Shaking Up Muslim Views on Sex and Pleasure w/ Sh. Habeeb Akande

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Desire, discrepancy and incompatibility in the
bedroom.
This can be alleviated prior tomarriage in terms of
understanding what is one'ssexual expectations, because a
lot of people their expectationsabout intimacy is, I would
argue, unrealistic.
A number of brothers inparticular have this sexual
schizophrenia that they sufferfrom.

(00:21):
If they speak to or if they seea non-Muslim woman can be a
human being, they can see as ahuman being, but so as soon as
they see a muslim woman wearinga hijab, oh my god, I suffer a
lion.
I generally encourage women toask their potential spouse to
take an sti test regardless um,because it is a reality that a

(00:41):
number of people do havepremarital relations, and just
to protect themselves.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Assalamu alaikum everyone.
Welcome to another episode.
My name is Zaid and on theother mic is my wife and co-host
Hiba.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Assalamu alaikum everyone.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Today we are honored to have a very special guest,
somebody that Hiba and I haveboth been following for a very
long time, who providessomething, I would say to us
something new.
So a quick bio of him.
He is a sex educator,bestselling author and Muslim

(01:16):
erotologist.
A former student of Islamic lawat Al-Azhar University in Egypt
, habib has over 15 years ofexperience teaching the art of
halal intimacy and women'ssexual rights in Islam.
In 2020, habib made acritically acclaimed documentary
with the BBC about femalepleasure and featured his work

(01:38):
as a leading sex expert.
He's the founder of ErotologyInstitute, an online educational
platform offering courses onIslamic sexology and African
intimacy.
Habib is also a charteredaccountant by profession, so
thank you for coming on to ourpodcast.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Jazakallah khairan.
Assalamualaikum to you both.
Thank you very much forinviting me.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Waalaikumsalam.
I think we forgot to mentionyour last name.
It's Brother Habib Akande.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yes, sorry about that , Habib Akande.
Honestly, we were a bitsurprised that you even accepted
our invite, because we're likean itty-bitty, tiny little
podcast and, mashallah, you'relike a published author, a
scholar from Allah Azhar.
We were like he's probably notgoing to respond to us on
instagram, but let's just seewhat happens.
And then we messaged you werelike, oh my god, uh.

(02:28):
So thank you so much, or we'reso glad to have you well, thank
you for inviting me.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Just even sorry to interject, but what you said is
quite important that even forpeople to draw inspiration from
that, don't be shy or afraid toreach out to people.
Um, and you, when you reachedout and I looked a bit into your
background and I saw you did agreat interview with the Mad Mum
Looks and with Sheikh Ahmad aswell, so because of that, I was
more than happy to help any wayI can.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
So how has your experience been so far as a
Muslim educator slasherotologist?
What's that journey been like?

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, I would say it's been eventful.
I'm quite an optimist, so I tryand look at the good points.
So I definitely think it's beenan enjoyable journey, a
beneficial journey, but I doreceive some pushback, I do
receive some backlash, but maybebecause I'm Nigerian and we're
known to have quite a thick skinso it doesn't bother me as much

(03:27):
.
But I look at the positives andthe fact that um alhamdulillah,
you know, a number of peoplefrom around the world have
benefited from my work and I'vehelped to revive the science or
topic of erotology withinislamic framework, um which I
wanted to do, and to try andinspire others, especially um
muslim women in particular, tospeak about this topic.

(03:50):
You know, um from an islamic orgod-conscious framework,
because I think many times it'sand it as a man saying it it's
often men that are speakingabout intimacy and sex, and I
think one of the things that'squite lacking is we don't have
as many Muslim women, educatorsand experts that are known.
There are many, but many peoplearen't aware of them, so a lot
of my work is to kind of amplifytheir voices as well, as well

(04:13):
as address some many taboos thatmany people have about Islam
and intimacy in Islam orsexuality or erotology in Islam.
In Islam, a lot of Muslimshaven't really studied the deen
and a lot of their understandingof the deen, a lot of it's been
informed or misinformed bytheir cultural upbringing or
their social culturalconditioning.
So a lot of my work is trying toaddress some misconceptions and

(04:38):
help people have betterfulfilling marital relations,
which is obviously should bemutually pleasurable for both
the man and the woman alike.
And a lot of our work is, andyou mentioned in the beginning,
specializing in female pleasure,because I think that's a topic
that doesn't really get spokenabout much nowadays when, if you
actually look in our traditionmany of the early scholars, they
place more emphasis on menensuring that their wives were

(05:01):
sexually satisfied as opposed tothemselves, and drawing again
from the hadith literature whichtalks about that, but for
various reasons, many muslimsunfortunately are not aware of
that.
So, yeah, I would say my, myjourney in some has been
eventful.
Um inshallah has been net,positive um, but, that being
said, there are, you know,pushback.
There is, you know, some peoplewho don't appreciate or don't

(05:23):
like my work for various reasons, and that's fine.
I just try and focus on thepositive.
So Alhamdulillah.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
So, from your experience, what would you say
the most common misconceptionsabout sex and intimacy in the
Muslim community, and how doesthat affect relationships?

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Okay, one of the biggest misconceptions I'm
trying to debunk is the ideathat women cannot refuse their
husbands in the bedroom and theidea of consent doesn't exist in
marriage and, unfortunately, inmany muslim majority countries
the concept of marital rapedoesn't exist, which again is
extremely problematic, um andalso in it for many muslims in

(06:03):
western countries.
Many muslim Muslims have thisidea that a woman cannot refuse
intimacy and this idea ofconsent, like I said, doesn't
exist.
When I argue that consent isessential for a healthy,
fulfilling marital relationshipin Islam and it's important that
Muslims understand this, bothmen and women alike there's also
this idea that sex is just forprocreational purposes and I

(06:24):
would argue that's more from aChristian perspective that many
Muslims have adopted or certaincultures have the idea that, you
know, sex is just really forprocreational purposes or it's
just there to satisfy the manand women are there just to
serve the man VictorianChristian understanding of

(06:46):
male-female relationships thatmany Muslims adopted following
the colonization of the Muslimworld, where we look at men just
being primarily being providersand women being their primary
role just to be mothers or tocook or clean, but no one really
speaks about the intimaterelations and how that should be
mutually beneficial for boththe man and the woman alike, not
just for the man.
And unfortunately, like I said,in a number of muslim
organizations mosques, um, thereis this over emphasis on

(07:10):
telling women that there shouldbe always sexually available for
the man, but there isn't anyemphasis placed on teaching men
about the importance of consent,but understanding, um,
emotional intimacy, being a kindand considerate husband, like
the prophet muhammad peace beupon him was, and also to be
attentive in the bedroom.
So it's like an overcorrectionthat I think kind of needs to be

(07:30):
done.
And again, so they're the threemain misconceptions around sex
I've found in the Muslimcommunity, but there are many
others which we can talk about alittle bit later.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
So that ties into my next question because, just to
play devil's advocate, I feellike a lot of this understanding
comes from, maybe, amisinterpretation of the famous
hadiths sex to the man.

(08:05):
And then also there's a hadithwhere um prophet, sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam, said if Iasked a woman to do sajda to
anyone else other than theircreator, it would be to her
husband.
So there's this implication,that there's this um
subservience and obedience toher husband, despite the
circumstances.
So what would you say inresponse to that?

Speaker 1 (08:21):
yeah, what?
What I would say, first andforemost, as Muslims, if, when
we're talking about male-femalerelationships, oftentimes
Muslims will bring up thosehadiths that you've mentioned,
which are quite controversial.
A number of them are authentic,but you also have some
unreliable and weak hadiths andfabricated hadiths about how
women should kind of obey theirhusbands.
What I would say is, again islooking at what traditional

(08:44):
Muslim scholars have said aboutthose hadiths.
Some scholars don't actuallyaccept those hadiths because in
their understanding, itcontradicts the Quran.
Because if you look at theQuran and the way Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala, speaksabout male-female relationships,
it's one which is like apartnership for both the women
have rights, men have rights.
The way Allah, a partnershipfor both.
The women have rights, men haverights.
The way allah speaks aboutintimacy, allah uses a beautiful

(09:13):
um metaphor to describe men asbeing garments for their wives
and also, worse, to be garmentsfor their husbands.
So when you look at the wayallah speaks about marriage, it
should be based on mawadda,which is love, rahma, which is
mercy, and there should betranquility, sakina.
So this is something thatshould be our underpinning in
terms of how we understandmale-female relationships.
Now, when we look at the hadithtradition, one first and
foremost needs to contextualizethese hadiths and then what

(09:34):
scholars will try and do is tryto understand what is the
intended meaning, because theProphet Muhammad, sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam, in a number ofhadiths and this is quite
common in um, in arabic,especially during the time of
the prophet that he will use alot of like um hyperbolic speech
, like exaggerated speech, andnot everything should
necessarily be taken literally.
Now there's also some hadiths,and imam asyuti, jalal al-din

(09:56):
asyuti, was a scholar from the15th century.
He mentioned a number of thosehadiths about encouraging women
to ensure that their um numberof those hadiths about
encouraging women to ensure thattheir a number of those hadiths
was to encourage women toensure that their husbands were
sexually satisfied, and he alsosaid, like Imam al-Qurri said,
that it goes both ways.
So this is the idea was that inIslam, men have the right to
sexual fulfillment from theirwives and also women have the

(10:19):
right to sexual fulfillment fromtheir husbands and both should
strive to ensure that theirpartners are sexually satisfied,
with the opinion that thatobviously should be based on
love, affection, and should betranquility, which indicates
that there should obviously beconsent, so it's not as if a man
can force himself on his wifeor he shouldn't use those
hadiths to coerce his wife intointimacy, and something that, if

(10:42):
one looks at the hadithcompilation of Bukhari Adab
al-Mufrad, there's a hadithwhich a lot of people don't
really talk about, where a womanwent to Aisha may Allah be
pleased with her and asked her.
She said that you know, I'mmarried and my husband wants
intimacy, and sometimes I'm notalways in the mood and Aisha
responded and said that no, hehas a right to have intimacy
with you, but she didn't saylike the angels will curse you

(11:09):
or anything like that.
Now, this is something thateven some of my teachers have
said is that when you've got anumber of those hadiths that
have different wordings like oneof the hadiths says the angels
will curse the woman, anotherhadith says that allah will be
upset with the woman if she, ifshe, refuses.
Other hadith uses likehyperbolic speech in the sense
that if a man calls his wife forintimacy and she refuses, she
should respond, even if she's ona camel and it doesn't mean

(11:29):
literally, if she's on a camelhe should copulate with her.
Of course, that doesn't meanthat.
Likewise, there's anothernarration which says that even
if a wife is cooking, she shouldrespond.
So all of these and again, thisis something that most of us is
important to understand.
When we talk about hadith andof course I believe in hadith, I
don't I'm not quranist oranything like that one needs to
understand.
There's some hadiths.
Even those hadiths areauthentic.

(11:51):
They've been narrated word forword what the prophet peace be
upon him said.
And there's also some hadithsare authentic that were narrated
by its meaning.
So someone might have heardwhat the prophet said, or or
companion, and they've narratedwhat they think.
What was the intended meaning,and that's why you have
different um wordings and that'swhy it could be a case of the
actual wording was actually whatthe prophet peace be upon him

(12:12):
said.
And the most important thing,ultimately, is what is the
understanding?
And the whole idea, like, asyou see, like I mentioned he
said is that the intendedmeaning of those hadiths is to
encourage women to ensure thatthey comply with their husband's
requests.
Again, it doesn't mean that ifa woman is not in the mood,
she's exhausted, that he canforce himself on her.
In no situation at all should aman force himself on his wife,

(12:35):
and I think it's important that,as Muslims, we should be very
clear with that, because evenwhen I was studying and I read
those hadiths, how I understoodthem was that it's to encourage
women to ensure that theyfulfill their husband's requests
, but it doesn't mean that ifshe's not in the mood, that he
can force himself on her.
It was only like maybe likewhen I came back from the UK and
speaking to some people thatthat was understanding that they

(12:56):
had, and I was like, are wereading the same hadith?
But then I realized me readingit, I didn't get the
understanding, but some people,unfortunately, they did get the
understanding and, if we'regoing to be honest, even there
are some classical scholars,unfortunately, have even said
that even if a woman refusesintimacy, he can force himself
on her and take his rights.
Now, I don't believe that at all, but I'm not going to deny that

(13:18):
that's not within our tradition.
Yeah, there are great scholars,even within the Hanbali Madhhab
, who have said that, andthere's classical scholars.
So, as much as we can say, thisis a misunderstanding or
misinterpretation.
You do have someinterpretations that do say that
, but I don't agree with thatinterpretation at all and it's
important that, as Muslims, weacknowledge and be honest and

(13:41):
say that, yes, there may be some, or there are some,
misogynistic sentiments, thereare some problematic views
within our tradition and that'swhy you do find some people who
have these beliefs, becausethat's what they've studied and
that's why one of my teachers hesaid that when we're studying
the Sharia and Fiqh, of coursewe have reverence and we respect
our scholars, but we have tounderstand that there are a

(14:02):
number of opinions and not everyopinion is valid and not every
opinion you need to necessarilytake, and especially for those
of us in the in the westerncountries.
Anyway, in america, uk andcanada, marriage rape is illegal
anyway.
So even if someone thinks thatis permissible in islam, it's,
it's illegal and therefore it'salso prohibited as well.

