fiqh and Usool al fiqh are the pinnacle of rationality applied to Quran and Hadith for practical scenario application and problem solving. These skills are perfected at Ifta level to the maximum. 

We have a lot of misunderstandings about the madaris and their syllabi because we dont know much about it. I realised it all after studying these books with the ulama alhamdulillah. Many books I could simply not understand unless the teacher explained it repeatedly in class. All my previous extensive reading of general Islamic literature and listening to general bayans and lectures couldnt help me there. It's a totally different level. The Islamic intellectual tradition is quite strong and unique and no way less in-depth compared to modern subjects.

There is a wide gulf between the modern educated and madaris graduates. Misunderstandings are there on both sides and common Muslims tend to get biased also because of the image that western and Indian media have willfully created of the madaris and their education being outdated and useless and extremist, narrow minded etc, all Islamophobic tropes. We need to be careful in this. 

Ofcourse there is a room for improvement in the system of madaris we have today. And the Madrasa managements are very much aware of this. Many big madaris are infact teaching English, maths and computers to their students. But their major problem is they are not able to find proper teachers to teach these subjects due to low salaries the madaris can offer, apart from other difficulties. But slowly things are changing. The more we get involved with madaris and offer our help, the more they will improve and serve the community better. The increasingly complex challenges the community is facing from different directions makes it incumbent upon us to strengthen the madaris more so that they can prepare to meet the challenges better. InshaAllah.

(The author is a Medical Doctor who has completed traditional Alim course too)

Interesting dialogue between a great Sahabi and an educated woman who challenged his fatwa on women's cosmetic procedures:

Interesting dialogue between a great Sahabi and an educated woman who challenged his fatwa on women's cosmetic procedures:

Hazrat 'Abd Allah bin Mas'ud said:
Allah has cursed the woman who tattoo and the women who have themselves tattooed, the women who add false hair and the women who pluck hairs from their faces, the women who spaces between their teeth for beauty, changing what Allah has created.

When a woman of Banu Asad named Umm Ya'qub, who read the Qur'an heard it, she came to him and said: I have heard that you have cursed the women who tattoo, those have themselves tattooed, those who add false hair, those pluck hairs from their faces, and those who make spaces between their teeth, for changing what Allah has created.

He said: Why should I not curse those whom the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) had cursed and those who were mentioned in Allah's Book?

She said: I have read it from cover to cover and have not found in it.

He said: I swear by Allah, if you read it, you would have found it. He then recited: "What the Apostle has brought to you accept it, and what he has forbidden, refrain from it."

She said: I find some of these things in you wife.

He said: Enter (the house) and see.
She said: I then entered (the house) and came out.
He asked: What did you see ?
She said: I did not see (anything of that sort).
He said: Had it been so, she would not have been with us. 

-Sunan Abi Dawud 4169 (graded Sahih)

Subhan Allah, even today people argue similarly if they don't like a shariah ruling.

Speaking without knowledge:

Speaking without knowledge:

A descendent of the sahabi Abdullah bin Umar (RA) was asked about something that he did not have knowledge about, so Yahyā bin Sa’īd said to him:
‘By Allah, indeed it is a grave matter that the likes of you, a descendent of two Imāms of guidance – meaning Umar and Ibn Umar (RA)– is asked about a matter and you have no knowledge of it’. 

So he replied:

 ‘By Allah, more grave than that according to Allah, and to whoever reflects about Allah, is to speak without knowledge or to report on authority of one who is not trustworthy’.

-Sahih Muslim Hadith 34 of Muqaddimah.

Our Islamic activists and social media "Daees/scholars" should reflect on this before posting or commenting on every Islamic issue.