(14:22):
So it's important, thatimportant that Muslims have that
understanding because, forwhatever reason, I've noticed
that a number of imams orshaykhs they don't want to
categorically say this isun-Islamic, they don't want to
categorically say this is haram.
They don't want tocategorically say that as a man,
you shouldn't force yourselfupon your wife.
I think we should be very clearwith that.

(14:42):
The same way, we're verycategoric in the sense of saying
that what was practiced in thepast might have been socially
acceptable, like maybe marryinga woman that's 15, 14.
That might have been acceptable.
We're not saying anything aboutthat now.
That's completely unacceptableand I just think that, as
muslims, we have to be veryclear with this issue because,
especially with those hadiths,oftentimes it's weaponized by

(15:04):
muslim men, by preachers, byimams as well, unfortunately,
and women have this idea thatwhen they go into the bedroom or
when they get married, they'vegot no rights that they can't
even refuse.
And this is, you know, this isthis is one of the biggest
injustice I think we've done tothe religion that people feel
that when you get married, youcan't even, you're not even safe
in your own home and even safewith the person who should be

(15:25):
your garment, who should be yourplace of comfort, you know.
So that's why I think, asMuslims, we have to be very
strong on this and not wait fora lot of Muslims to lead this
charge and then we say, oh yeah,islam has been saying that.
All of a sudden, how manyMuslims do you find outwardly
speak about the importance ofconsent, outwardly speak about

(15:45):
the importance of consent whenspeaking about hadith?
One thing that, as Muslims, weneed to understand is that
there's a hadith which, again,is a report of something that a
Prophet, peace be upon him, said, did or approved of, and then
there's a sunnah, which is thenormative practice of the
Prophet Muhammad, peace be uponhim.
And sometimes people use thetwo terms interchangeably when,
according to most scholars,especially early scholars,
they're not the same.
And the reason why it'simportant to understand that is
because you can have a hadith,which is a piece of data, but

(16:07):
that doesn't necessarily givethe full picture.
You need to understand thesunnah and this is something
that many of the, even likeAisha may Allah be pleased with
her that sometimes some of themale companions will narrate a
hadith and because obviously sheknows the sunnah of the Prophet
peace be upon him that shelived with the Prophet over 10
years.
She sometimes wouldn't acceptthe hadith because it
contradicted what was theestablished sunnah.

(16:28):
So there's a couple of hadithsthat Abu Hurairah reported in
relation to, like um women thatwhen a man, if a man, is praying
and a woman walks past him,that the prayer is nullified.
She didn't accept that hadith.
She said either you'vemisunderstood the hadith, um, or
you've that you heard that fromsomeone, someone else.
So that's an example of her notaccepting the hadith.
There's another hadith whereabu hurayrah and some other

(16:49):
scholars compared women to likedogs, and she, again, she didn't
accept the hadith.
And these are hadiths that abuhurayrah reported.
And again, this is not to castany aspersion against abu
hurayrah, may allah be pleasedwith him.
These are hadiths that arereported in in bukhari, which is
an authentic compilation ofhadiths.
Now, aisha's response is not inBukhari.
So if you're reading thathadith without context, you will
think, oh, if a woman walks infront of a man's while he's

(17:12):
praying, the prayer is nullified, not realizing.
There's another hadith thatAisha responds, which is
reported in Ibn Hibban, whereshe mentions that Abu Hurairah
understood the hadithincorrectly, or that's not the
case.
And then she gives herevidences that sometimes the
Prophet peace be upon him willbe praying and she will be lying
in bed in front of him andsometimes, maybe if her leg was
in the way, she would just usherand move her leg.

(17:34):
So this is an example thatsometimes, when you take a
hadith in isolation, withoutunderstanding the sunnah, the
full context, you might thinkthat what the hadith says is
actually different, what theactual sunnah is.
And again, when we're talkingabout male-female relations, um
intimacy, the hadith ofal-juwainiyah, which a lot of
people don't talk about hadith,as reported in bukhari, where a

(17:55):
newly married woman married theprophet muhammad, peace be upon
him, and when he entered uponthe marital home and he wanted
to have relations with her, shedeclined.
And then he saw that for everyreason she wasn't interested.
So he wanted to console her.
Then she said some words inthis in the sense of I seek
refuge, in allah, from you.
And then the prophet detectedthat, okay, she doesn't want to
stay married or be married tohim.
For every reason.

(18:15):
He didn't curse her, he didn'tsay the angels will curse you if
you don't accept my um request.
He, he understood she didn'twant to stay married and then he
let her go back to her familyand he even gave, he told her
companion to give her two gifts,two pieces of linen, as like a
gift for her and her family.
Now, this is an example thatwhen you look at the life of the
Prophet peace be upon him henever once hit, coerced, abused

(18:40):
or forced himself upon any woman.
Now, for whatever reason, a lotof Muslims, they don't really
teach this side of the sunnah.
They only speak about thoseisolated hadiths which, yes,
encourage men I mean encouragewomen to comply with the
husband's request for intimacy.
But they also don't talk aboutthe other hadiths where the
Prophet peace be upon him istelling men to not fall upon
your wives like animals, like,do not be inconsiderate in the

(19:00):
bedroom, in the bedroom.
They don't talk about thehadith where the prophet was
speaking to Jabir, a newlymarried man, and said don't
enter your house in the night,give your wife some time so she
can groom herself, that she canbe ready for you.
They don't talk about thehadiths that talk about, before
you're intimate, send messengersof sweet words and kisses again
, the importance of foreplay,and this is all for the woman's
benefit, it's not really for theman.

(19:20):
So again, when we're talkingabout or speaking about these
hadiths, so you have somehadiths that you could say are
directed towards women, aboutensuring that they, to the best
of their ability, comply withtheir husband's request, but
also hadiths to men, tellingthem that they should be
attentive, considerate to thepsychological, emotional and
physical needs of their wives.
Now, again, I think many of usspeaking us of course I'm a

(19:43):
muslim we have done somewhat ofa disservice, because that side
of the sunnah not a lot ofpeople, not a lot of people know
.
So when we think about what itmeans to be a husband, what it
means to be a romantic partner,what it means to be a loving and
attentive spouse, we oftenthink about Hollywood or
Bollywood or Nollywood.
We don't think about theMessenger of Allah, the world
argued, was the most romanticman to ever walk, the messenger
of allah, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, who, I'd argue, was the

(20:03):
most romantic man to ever walkthe face of this earth.
This was a man who was and youhave to understand the time that
he was living in a very, a lotof machismo, a lot of misogyny.
This was someone who spoke outin defense of women.
This was a man who, when womenwent to complain that they were
being abused by their husbands,he was speaking out against the
men.
This was a man who who was,again, he was well informed

(20:24):
until what was going on in hiscommunity, but he's also
speaking out in defense of women.
Now, unfortunately, forwhatever reason, I don't think
we see that as much in ourcommunities and that's why a lot
of women they go into marriagesor they're fearful of marriages
because they're thinking I'mgoing to marry, you know, like a
pharaoh, and this is going tobe justified in the name of
Islam, and I've even heard wherepeople have used the story of

(20:46):
Asya, the wife of Firaun, to saythat if you're being abused in
your marriage, you should sufferin silence, like Asya, because
Allah will reward you.
And I'm like where are yougetting this from?

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
So he's assuming he's a Pharaoh.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, they said that your role model is Asya, the
wife of Fir'aun, and the wayAsya in the Quran, in Surah
Tahrim, the 66th chapter.
How she was patient.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Some imams have said that women should also be
patient, and this is why a lotof problems imams.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, so even when we talk about sexual violence
against women and girls, a lotof men are not cognizant of that
.
This is actually prevalent inmany Muslim communities and this
is a problem.
So and again, it might bebecause, as men, generally we
speak amongst men, so we knowabout male issues, and then
women again, of course, theyspeak amongst women to know
about women issues, because wedon't hear the other side of the
story.

(21:40):
So a lot of men if you speak toa lot of men, what are they
worried about story.
So a lot of men if you speak toa lot of men, what are they
worried about?
And that's why a lot of men areattracted to red pill.
They're worried about gettingmarried and if she divorces me,
she's going to take half of mymoney, not allow me to see my
kids, because they've heardhorror stories.
But then you.
But they don't hear about theabuse not only the sexual abuse,
the financial abuse, emotionalabuse that many women have been
subjected to by people who areknowledgeable as well, and that

(22:02):
people have used the deen tooppress women.
So this is something that whenyou actually read and study the
tradition and study the son ofthe prophet, muhammad, peace
upon you.
Don't find that, but you dofind some interpretations that
have crept in and some of themthey've been influenced by
ancient greek misogyny,judo-christian misogyny as well.
As there are a number ofunreliable and fabricated

(22:25):
hadiths that many Muslimpreachers will still narrate,
like this whole idea that thethrone of Allah will shake when
there's a divorce.
The hadith is not authentic butyou still hear people talking
about it, the most hated ofhalal things inside of Allah's
divorce.
The hadith is not authentic,it's weak.
Some scholars will still sayit's acceptable to narrate
because they believe the meaningis sound.
That hadith that um, when a ifa woman were to leave the

(22:46):
husband's house without the?
Um husband's permission, thatallah and angels will curse her
until she returns and thehusband is pleased with her.
That hadith is fabricated, butI've still heard muslim preach
and teach that hadith.
So again, this is a problem isthat when you?
So that's why a number ofscholars, um, especially some
Hanafi scholars I studied withthey're all quite sceptical
about some of the hadiths.

(23:09):
He described them as liketension reports.
He didn't say they'reoutrightly misogynistic, but
some problematic hadiths,because some of those hadiths,
even their apparent meaning,gave this impression that women
have no rights or are inferiorto men, and also some hadiths
that they might be interpretedincorrectly.
So because of that, a number ofscholars that were refrained

(23:30):
from citing those hadiths, likea number of erotologists, they
wouldn't cite a lot of thosehadiths in their manuals,
because a lot of those bookswere encouraging men to be
better husbands, better loversto their spouses.
Now, if you want to teach mento be good husbands, good lovers
, attentive and companions totheir spouses, sometimes if you
were to give a hadith that theymight not understand the meaning
, it's better not to narrate it.
And this is not anything new.
Some people might say oh,you're hiding knowledge.
It's not a case of hidingknowledge.

(23:51):
You have to speak to peopleaccording to their intellect.
And Imam Malik as well.
He was known that he didn'tnarrate every hadith that he
heard because there were anumber of hadiths that were
problematic.
So that's why he would say Ijust won't narrate it.
I'm not going to say it'scompletely wrong.
It might have been said, but Idon't know understand the
context, but because apparentmeaning can be problematic, I
would prefer not to narrate thehadith now because of the

(24:13):
democratization of knowledge andwe've got internet, so a lot of
these hadiths are available.
This is why it's causing a bigfitment, because people say, oh,
this is in bukhari, this is inmuslim.
So someone is hearing this andof course we don't want to
reject hadith.
And people will say are yourejecting something?
The Prophet peace be upon himsaid this like no, I'm not
rejecting anything.
The Prophet peace be upon himsaid or did I'm rejecting that

(24:34):
understanding or that, meaningthat I don't think it's in line
with what the Quran and theProphet peace be upon him
brought.
So this is just having a verynuanced understanding, and one
doesn't necessarily need to havestudied for many years.
But just if something doesn'tsound right, I'm not just to
think, okay, let me just putthat on the side until I get a
better understanding.
I just think that as muslims,we need to encourage critical

(24:56):
thinking as well, because a lotof us are professionals, a lot
of us have got a mind allah hasgiven us a mind to use, but but
for whatever reason, sometimeswe feel that when you hear
something that goes against likerationale, that this doesn't
sound right, we all of a suddenthink, okay, I have to suspend
that my intellect and think,okay, no, I'm just going to
accept it and if you again study, you hear a number of.

(25:17):
There are different opinions,like I've said, but what people
to you know tell you one opinionand say this is according to
quran and sunnah.
But the question is accordingto quran and sunnah?
According to whoseinterpretation?
Because I can give you so manyinterpretation from scholars
have said about one particularissue.
So this is why one has to bevery careful when, and
especially where, people areusing hadiths or using certain

(25:40):
verses or interpretations oropinions from scholars which
could turn people away fromislam.
And that's something that, again, especially with the male
female relations and um thewhole idea of that women can't
refuse their husbands in thebedroom, when I've just gave you
a couple of examples where,during the time of the prophet
peace upon me he didn't enforcehimself on a woman.

(26:00):
That shows that women do havethe right to say no to the
husband.
That shows that men should beattentive to their wife's needs.
And again that I just wanted tomake sure.
I say that because I don'tthink even myself I've spoken
about this topic enough and I'veum been told um that I need to
kind of address this.
For me, this was common sense,like, of course in our religion.
Our religion is a religion ofjustice.

(26:21):
Our religion is a religion ofmercy.
The prophet muhammad, peace beupon him, was sent as a mercy to
mankind.
To think that he would allow orendorse men to force himself on
their wives, it's just likecompletely inconceivable.
And if I'm completely honestwith you, like before I started
studying and taking the religionmore seriously when I was
dating and what have you thatwould never come into my mind or

(26:43):
any of my friends mind thisidea you could force yourself on
your wife.
When I started to become a bitmore religious and study, I'm
hearing brothers saying that,yeah, islamically you're allowed
to do that, and I'm like itdidn't sit well, but because at
the time I hadn't studied, I wasjust thinking.
Even in Jahiliyyah, so to speak, no one even thought that that
was even allowed or acceptable.
But now I'm amongst people whoare religious and knowledgeable

(27:06):
and they're trying to justifythat islamically this is allowed
because this scholar said thisand that scholar and again
sometimes and there's abeautiful hadith that I always
like to remind myself and otherswith is the prophet, peace be
upon him, said consult yourheart, even if everyone has
given you a fatwa right?
So if you want to know what isright, if you know what is good,
a lot of times you can callyourself your heart.
You don't always have to.

(27:26):
Oh, but this scholar said this.
This scholar said that it'slike, if it doesn't sound right,
if it doesn't fit right withinyour, within your soul, that's
probably not.
That's probably not correct,and our dean is a dean of fitra
and that's something that Ithink, as muslims, sometimes we
lose sight of that, because whenwe talk about marriage, it's
about rights andresponsibilities.
This is my rights we don't lookat marriage as a relationship.

(27:47):
The same way you've gotfriendships, like non-romantic
relationship, like yourfriendship, you don't look about
, think about thoserelationships as my rights, that
if my friend doesn't respond tomy salam within three days,
that's haram and I'm good, youdon't think about a lot of that.
But there's a hadith that saidyou can't go more than three
days without responding salam toyour brother and things like
that, or your sister.

(28:07):
But when it comes to male,female relationships, I think
because many of us haven't hador maybe seen healthy
relationships, it's verytransactional.
So the man views as as long asI'm provided financially, you
have to provide for me sexually.
And and if you study, fit byitself without ethics, you can
come to that understanding.

(28:28):
If I'm honest with you, becausethe way some of our folk have
described marriage again,they're speaking from a legal
perspective.
So they're speaking as lawyers,they're speaking as solicitors.
So the way marriage is definedas in a man gives a woman a
mahar in exchange for sexualaccess, while also he provides
financial maintenance.
So this idea is verytransactional, but that's from a

(28:49):
purely legal perspective.
Now, if you look at howmarriage is described in the
Quran, which I alluded toearlier, it's based on love,
it's based on mercy, it's basedon tranquility a totally
different paradigm.
If we look at how marriage wasunderstood during the time of
the Prophet, monks andcompanions, they didn't have
this legalistic mindset thatmany of us, I think, suffer from
nowadays, where, as one of myfriends, he described it that a

(29:11):
lot of Muslims in the West werestruggling Our understanding of
Islam is Islam by technicalitiesas opposed to Islam by
principles.
So that's why you will find alot of these issues, that these
hadiths and these opinions thatpeople will take, or maybe in
isolation, and think that thisis what is islamic.
And uh, sorry, I think I went ona bit too much, but I just

(29:31):
think this should underpin ourunderstanding of like what islam
is, because it's a livedreligion.
It's not just about rules andregulations without any morals
and ethics.
And, um, I was listening to apodcast recently and the brother
said they're talking aboutpolygamy and second marriages
and things like that.
And the brother said oh, islam.
He said, islamically, I do notneed to seek my first wife's

(29:53):
permission to take a second wife.
Then the other brotherinterjected and said no, it's.
Although islamically that'sokay, ethically I wouldn't do
that and even that statement Iwas like that sounds so
problematic because it's as if,islamically, I could do
something which is wrong, butethically, because I'm moral and
I'm ethic, I wouldn't do that.
So it's like ethics is aboveislam.
I was like no, no, no, no.

(30:14):
Your understanding of islam iscompletely, completely different
.
If the most moral and ethicalthing to do is one thing, that's
what is islamic.
But because our understandingof what is islam Islamic is
based on legalistic fit byitself.
That's why they'll take what ispermissible in a legalistic
percent.
That is what is Islamic.
And, again, that's why we needto broaden our understanding of
what Islam is, what the Shariais.

(30:36):
That is a code that governsethics and your legal rulings.
It's not just a case of yourlegality, and that's something
that, unfortunately, a number ofmuslims we get stuck in the
legalities of okay, this scholarsaid this, this fatwa says such
and such.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Therefore it's islamic and it's allowed when,
even though you know inherentlyit's wrong, you still think
you've got license or permissionto do something which totally
contradicts the spirit of thelaw you touched on so many
things, so many things that wewant to dive in honestly, like
just this one topic you'retalking about, like we can
dedicate an entire episode andit just reminds me of a

(31:14):
conversation Zaid and I werehaving, was it yesterday or the
day before, about, like, howsome scholars they shy away,
whether intentionally orunintentionally, from important
topics that, like, touch thelives of muslims today and
instead focus on topics thathave been mainstream over

(31:36):
mainstream, whether it's likewiping on the socks or no, or
whatever.
Yeah and or nawaqad al wudu orwhatever, and it is safe, yeah,
yeah.
And another thing you touchedupon is how some people they
might read a few books, listento a few lectures and think that
now they are a scholar andstart giving fatwa left and

(31:57):
right.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
If you're overwhelmed and burdened and just don't
know where to seek help, let ushelp you.
We can be your personalmatchmakers.
Visit us at halalmatchca andbook a free call with us.
How, as a lay person, can weunderstand those hadiths that
you mentioned, given that theyare authentic, like the one you

(32:21):
just mentioned about a woman asdogs or something along those
lines, and you mentioned that itis in Bukhari, so we can't just
overlook it.
But so how do we process thatas a layperson?

Speaker 1 (32:32):
sorry, just for clarification.
Hadim doesn't say women aredogs sorry those few pieces I
couldn't remember no, but it'sgood you said that because that
was something as soon as Aishamay or may not be pleased to
have heard that she was likeyou're comparing us to like dogs
, because straight.
No, but it's good you said thatbecause that was something.
As soon as Aisha may Allah bepleased with her heard that, she
was like you're comparing us todogs, because straight away she
was like that doesn't soundright Now, even coming to your
question, which is a veryimportant question as a

(32:54):
layperson, someone who's anon-specialist, and even what
you said, and this is somethingthat, and that's why forgive me
if I kind of went on a bit of arant, but to try and explain
that because a hadith is inBukhari, because a hadith is in
Muslim, because a hadith isauthentic, the apparent meaning
doesn't necessarily mean thatthat is according to the sunnah.
So I'm saying not that I'mrejecting a hadith, but the

(33:16):
apparent meaning doesn'tnecessarily, because you need to
understand the context in whichit was said.
So a number of hadiths that Imentioned in Bukhari, there's a
hadith, for example, acontroversial hadith that says,
if it wasn't for the children ofIsrael, meat would never go off
, and this is an authentichadith.

(33:37):
And if it wasn't for Hawa, Eve,the wife of Adam, no woman would
betray her husband, and this isa very problematic hadith.
And it's given an indication asif Hashim-Allah, that Eve
betrayed Adam, and this is again, this is from the Judah
Christian tradition.
So you even have hadiths thateven some scholars will question
is that actually from theProphet peace be upon him or is

(33:59):
that from?
Because you have some hadithsthat from some scholars who, or
some muslims who converted toislam and then some of the
companions even narrated fromthem and that's known to this.
I'm not saying anything that'scontroversial, but my point is
that yeah when you're taking ahadith or reading a hadith or
you're hearing something fromthe minbar, if it sounds a bit
off, it doesn't necessarily meanyou'd have to accept it or take

(34:20):
it.
So something like iscontroversial.
Like the age of aisha may allahbe pleased with her, whatever
ages allah knows best.
I know the reports in bukharimuslim.
I personally don't personallybelieve that she was six or nine
and I've got reasons for that.
But my point is that justbecause hadith is in bukhari,
bukhari is not quran.
Maybe you need to understandthat bukhari is not quran.

(34:40):
The compilation of hadith inbukhari is not equivalent to the
Quran.
And if you study even like, forexample, imam Abu Hanifa, right
, he didn't accept the hadith ofstoning for adulterers and a
lot of Muslims don't know that.
So a lot of Muslims will say,oh, that's Islamic.
The other three schools acceptit.

(35:01):
He didn't accept it.
And when people used to go tohim and say you, are you
Rejecting hadiths?
Are you rejecting Some of theproper pieces Of what I'm said?
He said I'm not rejecting Someof the proper pieces Of what I'm
said, I'm rejecting what peoplehave said.
That he said I don't believe.
He said it's a big difference.
So it's a big difference.
Muslims, we need to understandthat there are different

(35:22):
approaches, even amongst thefour schools, when we're talking
about asulul fiqh, when they'relooking at hadith.
So, because a hadith isauthentic, if you look at the
Hanafi position, especiallyearly Hanafi scholars, every
hadith, even if it's authentic,they will see whether it's
aligned with the Quran.
If it's not aligned with theQuran, they won't take the
hadith.
So when you say a hadith isauthentic, basically what you're
saying, according according tohadith scholars is that it

(35:45):
fulfills the conditions of beingconnected.
The people are trustworthy X, yand Z.
But then there's also anapproach by the fuqaha, which is
a Muslim jurist.
They want to know that the textof the hadith.
Is it aligned with the Quran?
If it's not, then they mightsay it's abrogated, they might
say it's a specific person.
So again, I'm just saying, asmuslims and this is something

(36:09):
that, as a laborer, I think wecan all understand you don't
necessarily, like I said, needto study for a number of years,
but I'm just saying, if you'rehearing something and it doesn't
sound right, just leave it.
I'm not saying that reject thehadith or go on the spree and
say I'm, I reject, no, I'm notquran.
You and I.
I accept hadiths, but you haveto understand that there are a
number of hadiths that forhundreds of years many scholars
have found some hadiths to beproblematic.
So that's why some scholarswill try and reconcile as much

(36:32):
as possible, or they will leaveit, or they will say that might
be for a specific context andthis, this and the other, but
the hadiths about, again,relation to women, because these
have real-life implications andthis is maybe something I
wanted to touch on.
I was saying, even when you'respeaking to a potential spouse,
what is their understanding ofthat hadith?

(36:53):
Because there are some men whodon't take that, even the hadith
.
They don't take the hadith.
As that's my license, I canforce myself on my wife, right,
there's some men that willlisten to hadith and say, okay,
I know the prophet peace be uponhim said or may have said it,
but I don't understand themeaning, so I'm just going to
leave it like that and that'sall going to impact how they
view women.
So that's why it's not thehadith in question, that's the
issue is how it's beeninterpreted or, I would argue,

(37:15):
misinterpreted by a number ofmuslims.
Because that's one of the cruxof the matter, because you're
not going to be able to.
These are issues that have beengoing on for the last 1200
years.
We're not going to resolve itnow, but everyone's going to
have the same understanding.
But it's important that whoeveryou inshallah marry, what are
their understandings of some ofthese hadiths?
Because, like I said, if youmeet a brother especially for
the sisters who has thisunderstanding that Islam gives

(37:41):
me the right I can force myselfon, or my wife, or islam gives
me the right that you cannotwork, you cannot do this, you
cannot do that, and that's hisopinion.
That's fine.
But if he believes that andit's islamic right, you want to
know that in the beginning, andthis is just as important as as
anything else.
So that's why, for me, it's notthe hadiths in question which
is is the issue is how somepeople understand them and also
how they would like to implementthose hadiths in their lives.

(38:01):
Because some brothers, evenwhen people talk about like
gender roles this is the man'srole, this is the woman's role.
It's not clear, kind of quranand sunnah, when people say this
is yes, the man is supposed tobe provided.
That's clear.
But in terms of, is a woman'srole.
She has to cook and clean, buttell me where that says, where
that's mentioned it's sad howmuch culture has dominated.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
You know the standing of islam, whether it's in the
search of a spouse, whether it'smarriage itself.
It's really sad yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
I'm glad you talked about the conversation that
should happen before marriagetakes place, which takes me to
the next question.
So we know the most commonproblems that lead to divorce
are finances and bedroomproblems.
Now what would you say, fromyour knowledge and experience,
the most common bedroom problems?
And Now, what would you say,from your knowledge and
experience, the most commonbedroom problems and how can two

(38:48):
potential spouses avoid it fromthe beginning?

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Great question.
Great question.
Yeah, I agree and, like whatyou said, I think there's
reasons for divorces financialissues and intimacy issues.
With intimacy issues, from whatI've studied and learned and
speaking to other sex educatorsand sex therapists, a lot of it
comes down to A what is known asdesire discrepancy, where one

(39:15):
partner wants intimacy more thanthe other.
So there's like a discrepancythere.
Two infidelity, like zina, um,adultery um, and then obviously
there's also incompatibility,also in the bedroom.
Now, especially with the firstand the third one, because
obviously no one's making any?
Um excuses for for infidelity.

(39:37):
That's completely haram.
And again, if a woman has beencheated on, a man's been cheated
on, you know their wealth andtheir right to to annul that
marriage.
That allah knows best.
But in terms of the first andthe third one, in terms of
desire discrepancy andincompatibility in the bedroom,
this can be alleviated prior tomarriage in terms of
understanding what is one'ssexual expectations, because a

(39:58):
lot of people their expectationsabout intimacy is, I'd argue,
unrealistic, and that's becausemany people have been
misinformed about sex andintimacy by pornography by their
friends, by even sometraditions that they might have
heard of, or by someinterpretations that what the
religion says.
So because of that, they gointo the bedroom expecting.

(40:19):
So if you're a man and you're,you know, a man you know you
maybe not had any interactionsprior to marriage and then
you're all of a sudden expectingyour wife is always going to be
readily available for you, youknow, in the bedroom, apart from
when she's menstruating.
It's just like.
It's very unrealistic, right,and you might have heard this or
expected this.
And then also there are somewomen who believe that intimacy

(40:41):
is and should be painful andthat's just normal for them and
that's also my, my, that's alsowhat they've maybe been told by
some female members in theirfamily, that that's what
intimacy is.
You're just supposed to bear it, but allah will give you reward
by giving you children, and soit's not fulfilling and
pleasurable for them.
So this is so.
This is a lot of miseducationthat people get prior marriage
and and during marriage.

(41:01):
Now again, how one can alleviatethis or resolve this is having
very honest and frank questionsprior to marriage in terms of
what is their understanding,like you mentioned earlier,
about male-female relations interms of intimacy, in terms of
in the bedroom, in terms of whatare complete red flags have
someone had?
What is their understandingabout male-female desire Because

(41:22):
, again, a lot of men, ourunderstanding about sexuality is
often based on our a maleperspective, not understanding
the female perspective aboutsexuality and how that works,
not understanding that if awoman lacks desire for whatever
reason, that's perfectly fine.
And I mentioned this in theprevious podcast, where I'll put
up a post on instagram where Imentioned 12 different reasons

(41:44):
why your wife might avoidintimacy, and I mentioned
various reasons might behormonal imbalance, might be
stress, it might be trauma, itmight be, um you know, busy
thinking about other things andall the rest of it.
And a number of brothersmessaged me privately and they
were saying the reason why Ithought my wife would be
refusing intimacy is becauseshe's cheating on me and I
thought, if she's, if she's agood Muslim woman, that she

(42:06):
would be provided for.
Of course, she would want tohave intimacy with me.
And a number of the brotherssome of them were married, some
of them wasn't married I'm like,where are you getting this from
?
Oh, but the hadith says youknow that's a good Muslim woman
who always complies with herhusband, this, and it's just
like.
Number one you're taking someof those hadiths out of context.
Number two I don't know what lala land you're living in or who

(42:29):
you're listening to, but that'sjust not.
That's not reality.
But a lot of people have theseunderstandings about what, what
it is to be a wife and a goodmuslim wife and things like that
, and and this is also veryproblematic, you know, and again
, that's why, and also ifsomeone has such expectations,
it's important that one hasthese open, honest conversations

(42:49):
prior to marriage and evenunderstanding.
Okay, what's your understandingabout consent?
There's a number of brotherswho don't think consent is a
thing.
They don't even believe that aman can force himself on his
wife.
It doesn't exist, like thiswhole idea of rape.
It's important that people havethose honest conversations
because if one is not even awareof these things, although it
doesn't want to learn, and thenand they think, oh, unless a

(43:10):
woman clearly says no and she'sjumping, fighting into me, that
means she's always in the mood,and if I'm even, if she's
petrified and she's frozen, theydon't understand about flight
or flight or, um, what's calledflight or fright.
They don't understand.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
But these concepts?

Speaker 1 (43:23):
yeah, they are, they might be having interruption
flight or flight, sorry flight,or um, what's called flight or
fright?
They don't understand.
But these concepts flight, yeahthey are.
They might be having interflight or flight sorry flight or
flight.
Thank you, they might.
They might be havingrelationships, but they might
not be aware that their spouseis not actually enjoying these
relationships.
Is there's one thing havingintimate relationships and
there's another thing in drainintimate relationships?
So this is something that, andagain, there's one thing being

(43:44):
married and there's anotherthing being um, in love.
And again, even as muslims,even what you know we talk about
, like marriage in islam or whattype of, even one, the question
I asked my brother.
I asked him he said you know, Iwant to be, you know, have x
amount of wives and this, andthat was okay.
I think it was maybe like 21 orsomething.
I was like okay.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Sounds nice.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
And he said you know, I want to have mashallah and I
want to revive the sun and havelike fearful wives.
I was like, okay, and then Isaid so, what type of marriage
do you want?
I asked him, and he said youknow, I want one of my wives to
be like inshallah may Allah bepleased with her.
Another one to be like UmmSalama.
Okay, I said so, you want amarriage like Khadija?

(44:27):
And he said yeah, I want one ofmy wives to be like Khadija.
She's going to live with me.
I said okay, great.
I said so, you want amonogamous marriage.
Then he said what do you mean?
I said you're the proper pieceof it.
He was monogamous with Khadija.
He didn't marry any other womanwhilst he's with her, for is it
over 25 years?
And he's like, yeah, but that'sdifferent.
I want one khadija, one alisha,I want um salama.

(44:50):
And I was like you can't pickand choose what you want.
And I said, even if you look at, and even as muslims, even as
muslims, when you, we reflect,so, when one reflects on the
prophet's peace peace upon him'smarriage with Khadija and how
he described what did he say,sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
that I was nourished by her love.

(45:10):
Her love gave me it's abeautiful expression in Arabic
Allah has blessed me with herlove.
This is something that whensomeone thinks about it, it's
just like if you want that typeof relationship and I think most
people are going to beobviously monogamous
relationship, I would argue themost fulfilling and the greatest

(45:31):
love story in Islam and thegreatest marriage was probably
Salah's marriage with Khadija.
There was no room for anyoneelse and you can have a very
fulfilling Marriage with that.
But some brothers will gettingoftentimes ego and things oh, we
want to be polygamous and it'sjust like okay, but we're
understanding polygamy and evenunderstanding okay, if if that's

(45:52):
your intention, that alsoshould be spoken up before
marriage as well.
Like this whole idea of I canget a second wife without
telling my first one.
This is something that.
Or if the woman wants tostipulate in the contract that
if you take a second wife, thenI'm out, or at least tell me
beforehand.
Let's have this discussion.
What do you think about maritalcounselling?
You know, having premaritalcounselling, the services that
you offer and things like that.

(46:13):
Having this open on thisconversation is very important
because this is all aboutcompatibility.
It's not saying this person isright, this person is wrong.
This is a bad man, this is abad woman.
I'm not saying that, but a lotof these issues and they come
into your question, um, try toanswer in a long-winded way it's
a lot of it's aboutcompatibility.
So a lot of these issues, likeI mentioned, the three issues of

(46:35):
desire, discrepancy, infidelityand incompatibility a lot of
those can be resolved if theyhave healthy communication,
especially prior to enteringinto the relationship to the
marriage.
Because a number of people gointo marriage blindsided.
They just say, oh mashallah,he's a good brother, he's got a
good beard.
You know, he prays in themasjid, he gives khusbah now and
again.
She's a good sister, mashallah.

(46:56):
She only wears black and brown.
She doesn't wear any othercolour.
Hijab is always on point somepoint.
So she's, everything is great.
It's just like you might beincompatible as people and for
whatever reasons outside ofislamic framework, people can
navigate healthy relationshipswith, like maybe their work
colleagues or friends who mightbe of opposite sex.
But as soon as islam is broughtinto the picture you talk about

(47:17):
marriage people become likevery afraid to have these honest
conversation in a to try.
And am I actually compatiblewith this person?
It's like no, we can't ask thisquestion.
Everything because of haya,because of modesty.
And then I always ask thequestion that people have this
understanding.
So you're comfortable talkingto Sally and Mary and Jack and

(47:38):
David and knowing whether you'recompatible in terms of friends
or whatever.
But as soon as you bringIslamlam, all of a sudden it's
like no, I have to be higher andit's like a lot of it for me is
performative piety, because Idon't buy it.
And um and I mentioned earlierwhen we spoke before, a lot of
it is um.
A number of brothers inparticular have this like sexual
schizophrenia that they sufferfrom that if they speak to, if

(48:00):
they see a non-muslim woman,they can be a human being, they
can see as a human being.
But so as soon as they see amuslim woman, they can be a
human being, they can see as ahuman being.
But so as soon as they see amuslim woman wearing a hijab, oh
my god, I start for the lion,it's like I have to know my gaze
, I can't talk to her.
And the brother's like, oh mygod, you know, it's just like
some of it, I mean, when I wasin my teenage years, I've oh
mashallah, but they may getolder, you realize a lot of it
is just performative, or somepeople believe this is what is

(48:22):
islamic.
And it's like, again, if you'redealing with adolescents, you
know, like I've got theirhormones all over their place,
fair enough.
But when you're dealing withadults who've had some life
experience, who've know how tointeract with opposite sex, now
to infantilize them and make itout like they cannot communicate
with opposite sex, otherwisethey're going to, you know, it's
just you.

(48:43):
You we're not being honest withourselves, because these people
, both male and female alike,are able to navigate by
themselves in the real world.
But as soon as you bring islamin the picture, people feel like
, oh, I can't ask this questionor I can't find out about.
And again, you need to find outwhat's important to you.
If something's important to you, if you're worried about a red

(49:04):
pill, right.
If you're worried about, okay,then ask this question.
If you're worried aboutfeminism, or she's going to be
radical feminist or she's goingto take, ask these questions.
And these are, you know, veryimportant questions that one one
should have and ask becausethis is going to be important
for your relationship, for yourmarriage.
If this isn't really important,then you don't need to ask that
question.
So that's why, for me again,that's why I'm trying to

(49:25):
underpin a lot of this bytalking about the religion is
more malleable and flexible.
The way compared to the waypeople made it like a
straitjacket that people feelreally constricted.
And it's just like this when,if you read again during the
time of the prophet peace uponhim and the companions a lot of
these restrictions that we have,we have placed them upon

(49:46):
ourselves and a lot of it hasbeen.
We've taken a model from acertain part of the world,
usually from the East, from backhome, and we're trying to adopt
it in 21st century US, canada,uk and it's just not reality.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
A big thing that's playing a part in this is the
extreme segregation that we'veadopted in the West, the way
segregation is implemented inmasjids and schools, where you
just don't even see the oppositegender.
I mean Hiba, and I just did anentire video about this.
I don't know if you saw it, butI feel like that's contributing
a lot to this schizophreniayou're talking about, and it is

(50:23):
a problem.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
Yeah, outside of the masjids they are like they
mingle, whether it's in the mallor whatever in the restaurants.
But when?
They enter the masjid likeastaghfirullah.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
You can't see the the opposite gender yeah, can I
talk a little bit about that,that's.
That's.
That was something that reallyupset me, um, growing up, when I
started to kind of practicebecause you know, because
everyone you know, when I was um, my late teens, early 20s, you
know the whole idea of iqtilaatand it's completely haram and it
was like a pillar of islam,like free mixing was like a

(50:56):
pillar of islam, completelysegregated.
And I was like, and again, likeyou said, outside of the mosque
, outside of um, the islamic,the Islamic event or Islamic
conferences, people areinteracting.
You go on a bus with men andwomen.
All of a sudden, as soon as yougo into like a halalist space,
islamic space, you can't eventurn your face towards a woman,
like even not staring at her.

(51:17):
It's like completely mamlua,it's completely haram.
And one of the things that,again, what really troubled me
was because, again, then how doyou get to know a potential
spouse?
And the way people will say islike go and ask the imam and
then he will find and it's justvery artificial.
And sometimes you're likepretending that, okay, you know,
like you have these artificialmeetings, but then outside of

(51:40):
the masjid or Islamic space, youcan interact and you don't
always want to put yourself in aposition where this is a very
formal, formal meeting formarriage and now you might be
talking with someone and youmight know from the beginning,
for whatever reason it might beattraction, it might be
personality wise you're notinterested.
But now you're in a positionwhere, okay, how can I?
I don't want to ask too muchinformation and personal
information because I'm notinterested, I don't want to

(52:00):
pursue this.
But I don't want to walk in andbe like I'm not interested,
okay, let's go, because youdon't want to continue, you
don't want to pursue.
So you're also in thispredicament and this is
something which a number of ourleaders, our imams and stuff who
were strongly pushing this youknow, free mixing and iqtilaat
is haram and this and the othera number of them, especially in

(52:21):
the uk and some that came fromthe us, wasn't in practicing
this themselves.
It is in that I had someteachers who were saying this is
when I was in university it'sharam to go to university
because there's music, there'sgoing to be women there, this,
that and the other, and I almostdropped out of university, out
of college at the time and someof my friends actually did out
of religious sincerity, notrealizing until maybe a few

(52:42):
years later that a number ofthose people that were saying
that they were taking their ownchildren to university,
sometimes in another country,and that's what really hurt me.
It's like why are you makingislam so difficult for us?
But you yourself wasn't abidingby those rules and they were
like oh, it's different becausemy children know the quran, my
children understand the sunnah,this and the other.
And this is where, again, ifyou look at a lot of the

(53:05):
classical scholars, they wasn'tquick to say this is haram, this
is the way you should live yourlife, especially the terms of
male-female interaction.
They'll talk about likeprinciples that avoid this and
this and the other.
But a number of theseunderstanding and a lot of it,
if I'm if I'm honest with youhas come from a reaction to
colonization and where a numberof muslims, whether it was the

(53:26):
salafi movement or the deobandimovement from from india, kind
of reacted towards what theyconsidered to be this, the
westernization of the of themuslims they say were even more
strict.
And you had a number of likethis, students or their children
who are adopting those sametype of understandings in the
west.
But it's not practical.
That's why a number of thosescholars and teachers that were

(53:47):
saying this like 20 years agothey've somewhat changed their
tune.
But the reality is, but nowthey're still stuck in this
framework of it has to becomplete segregation in
everything.
So then it's like how do we nowteach women where there's no
barrier and because some peoplethat can look at this is
completely shocking.
And then when you mentional-junitam the prophet, peace

(54:08):
upon him that there was no, somepeople they find that difficult
to believe that there's nobarrier in the mosque.
Or you talk about some of thenarrations, the way men and
women interacted with each other.
They have this romanticized oridolized image of islam of the
past.
But when you actually study andread the reports, it wasn't as
segregated the way many of ushave been led to believe.
But there's some stories thatyou read in the past.

(54:29):
Right, it's very idyllic, butit's not reality.
So you hear a story of thisshaykh or this particular
scholar.
He was studying so much andthen he just saw an ankle, a
little bit of ankle, of a woman.
Then he couldn't memorizeanything for six months.
Then all the.
So you look at women as completefitna, everything about them,

(54:50):
their voices, and you have theseopinions.
No, you have these opinions.
You know.
You have these opinions thatwomen are not allowed to go to
the mosque because they're afitna.
If they're attractive,definitely not.
If they're not attractive, thenyou can make an exception for
them.
You don't have to shake awoman's hands unless she's um,
unless she's over a certain.
So you do have these opinions,but you have to understand where
it was coming from.
You have scholars, up untilrecently, up until last 30 years

(55:12):
, that were saying that youshouldn't teach women how to
write, because if you teach themhow to write, they're going to
be starting to write loveletters to men and that's going
to cause fitna.
Therefore, don't teach womenhow to write.
Yes, this is, this is whathappens to even many scholars in
South Asia.
It happens.
So, understanding this, I canunderstand where they were
coming from.
They're coming from a goodplace.
I'm not attacking them, butwhat they were saying, in the

(55:35):
world that we're living in now,it's not practical.
So those fatawa, those opinionsmight have been and happened in
Northern Nigeria, where therewere even more conservatives I'm
from South, south, southernNigeria, where it's a bit more
relaxed my, my tribe butNorthern Nigeria is more, which

(55:55):
this gender segregation isfirmly like, culturally, the
norm.
Where I'm from, it's not likethat.
So if even for myself, going toNorthern Nigeria, it's like a
very different culture, verydifferent way of what is
considered to be appropriate,inappropriate.
I'll say one last thing.
When went to um, uae a coupleof weeks ago, and um, you know,
mashallah, you see all of themen, like the emiratis, they're
all dressed in a white thobe andthe white and, of course, the

(56:18):
head tie, the head wrap, and alot of the women, like 95
percent of them, all fully black, right.
And then I went into one areawhere there was all Emirati men
and Emirati women and theneveryone is all the men, like I
said, all in white, all thewomen, all in black.
I felt out of place, eventhough I wasn't wearing anything
outrageous but just wearing anormal, like what I'm wearing

(56:38):
now a shirt, a polo shirt andjeans.
I just felt out of place, likewhat am I doing here?
I felt like I was in um.
I felt like I was in the matrixwhere everyone was dressed like
um was the agent, whatever hisname was.
So then, um, and then there wasone woman that walked amongst
this group of women, all wearingblack.
There's one woman that woreshe's wearing a black abaya, but
then she just had some of it,like the lower half was white.

(57:00):
Just the contrast.
She stood out like a sofa.
Now, in that context, I canunderstand why a scholar might
say if you're wearing green orlike, because culturally that's
not the norm, that's you'regoing to unnecessarily attract
attention.
Do you understand what I mean?
So that's what I'm saying thatsometimes when you're reading a
fatwa from one part of the world, they're speaking within a

(57:20):
certain cultural context.
Now, again, if that's acultural norm that everyone
wears white, then even a mancomes out in a red top, that's
you're gonna unnecessarilyattract attention.
So that's why they might sayit's haram to wear red.
Or if people the non-muslimswere wearing red.
So that's why, again, I think,as muslims, when you read or
listen to people, you have tocontextualize where they're

(57:41):
coming from and they are also aproduct of their social cultural
conditioning.
And a number of scholars,especially um, that have studied
abroad, you're in a bubble.
So when I went to study and Iwas in egypt, we're in a bubble.
So as much as we're studyingthese classical texts and things
like that, we're not dealingwith the everyday realities of
of people and we're all amongstquote unquote practicing people.
So we live a certain lifestyleand then you come to the uk or

(58:04):
canada or the us and it's a bigculture shock as well.
You're not and not everyone'sasking like the questions you're
asking about cover and wipingyour socks and like these
technical questions.
Like they're not asking thesequestions.
They're asking real day issuesin terms of.
I'm interested in this sister.
I'm going through these issueswith my wife, blah blah blah,
and a lot of them have not hadthe experience, expertise to

(58:28):
deal with these issues and, tobe fair, they shouldn't be put
in that place, but becausepeople see, oh, this is an imam,
he's someone that's of deen,he's knowledgeable.
Therefore, and I feel sorry foragain, for a lot of people that
just started and become likeimam because the muslim
community expects our imams tobe a life coach, a therapist, a
marriage counsellor, a YouTuber,a Bitcoin specialist, a

(58:54):
sexologist Too many things.
They expect them to have all ofthe answers.
It's just like it's unrealistic.
So I'm being honest that when Ilook at some of the questions
that imams and Shaykhs andscholars receive, I'm like this
is and they want an answer.
They want an answer from theQuran and Sunnah.
They want it to be able toapply to their life, and it's

(59:14):
just like, oh, give me thesolution.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
It's not that easy.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
But again, that's what I feel for a lot of the
scholars and the Imams, becausethey, yeah, it's kind of pace
and that's why a number of themwill just go with the most
conservative answer, becausethat's the easiest one.
Because if I say, oh, in yoursituation this is allowed, or
such and such, then everyonemight take it as license for me
to take that fatwa, and again,without people understanding or

(59:40):
appreciating that.
Even during the time of theProphet peace be upon him there
was one man who asked him himI'm married, can I kiss my wife?
He said no.
Another man asked him the samequestion.
He said yes, and then peopleasked you know why is it?
You gave two different answers.
He said the first man was um, he, the first man, he the man that
he allowed that he can kiss hiswife.
He was a man of, he was amature man and he can control

(01:00:01):
his desires.
The other man, he was a youngman.
He felt it wouldn't be.
He could control his desires.
The other man, he was a youngman.
He felt that he wouldn't beable to control his desires.
So he told him no, you can'tkiss your wife, because he
probably think that would leadto him having intimate relations
and obviously nullify his fast.
So that's an example that evenduring the time of the Prophet
and the Companions sometimesthey gave different answers to
the same question depending onthe context, but for whatever

(01:00:26):
reason, as Muslims, and again as.
Muslim community.
We are educated people, we arenot illiterate, but when it
comes to the deen, we act as ifwe're like 10 year olds, what is
quite problematic.
And that's why the work thatyou're doing is very important,
because you're taking the burdenof a lot of like imams and
masajids, because while siestamosque is there to officiate and
stuff like that, they're notnecessarily there to be
matchmakers.
They're not necessarily becausethey don't have the expertise

(01:00:48):
and that's why it's importantthat you have different
organization experts likeyourself who plug in those gap.
And then the mosques and thenthe imams they can refer to
professional, they can refer tospecialist organization to say,
no, you can, as a matchmakingservice, go to ibn zaid, they
can help you with that don'tcome to me with those type of
issues, you know subhanallah,subhanallah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
this reminds me of something that happened in the
school of sharia.
One of my professors wasactually very honest with us and
he said that it's true that wesay shaking hands of a woman is
haram.
I don't't shake hands of awoman that's what I preach but
when I go to conferences inEurope and I find myself in a
situation where a woman issticking her hand, I do shake

(01:01:33):
her hand, and I very muchrespected his honesty.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
I'll share another story.
Before I went to study in Egyptand I was studying a bit of
Maliki Matha, but also, like,from a number of like Salafi
scholars as well, and they werequite, you know, rigid and
strict in the sense of, you know, everything is black and white
and then, you know, studying,they said that a beard is is
wajib.
And you know, even though I'vegot like a struggle beard, that

(01:01:59):
doesn't connect, but they'relike, you know, you have to have
a beard, otherwise if you don't, I don't have a beard.
You're like a fasiq, you'relike an immoral person, this and
the other.
So that was always myunderstanding.
That was my understanding.
Like, if you don't have a beard, you cannot even be a teacher,
you're not a religious person.
This was my understanding.
Now, going to egypt, when I wentstudying in al-azhar and then
one of the teachers, the teacherthat came in I'm the professor

(01:02:21):
of Sharia.
He walked in, suited mashallah,nice tailored suit, walked in
gel hair, you know, styled, nobeard.
I was horrified, I was like andI said to myself, I'm stuck.
That was my mentality.
I said I'm stuck, I'm justthinking.
Like my mentality, my ignorance, was like I can't learn from

(01:02:43):
this person, like this giant.
That was my ignorance.
Then he started to speak.
I was blown away with hisknowledge and then he was
talking it all, even like, about, and then someone even asked a
question.
I was too shy to ask, butsomeone asked a question yeah,
sheikh, you know where's yourlichia, where's your beard?
And then he answered in a waylike, and explained it.
It's not as straightforward.

(01:03:04):
He spoke about you know, thedifferent opinions amongst the
great scholars, that it's notthat everyone considered to be
wajid, but again, for many of usat the time, we grew up
believing in just one opinion,you know.
That's why that also that's whyI was struggling at the time to
even take from this personuntil he actually educated me.
And this is also something thata lot of muslims we're not aware
of like the different opinions.

(01:03:24):
We sometimes might hear oneopinion which might be the most
conservative and assume that'sIslamic, and that's also a
problem that we oftentimes sidewith the most conservative
opinion.
And even when I was, this wasagain when I was in Egypt, when
I was looking to get married.
At the time, some of thequestions some of the sisters
will ask is has does he wear abed?

(01:03:45):
Has he got a bed.
If he hasn't got a bed that'slonger than um a certain number
of inches I'm not interested inbecause he's not religious.
Or is he's thobe?
Does he wear thobe every day?
Or does he have his trousers,um?
Does he wear his trousers belowhis ankles?
If he does, then I'm notinterested because he's not
religious, and this was themeant.
But this was what wasconsidered to be a good Muslim,

(01:04:08):
a good practice in Muslim, andagain, it took a while for a
number of people to get out oftheir mentality, because that is
what we was taught.
So, whereas nowadaysalhamdulillah, I think you can
correct me otherwise I think wepeople are now looking in terms
of like character, personalityand things like that, whereas
before it was really just aboutoutwards, like how does this
person look?

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
sorry to interrupt.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
I was just gonna say we still see it some girls
reject guys only because theydon't have the sunnah beard and
girls put a beard as adeal-breaker and this is also a
problem, because what happens ifyou've got, like I said,
someone like myself who's got astruggle beard, who can't grow a
proper beard?
And even when I heard aboutlike Imam Bukhari, may Allah be

(01:04:49):
pleased with him when I heard,oh, like he didn't have a beard
because he couldn't grow a beardno-transcript islam for dummies

(01:05:15):
.
It didn't work for everyone.
It works for especially whenyou're newly practicing or quite
when you're young and naive.
But when you have some lifeexperience and you realize that,
like your teacher that youmentioned, they may say one
thing or they may say this iswhat the traditional opinion is,
but then you see him shakinghands and you're thinking with a
woman and you think what'sgoing on?
You know?
Because, again, it's not.
It's not as black and white asthe way people present it out to

(01:05:37):
me, and this is also a bigissue because you, I find a
number of sisters who have theseunrealistic expectations that
they think because a brother hasstudied or is knowledgeable of
the deen, or he's a hafidh ofthe Quran, he's memorized the
Quran, he's going to be a goodhusband, he's going to be a good
man, he's going to be honestand upright.
You'd hope that's the case, butthat's not the reality.
And this also can affectpeople's religion, because some

(01:05:58):
women they go into marriagethinking because he's a person
of deen, he's practicing all ofhis behavior, behavior is going
to be in line with the sunnahand it's just like.
For me, that's an unrealisticexpectation.
You should have done your duediligence.
You should have even seenwhether you're compatible with
this person.
Just because this person has asunnah beard, just because this
person wears a thawb, justbecause this person has a
miswork and he uses it every nowand again, or says, yeah, I

(01:06:20):
mean mashallah, that doesn'tmean he's a good practicing
brother.
No, it's true, because it'slike no one.
And the Quran, the hadithdoesn't say that.
It doesn't say that becausesomeone's memorized the Quran or
studied abroad or knows a bitof Arabic, they are going to be
a good husband or they're goingto be completely faithful and
ethical.

(01:06:41):
And that's something that,again, as Muslims, we need to
empower ourselves with knowledge.
Not just, yes, we understandthe religious knowledge and
understanding the quran and thehadith and things like that, but
in terms of how one lives theirlife according to the best of
the best of the ability,according to the teachings of
the religion.
That's something totallydifferent and I just think that,
like I said, I just don't liketo infantilize people.

(01:07:02):
Some of the truths I might saymight be uncomfortable on people
because they still want to livein Islamic Disneyland, but I
just think there's a lot ofnegatives that can come out of
it, especially if it doesn'twork for that person, you know,
yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Yeah, I think we just fail to realize how much
flexibility there is withinIslam.
And then, when I like, there'sone verse that really stuck with
me and we use it a lot in ourworkshops, which is most a part
of a verse um that allah puts.
It says it himself that hedoesn't want to make this

(01:07:39):
religion a burden.
Yet we go out of our way tomake the religion more difficult
than it actually is when Allahsays it himself.
So it's just amazing.
And there's one more point thatI wanted to add, and I think
it's a hadith by the Prophetpeace be upon him where he said

(01:07:59):
that if there is one fitna thatI've left for my ummah, it is
women.
I've left for my ummah, it iswomen.
Now, some people may translatethe word fitna as difficulty or
tribulation, but correct me ifI'm wrong.
That's translated as test,right?
And of course women are a testfor men.

(01:08:19):
So is there anything else youcan add to that?

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Yeah, that's.
I'm glad you mentioned thathadith.
What's really interesting isthat the prophet, peace be upon
him and the hadith he said thegreatest fitna for men is women.
Right, and that's an authentichadith.
But there's also another hadithwhich says the greatest fitna
for his ummah is wealth, and allmuslims don't really talk about
that.
So again, I understand thethings in their context.

(01:08:44):
Now, again, like you said, interms of the hadith in question
about the greatest fitment formen is women, a number of people
, again, they can take differentapproaches or understand it of
that.
That and again, women's whitefitna is translated usually in
this context as a trial, atribulation, a test, and one can
look in a in a good way or badway.
You can look in the sense ofokay, women are responsibility,

(01:09:07):
because as a man, you'resupposed to be responsible of
your women, whether it's your,your wife, your children, your,
you know female daughters, evenyour mother.
You're supposed to beresponsible.
So it can be fit and fit.
Others can take it to anotherextreme and like totally
sexualize, in the sense of aboutsexual sexuality and lust.
And because women are thebiggest fit, now I can't be near
a woman, I can't speak to her,because if a man is alone with a

(01:09:29):
woman, the third person, shetells everything.
You look at women as a completefit.
Now woman's voice is a fit now.
That's why it's better thatthey don't speak, especially we
don't educate them, because theycan start writing love letters
and people take it to thatextreme and unfortunately,
within our tradition you do findthat some scholars have taken
it to that extreme.
And because of that excessiveum isolation and control, trying

(01:09:51):
to control women, then what youfind this can be quite
uncomfortable for many muslimsto hear.
That the reality is.
Then you found a number of thosemuslim communities that a
number of those men werestarting to desire younger boys.
They were lost after young boys, the amarat, I'm sure here.
But you've probably heard aboutthe tradition of men lost after
young boys, the Amrad, I'm sureyou've probably heard about the
tradition of men lost afteryoung boys and that was because
we have extreme segregation andyou still have some of the

(01:10:13):
communities even today, whereyou have men who are lost after
young boys and they even preferyoung boys to have relations
with other women.
And there's a tradition it'snot a hadith, of course.
There's a tradition.
It's not a hadith, of course.
There's a tradition that saysthat women are for children,
boys are for desire, boys arefor pleasure.
This is completely not Islamicbut happens in many Muslim
communities and one of thereasons, I would argue, is

(01:10:35):
because of when you have acomplete gender segment, like
very extreme, where women arejust completely not seen, then
you start to actually desire.
Maybe you can come up, you canum, that desire can manifest
itself in some perverse ways andhas happened in our tradition,
in our tradition and in some ofour communities and, for

(01:10:56):
whatever reason, a lot ofMuslims are uncomfortable to
kind of address and talk aboutthat.
And you do find, especially ifyou go to certain Muslim
communities some communitiesdon't have very strict gender
segregation, others do, but youfind where they have very strict
gender segregation, you find alot of sexual perversion comes
out of different forms and itcould be like, again, sexual
abuse towards, um, children.
It could be that they had justpetrified of women.

(01:11:17):
And again, this is somethingthat, especially if we're living
in the west, you're going to bearound women and always make
out like, yes, we know the westis hypersexualized, but if you
read history, there washypersexualization in many of
the Muslim communities inAndalusia of a lot of the women
who were enslaved, so this isn'treally new.
But again, unfortunately, we'dlike to romanticize the past and

(01:11:40):
make it out like oh, I can'tbelieve it.
And men have this warped ideathat they can't.
If there's a woman and she'snot wearing a hijab, they can't
control themselves.
Where are you getting that?
Because this is an insult tomen.
It's a thank you.
I'm glad you said it's aninsult to men, but because a lot
of men they co-sign the ideathat I can't control myself,
then you're takingaccountability from yourself.

(01:12:00):
So when they hear stories of menwho have molested women or
abused women, they will then saywhat was she wearing?
What did she do, rather thanholding a man accountable.
This is a problem.
So they'll take an Islamicconcept of this is why a man
should be alone with a woman.
The Prophet warned about this.
But there's going to be timeswhen you're going to be alone
with a woman, but still, theonus is on you.

(01:12:21):
When Yususuf alayhi salam wasalone with the woman, he still
ran away from the woman.
It's not all because I'm alonewith you.
You're beautiful, you.
I'm in a rich house, I'm aslave, I can't resist you.
Therefore, no, there's stillaccountability on you as a man,
but that's not being taught.
We teach female accountability.
We don't teach maleaccountability and as a man, I'm
aware of that.
We have to have to be veryhonest and say that it's a, it's

(01:12:44):
a privilege that we have as menbut for whatever reason, we
don't like to kind of own up andaddress it and talk about it.
The same way, we can accusewhite people of like white
privilege and this, that and theother, but as men we also have
privilege.
But we just kind of make it outlike it's always the woman's
fault and this is why a womanneeds a wali.
And the reality is most peopledon't have a lot of lot of
Muslims, do not have thatsupport group, do not have that

(01:13:05):
perfect scenario.
So when you hear these cases ofagain men taking advantage of
women, when I hear somethinglike the Islamic preachers or
shaykhs or imams talk, it'salways oh, that's why if we was
living in an Islamic state, thiswill never happen, because men
would not be alone with women.
And it's just like yeah oh, andthat's what allah says avoid

(01:13:27):
zina.
And it's like, yes, allah, theysay, avoid zina.
But also allah said avoid,avoid the um, the wealth of
orphans.
But still people will takeadvantage and exploit.
So it's just having a realisticunderstanding that
unfortunately, like I said,whatever reason in I've noticed
in more non-muslim majoritycountries, muslims have this
idolized image of Islam.
But when you go to Muslimmajority countries, they don't

(01:13:48):
have that.
If you go to West Africa, northAfrica, the Middle East, south
Asia, they don't have theseidolized.
They know what Islam says, butthey deal with realities because
they're dealing with Muslims.
They know that just because aMuslim has studied in Dar al-Ulm
or studied in Azhar, or studiedin Al-Azhar or studied in
Medina, it doesn't mean they'rerighteous, it doesn't mean I can
trust them, but in the West wehave this, oh masha'Allah,

(01:14:11):
because this person studiedabroad.
They're completely sincere.
Therefore, we don't need tothink about any protocols or
check them and it's just likewho told you this?
So this naivety that we fallinto, I would argue, is we have
brought into this idolized imageof Islam that the Quran and the
Sunnah never speak about.
It doesn't exist in Muslimlands, but because many of us
are detached from Islam, ourpractice.

(01:14:33):
In reality, in different Muslimcommunities we have this, you
know, this halo effect that weput on anyone.
And again, this is not to makepeople feel suspicious of every
Imam or religious person, but no, it's like they're human beings
.
But accountability, it shouldbe placed on individuals and I
think we don't have no issueplacing accountability on the
woman.
But accountability on the manis something that, for every

(01:14:55):
reason, a number of muslims findthat very difficult to have.
And another quick story I'llshare I was listening to a
podcast and there was a chef whowas talking about how there was
a woman fully dressed in abayaand I think she was even wearing
a niqab.
She was walking with her fatherin the shop, remote and there
were some men who was catcallingthis woman and the father said

(01:15:17):
to his daughter look what you'rebringing, look what shame
you're bringing.
Go in the car.
This is why I don't want totake you out.
This is the mentality.
This is so called religiouspeople you've got.
You've got men.
That is even so disrespectful.
They shouldn't be doing it inrespect of the father the
father's there or not but evenin front of a woman that's fully
covered.

(01:15:37):
That shouldn't even make adifference.
But even though she's fullycovered and she's with her
father, yeah, still the fathercouldn't correct the men.
It's like why this is why youshouldn't come out of the house,
this is why you should stay inthe car, and this is,
unfortunately, the mentalitythat a number of Muslims have.
We have to be honest that this,so this mentality, that again,
because women are fit now, um,I'm probably showing my age, but

(01:15:59):
I remember like 20 plus yearsago, going to Islamic events,
women could ask a question.
If we talk this, this type ofconversation completely not
allowed, like you have a humanshowing their face, stop people.
People would be like they'lllose their minds at the most,
just to write on a piece ofpaper, send it to zayn, say, do

(01:16:21):
them read it, but then read itin a way that doesn't mimic a
woman.
She can't even laugh.
The broken telephone yeah, thisis Islam and it's just like
really.
And then, when people willmention there was a woman who
even went to the Prophet peacebe upon him and offered herself
in marriage in front of men, andthen he wasn't interested and

(01:16:41):
another man said he'll marry her.
People can't even comprehendhow.
How did this happen?
How could this happen?
Because we've got this idea thatwomen were completely locked
away and it's like if you readbooks like um and by I've got
the egyptian scholar's name butthere's volume book and he was a
scholar that he wanted to.
He was bringing up all of thehadiths, authentic hadiths,

(01:17:03):
about that male-femalerelationship during the time of
the Prophet, and he was shockedLike the flexibility of
interaction was totallydifferent from what he expected
or thought from his society.
And this is something that,again, for us as Muslims and
practicing Muslims, thisunderstanding of what the
Islamic way you're supposed tointeract with each other a lot

(01:17:23):
of it.
We've adopted a verypuritanical and prudish approach
towards male-female relationsand we've used certain hadiths
which are authentic, which arecorrect, which are sound and
meaning, but again, how it'sbeen interpreted, I'll argue
that's a problem.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
Hey, if you have a story to tell, we'd love to have
you on here.
You'll find a safe space oflisteners who can understand
what you're going through.
Just shoot us an email with asummary of your story at info at
halalmatchca.
You know, sheikh, thisconversation as much as it's
enlightening, it's very painfulto hear.

(01:17:57):
Some of the facts you mentionedare very painful to hear and I
feel like some of our fukahalack the fukh of reality.
I remember when we were insharia school we had a class
called um qadaya fukhiya muasiraum to non-arabic speakers,

(01:18:20):
contemporary fukhi cases, and itlooks like some scholars, like
you said, unfortunately lived ina bubble that was created 1400
years ago and they don't want toleave it for their many reasons
.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
Yeah, Even to your point about the hyper-sexualized
nature that was there inAndalusia.
I don't even think you need togo that far back, because when
the Prophet Sallallahu AlaihiWasallam and his companions
first arrived to Medina, Medinawas pretty screwed up, wasn't it
?
Like, as far as myunderstanding goes, like the
culture and the way women weretreated there was pretty bad.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
There were even like houses.
As far as I know, there werehouses for like prostitutes,
right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
Exactly, yes, exactly , and this is again.
That's why when you're hearingthe hadiths, like about day, day
off, he's speaking about menwho were um forgive me for
language pimping their wives forprostitution, like letting
their wives have it, becausethis was the culture, the hadith
of um, when she spoke about thedifferent types of marriages
prior to islam and there was,like he mentioned, a type of

(01:19:18):
prostitution where women willput a red flag out.
This is the culture,environment that he grew up in.
So again, you have tounderstand that when the Prophet
, when subsequent scholars orthe companions are speaking
about issues, they are speakingwithin a framework.
We have been so divorced fromthat culture we're thinking it
was just idyllic and it wasnever the case.
And even those who becameMuslim you have to understand,

(01:19:39):
some of them came with some ofthose habits.
It wasn't, it didn't gostraight away like the hadith of
when.
Even when you read the story ofum, I can't remember the
companion's name, but when oneof the companions went to the
prophet peace upon him and hecomplained that another man has
slept with his slave girl and hewas, basically they were
contesting who was the child ofthe slave girl, and the prophet
peace said the famous statementthat the the child is for the

(01:20:01):
bed.
Now, everyone knows a hadithabout the child is for the bed.
But even everyone knows ahadith about the child is for
the bed.
But even just to think aboutthat, there was illicit
relations so much to the pointwhere people didn't even like
paternity thoughts.
Like before Jeremy Kirwan, isit Maura Polovich?
Whatever his name is there werethese issues that some people
were having relations with thesame woman and they didn't know
who to attribute the child with.

(01:20:22):
In Islam, after the death ofthe Prophet, peace be upon him.
And then you had the famousstory of the prostitutes of
Hadhramaut, which Abu Bakr andthe companions fought against
that a number of the femaleprostitutes were, you know,
celebrating the death of theProphet, peace be upon him.
These were Muslims, but thenthey left Islam.
But my point is that this wasthe culture.
So you had debauchery, you hadpromiscuity.

(01:20:44):
It wasn't an idyllic.
Well, of course, we've got thebest example in the message of
allah.
But I'm saying that forwhatever reason, the same way,
like if people are talking aboutthe dangers of pornography,
only fans porn addiction,because this is the climate.
We can't pretend that thisdoesn't exist.
Now I?
I then again, I don't like tojust kind of talk about as if
we're living in in a majoritycountry in the Middle East or

(01:21:06):
Africa, because we're not.
So let's talk about the issuesthat we're facing.
And one of the things again,because I've studied with some
people are now like sheikhs andimams and things like that.
I feel sorry for them becauseyou have to imagine, if you're
studying classical texts,classical texts of Imam Ghazali,
ibn Taymiyyah and the like inthe 14th, 15th century, you're

(01:21:27):
talking about these somewhatabstract and theoretical issues
and now you're all thrust intothe limelight and you're really
supposed to deal with thesecomplex issues that is affecting
people's lives and that you'renot equipped to.
But you have a family to feedas well.
And if you just say I'm justgoing to say what Imamam malik
says, people's going to be likethat's not what you're here for.

(01:21:48):
You need to give an answer.
Don't just tell me like that'snot.
Don't say, oh, I don't know,it's one third of knowledge.
Don't give me that.
Give me an answer.
So you have to.
Now you're learning on the spotand that's why I feel for them
and that's why, even when I cameback, I saw I gave a couple of
talks and I saw how people, evenin my own community I was
brought up in the nigeriancommunity they started to look
at me differently.

(01:22:09):
It's like now you can give allof the answers.
It's like, whoa, I'm not mymain, my mid-20s this is way
above I had to intentionallydetach myself from even giving
any religious talks and thingsbecause I'm not even have
nowhere near the life experienceto talk about all of these
issues.
And this is something that,again, like I said, I feel for a
number of like imams andsheikhs and what have you,

(01:22:31):
because this is all they knowand this is also how they have
to make their money.
So I have a level of empathyfor them because I, I you know,
I see what they're going throughand 80 of the questions that
imams get is in relation to likerelationships and pastoral care
.
It's not athena issues, it'snot how to pray, it's not what
they've specialized and studiedit, it's not about how you know.

(01:22:53):
So this is something that howdo you, you know, and that's why
I can, like I said, I commendthe work that you know, that
you're doing other organizationsand professionals, because
you're helping alleviate thatburden, and that was something
that, even when we talk aboutthe classical period of islam
and I made of the muslimscholars of the past, of poly
maths what people forget andneglect is that they were
relying upon the expertise ofmany other people.

(01:23:15):
So when people talk about imamshah, if I spoke about medicine
is a wonderful science, or imamasyuti studied these, a lot of
them were studying and readingother people's texts.
It wasn't like trained to be aphysician and trained to be an
accountant and trained to be alawyer, but they would maybe
summarise what other people havesaid in their books.
And again, like I said, weromanticised the past so much,

(01:23:37):
like ridiculously.
And this is something where,again, I try to be optimistic
and, yes, whilst it is achallenge, I do feel that people
are more opening up now andthose who are very like, very
like tunnel vision, they don'twant to listen, then I don't, I
don't waste my time with thosebecause some people they'll,
they'll learn.
Yeah, they'll realize I'm some,but there are a lot of people

(01:23:59):
who are thirsty for this.
Is islam really thisrestrictive?
And it's just a case ofsometimes this what they need is
like what is known as a thirdspace.
So people are veryuncomfortable, maybe to go to
the mosque to to have this kindof conversation or to listen to
things like this.
That's why it's good now wehave alhamdulillah like a third
space where it's like a podcast,uh venue outside of the masjid
where people feel morecomfortable.

(01:24:20):
And that's what I think whatwe're trying to um, try to try
to create and facilitate um forpeople to benefit from inshallah
so you mentioned, uh, pornaddiction a few times and
obviously that is rampantthroughout the Muslim community
in various countries.

Speaker 2 (01:24:37):
So let's say I'm a Muslim brother that's single,
I'm looking to get married andI've dealt with porn addiction
for some time, but I feel likeI'm over it and it's behind me.
Now I'm talking to a sistersister and she asked me that
question and I really feel likethe sister is compatible.

(01:24:59):
Is it necessary for me to evendisclose that?
What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (01:25:05):
Or, if I may just add before you answer, brother
Habib, also something as I don'tknow STDs, stis.
If someone has such a thing andthey're looking to get married,
should they mention it?
How should they go about it?

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):
So in terms of the second part of Hiba's question
STDs, stis I definitely believethat one should disclose that.
I think people, or yourprospective spouse has a right
to know whether you have an STI,std, because again, that's when
I talk about sexual health, wetalk about spiritual health, we

(01:25:43):
talk about emotional health, butalso sexual health, which is
important.
So I don't believe that,because I've had cases where one
brother he contracted, um, itwasn't HIV, but he contracted, I
think, gonorrhea or somethingor herpes.
But he was like, oh, I madeduas, he's gonna go.
I said allah's forgiven me.
I said so, I don't have to tellmy spouse.
I said that's between you andallah, maybe like the sin, but

(01:26:05):
don't start playing with thereligion.
So you don't need to disclosethat to your potential spouse,
because now you're potentiallyputting her life in danger and
she needs to know beforehand.
And if she wants to continuewith that, fine.
If she doesn't, then again, butat least give her that
opportunity and treat her withdecency and respect.
So I think when we talk aboutstis and stds and and I
generally encourage women to asktheir potential spouse to take

(01:26:28):
an sti test regardless, um,because it is a reality that a
number of people do havepremarital relations and just to
protect themselves.
Um.
So, in terms of like, whenwe're talking stis and stds, I
don't think anything is wrongwith requesting that or
demanding that.
Um, in terms of like, you justwanted to make sure and again,
it also can be.
Um, someone can inherit an stiand that's also, and it might

(01:26:52):
also be via intimate relationsthat they could have got a
sexually transmitted disease,which a lot of people are
unaware of.
And there's also.
There are some people like, forexample, in the black
communities, um, if someone hasa condition like um sickle cell.
So if someone's got a sicklecell trait and another person's
got a sickle cell trait, it'smore than likely that their
child is going to have sicklecell trait.

(01:27:13):
So, because of that, if someonehas a sickle cell trait, they
would want to know, like, theblood type of the potential
spouse just to avoid their,their child more than likely
having a sickle cell.
So things like that.
I just think it's more.
I think there's nothing wrongwith disclosing that or being
very clear in terms of I've gota sickle cell trait, I prefer
with someone that hasn't got asickle cell trait, and if they
still want to get togetherdespite knowing that and bear

(01:27:33):
the risk again, that's fine, butat least give the person the
option to make that decision.
Now when we're talking aboutporn addiction.
Now, porn addiction is what isquite a controversial topic,
because even we use addiction,like in terms of porn, quite um
loosely, but there's no actualreal definition.
According to a lot of umpsychologists, like, it's not a

(01:27:56):
mental illness, some say that is, some say it's not, it's quite
disputed.
Some say it's actual addiction,some say it's a problematic
behavior where someone hasexcessively, you know, consumed
the poor.
Now, one thing that I thinkmost people would agree, whether
you call it an addiction or not, is that it definitely has some
detrimental effects towards howone views sexuality, how one

(01:28:16):
views opposite sex, even interms of the brain patterns and
things like that.
So because of that and theirdetrimental effects can it can
cause subsequent to marriage aswell, I think it's important
that one kind of discloses okay,if they've haven't have had an
issue, or they do have an issueor what they are at least doing
to try and resolve their pornhabit or a sex with porn
consumption, because it hasaffected a number of men, um,

(01:28:39):
whether it's in a form of porninduced erectile dysfunction.
Um, I get that quite a lot,where a number of people
complain about, like my husbandis not interested in intimacy
with me, but he or he needs towatch porn before he can be
intimate, or he can only gethimself off via watching porn.
You know this is real issues,that that happens, unfortunately
.
Or you have some women whocomplain that their husbands

(01:29:01):
suffer from what is known as anejaculation or an orgasmia.
So an orgasmia is the inabilityto orgasm and an ejaculation is
inability to expel fluid,inability to ejaculate, and some
of that can be due toexcessively watching, not only
watching the porn, but it's thethe masturbation habit.
So, again, these are real lifeconversations and issues that

(01:29:24):
many people face.
So, again, I think if a brotheris struggling with this and he
hasn't maybe sought professionalhelp or therapy or hasn't
really resolved it, I think it'simportant that he at least is
discloses.
Okay, would this be an issuefor you?
If someone um had an issue withhis past relationships or porn
and they're seeking help, isthat a deal breaker?
Would you still be?
And again it.
Again, it's up to the woman tomake her own decision, and

(01:29:46):
likewise the other way around.
But I just think that, becauseof the effects that it can have,
especially after marriage andespecially when someone has been
caught blindsided, I do believethat one should kind of at
least be a bit honest in termsof this is maybe what they were
struggling with or arestruggling with, but also, if
they're talking about what theyare doing or what they may
intend to do to kind of overcomeit, then that might resolve,

(01:30:08):
like any potential issues.
I'm not saying one necessarilyneeds to go into, to go into
detail in terms of the types ofadult content that they've
watched.
Of course that's unnecessary,but if they've the content that
they've watched has had aneffect on them, then naturally I
think that other partnersshould because also some women
are um more merciful be likeokay, this is an issue.

(01:30:30):
I'm trying to help, at least Iknow about it.
I can try and work with you totry and overcome this rather
than, like I said, leaving herin the dark.
So, um, yeah, whether you wantto call it porn addiction or
excessive porn consumption, orhave you I look at like I would
not be surprised, I'll be um,how would I say I would to act

(01:30:51):
as if people or men inparticular I know women, but
it's mainly when haven't or donot watch porn.
It's just a lie, like generallyspeaking.
So I would assume that at least50% of men has watched it and
maybe at least 20 to 30% have ordo have a problem with porn
watching, even in the Muslimcommunity.
It might even be hiding thatright.

(01:31:20):
It's even more than high.
It's probably hiding that.
And this is all people thathaven't been married, that are
married, divorced.
So this is not.
This is not.
This is not for me to talkabout it.
It's just we have to be honestwith ourselves.
And it's also a problem thatthere are a number of men who
have a problem with umsoliciting escorts, are going to
prostitutes, or they'll goabroad, or there'll be some
women who will say I'm not goingto have intimate relations in
terms of from the front, I haveintimate relations from the back

(01:31:42):
, and they will say but I'mstill a virgin because I've not
had actual.
Yeah, this is a real life issue, this happens, so so these are
things where, again, how muchone should disclose again if it
has, if it's going to have aneffect in their current
situation, then the other partyshould know If it's something
done in the past and it's notgot any, then I don't think you
need to kind of disclose interms of your sins and what

(01:32:03):
you've done in the past.
But especially with pornaddiction or excessive porn
consumption, because, like Isaid, the rewiring it can do, it
has on the brain and how it canaffect the way one views
intimacy, women, that's alsovery problematic.
I think the same way, like anumber of women, because of a
lot of the romance novels andstuff that they've watched, they

(01:32:23):
have a very unrealistic imageof what marriage is, of what a
man should be and that's andthis is why having these honest
conversations not to necessarilysay how many novels have you
watched in the last three yearsI'm not saying that but what are
your expectations?
What do you think marriageshould be?
If she says now I expect myhusband to buy me flowers every
two weeks, take me to dubai oncea year, then take me to.

(01:32:44):
If she has his romanticizedbecause she's been watching a
lot of dubai blink and that'swhat marriage is for her, then
that's fine.
But then he needs to realizewhether I can, whether I can
give her that or not.
No, that it's just, it'sreality.
That's why, again, just havingthese honest conversations
because we all have beeneducated or somewhat miseducated
about relationships.
Whether we like or not, whethersomeone has had relationships or

(01:33:04):
not, people have an idea untilwhat the expectations are.
So if you've got theseunrealistic expectations or
these expectations that arequite lofty and your partner
isn't able to meet them, thenyou're going to be dissatisfied
and that's why, again, it'sabout having these honest
conversations, especially againwith men, a lot of it in
relation to intimacy, becausethat's what motivates a lot of

(01:33:25):
men.
And then with the women itmight be like the emotional side
, because there are some womenwho and Esther Perel is a really
brilliant psychologist shespeaks about how nowadays a lot
of women, the way before,marriage was done for pragmatic
reasons or political reasons orfamily reasons.
Now, because we're in the ageof a lot of people, want to
obviously be in love, like havea romantic relationship.

(01:33:47):
Also what that comes with that,some of the expectations that
women have nowadays is verydifferent from before.
So a number of women, they wanttheir husband to be their best
friend, their companion, theirlover, their shopping buddy,
their romantic um other half,their soulmate all of these
expectations that historicallywomen didn't have these
expectations.

(01:34:07):
But if a woman has expectations,then the man might need to
realize okay, this is what shewants.
She wants you to be emotionallyavailable.
She wants you to be vulnerable,because vulnerable is a sign of
strength.
She wants you to know about thedifferent love languages and
the different attachments andshe also wants you to memorize
inside and out and it's like,okay, great mashallah, but I
might not be able to do all ofthat again, just having these

(01:34:29):
honest and really explicitconversations.
I just think that I think it'simportant to be again like
transparent with ones um andpartner and again, I think as
adults, one can have thiscomment if some of the difficult
conversations, like around pornaddiction or stis, if one does
obviously feel comfortable tosay it face to face, you can say
indirectly or say would thesebe like a deal breaker?

(01:34:50):
Or have this in the form of likeyou have a list of deal
breakers or red flags and say,if, if, if, if, um, if some, if
your spouse has any of these,would this be complete deal
breaking?
If they say yes, or they mightcross some off.
That's the way of like gettingthat message across.
But ultimately, what my pointis that I think transparency is
is quite important because, likeI said, I think people of the

(01:35:11):
past were more in tune withhaving these honest
conversations about intimacy,which for many Muslims nowadays
is a very uncomfortable topic,and I would argue that our
tradition doesn't have thispuritanical, prudish
understanding about intimacythat many of us have adopted, I
would argue, from othertraditions, other cultures or
from like Christianity or from,like Christianity.

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):
If you could give one piece of advice to single
Muslims preparing for marriage,more specifically, to prepare
for intimacy, what would it be?

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
So I would say to follow the sunnah of the Prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him.
And the reason why I just saythat is because the sunnah of
the Prophet is way more broaderthan many people realize,
especially in relation tointimacy.
Because as far as I'm concernedand I mentioned it earlier the
prophet muhammad, peace be uponhim, is the most romantic person
you ever meet or you ever readabout in your life.

(01:36:03):
The way he prioritized women'spleasure, not only their
emotional pleasure but alsotheir physical pleasure, and
also was attentive to theirneeds and also allowed women
their own voice and marryingdifferent women as well.
You see that he alloweddifferent personality types and
this is something that I think,as men, we should look more at
the prophet peace as a husband,as he was in terms of, and also

(01:36:28):
there are women that, forexample, we know that, the women
of the unsar.
He didn't marry them becausethe jealousy was too extreme,
they couldn't being in apolygamous relationship.
So he was totally fine withthat.
So I'm saying the way theProphet, peace be upon him, was
as the sunnah of female sexualsatisfaction, the sunnah of
intimacy is something thatunfortunately, many people are

(01:36:48):
not aware of, and I think if onereads and learns about it, it
will inspire one to be a betterperson, a better Muslim and also
, inshallah, a better spouse.
And it works both ways, notonly for men but also for women.
I think women, when they readabout the Prophet peace be upon
him and the way he was with hiswives, I think they can
naturally embrace that more,whereas I think a lot of men,
because we haven't really seenor heard of those examples or

(01:37:12):
those stories.
That's why, unfortunately, whenyou hear about it, if it was
someone other than the Proverbs,peace be upon him, some Muslims
might have said somedisparaging things about oh,
that's like a simp, that's likethis, that's like that, that's
not realizing that the Proverbs,peace be upon him, he embodied
true manhood, perfection, mercytowards women and again.
So that's why, again, he's,he's.
He's the example because, likeI said, many of our

(01:37:35):
understandings about intimacy alot of it you alluded to earlier
, um is based on our culture andum a quick story of like when,
during the time of the prophet,peace upon him, when the men of
mecca married the women ofmedina and the men of mecca, one
of the men of mecca, he wantedto have intimate relations with
his wife from the right endposition and she was like no, we

(01:37:56):
don't do that here, because intheir understanding in Medina
that if a woman has relationsfrom behind, that the child will
be deformed or cross-eyed.
So they went to the Prophet,peace be upon him, to clarify is
this acceptable in Islam?
And the Prophet clarified thatas long as in the correct
orifice, ie from the front, it'sperfectly permissible,

(01:38:16):
whichever position that you wantto enter upon your wife.
So this is an example that theywere the people of medina,
because they had a moreculturally conservative or
restrictive understanding ofintimacy and modesty.
And the prophet, peace, evenclarified, and it was more
expansive than they understood.
And, as I'll argue, the way alot of us have understood islam
or intimacy in islam, a lot ofit's based on our culture, not
based on the religion.
Because when you actually readand study the life of the

(01:38:39):
prophet and how early thescholars because, again, a lot
of early scholars, theerotologists that were speaking
about intimacy, they wereinspired by the Quran and the
hadith.
It's not that they're justinspired purely by their own
cultures.
Their main inspiration was theQuran and the Sunnah.
But unfortunately, like I said,a lot of Muslims have become so
detached from intimacy, fromIslam and with sexuality, we see

(01:39:03):
it as extremely taboo.
I need to go to other sources.
So a lot of Muslims will saythe five love languages from
Gary Chapman, which is aChristian book.
So you don't have no issuesreading from a Christian
perspective, but as soon assomeone says something from an
islamic perspective, you feeluncomfortable.
Now my, my I would say to thatis it's not the religion that
has the issue, it's you have theissue that you understand of

(01:39:23):
the religion.
Why is it you feel comfortableto go to a christian to learn
about intimacy?
Why is it you feel comfortableto read about the attachment
styles which, again, they'regreat, but why is it that
anytime someone's coming from anislamic framework or religious
framework, you have thistrepidation in your heart?
And that's because the way youlook at islam, or how you've
been taught about islam and is,is a religion that doesn't teach

(01:39:45):
intimacy, romance, and it's onewhich is just about rights,
when I'd argue that's more of acultural interpretation, that's
more about legalism as opposedto being about treating people,
treating your spouse, with loveand affection.
And again, like I said, theSunnah of the Prophet.
Peace be upon him.
Read the Sunnah from the lensof how he was as a husband, how

(01:40:07):
he was in his maritalrelationship, especially his
relationship with Khadijah.
That alone that, when you readabout that and that story and
their interaction, it will blowyour mind seriously.
That's what I would leave.
And to not give up on love aswell, because I think in this
day and age, with gender warsand red pill of feminism, you

(01:40:28):
will hear horror stories.
Don't get me wrong.
But there are men that areyearning for their soulmate,
there are men that are yearningfor a loving spouse and there's
also women who are yearning forthat.
So, just when you hear some ofthe noise, just realize that a
number of people are speakingfrom a broken or hurt place and
maybe that's their form of umhealing, which is again, that's.

(01:40:48):
That's fine, but if you'resomeone who's looking to get
married you haven't been married, inshallah, you will find.
You'll find your soulmate thatwill treat you and give you the
love and that you deserve.

Speaker 2 (01:40:57):
Inshallah inshallah, follow the sunnah, the best
advice ever lastly, could yourecommend books resources, maybe
scholars that you recommend, uh, for those that are wanting to
learn more about intimacy andrelationships?

Speaker 1 (01:41:11):
now I'll list.
I actually did a video on like10 books on intimacy for Muslims
to learn, so I'll list them off.
Obviously I'll mention my book,a Taste of Honey, and Women of
Design Kunyaza, but there arealso many other great books I
recommend.
I think we referred to earlier.
By Abdul-Haneem Abushakar.
There's a book called SexEducation for Husband and Wife

(01:41:33):
and that's available in English.
There's another book called SexEducation for Husband and Wife
and that's available in English.
There's another book calledIslamic Guides to Sexual
Relations by Mohammed ibn Adamal-Kawthari.
He's a British scholar,traditionally trained.
He talks about the hadithsabout intimacy.
There's a really good book thatwas recently published by a
marriage counsellor fromMalaysia, a husband and wife

(01:41:59):
couple called um osman siddiqand enon mansour.
Their book is called sex, souland islam a brilliant book and
it talks about the hadith aboutintimacy for women, and hadith
um about intimacy relating to tomen, and again, it's a very
contemporary book.
Um another book if you want toknow about the history of like
erotology and how scholarsdidn't have this prudish

(01:42:20):
approach towards intimacy.
There's a really nice smallbook called lust and grace by
ali um kadur.
He's um moroccan but fromorigin from morocco, but he's um
lives in germany, uh, germany.
Another good book was quiteacademic Sexuality in Islam by
Abdur Wahab, and another bookcalled Female Sexuality in the

(01:42:41):
Early Medieval Islamic World.
So there are many books.
I'm saying, and I'mintentionally giving different
books, because there are somebooks that are fairly easy to
read.
There are some books that are abit more academic, so it
depends what someone is lookingfor, um, but and they'll also
there's some really good courses.
So there's um, um sheikh suhaibwebb um, who is obviously an

(01:43:02):
american scholar, as how do youtrained.
He recently released a numberof series called um the fit of
nikah.
So that's really good.
I think he started that acouple of weeks ago.
So it's like a four or fivepart series talks about the
understanding of marriage andnikah, like even because a lot
of the understandings of thepre-modern muslims wasn't like,
they didn't have thesereservations like how intimacy

(01:43:26):
and marriage is intertwined.
The word marriage I mean theword nikah in in arabic nikah
means intimacy, you know.
So they didn't have these a ofthe reservation that we have.
So it's important to debunkthat.
But then also to contextualize,and he talks about how a lot of
the pre-modern or the fukhahdehdefinitions of marriage is
probably not as applicable formodern day age in terms of how

(01:43:48):
we view marriage in terms of itbeing about partnership.
We want love and intimacy andsomeone to be emotionally
available.
So he does a really brilliantjob, um.
I've released a number of umvideos on my institute erotology
institute.
You can check that out.
Obviously, your podcast and thework that you're doing.
Bless you and continue to helpyou speak about important and

(01:44:10):
courageous topics, becausedefinitely there's people that
are looking for this information.
So we have.
And the reason why it'simportant and I'm not afraid to
kind of amplify or talk aboutdifferent people is that there
are many different people aretrying their best to help fill
this void and there aredifferent styles and different
approaches in there, and I thinkit's important that people know

(01:44:33):
that they're also womeneducators, experts like hibou.
You've studied the sharia aswell, so it's not like you
haven't got islamic knowledge.
You're islamically trained.
You're just as trained as, I'msure, most of the khatibs and
imams that are speaking evenmore trained, so you can speak
from an islamic land and youalso can speak from practical
experience of what you're seeingon the ground.
And it's important that muslimswomen know that, because one of

(01:44:55):
the things that I'm quitedisheartened by is that
sometimes I will hear um womenwill say, or women who are like
educators, or they will say thata lot of women will go up to
them and say they're waiting fora man like an imam to validate
what they've said, and that'sproblematic.
There are a number of muslimsin particular that feel
uncomfortable even to hear asheikh or ustada speaking even

(01:45:18):
about these topics.
They need a man to validatethem.
And I'm saying again, that'snot from our religion, Because a
Prophet, peace be upon him.
He taught his wives and hiswives, whether it was Umm Salama
, whether it was A'la al-Shaym,may Allah be pleased with them
both.
They were teaching, both menand women, even about intimate
issues, both men and women, evenabout intimate issues.
And a lot of the scholars ofthe later generations, a lot of

(01:45:39):
their fatale understanding, werebased on the rulings of our
mothers, our, the mothers of thebelievers, who were scholars in
their own right.
So this understanding thatwomen cannot teach, even about
these issues, a number of womenhave brought into this,
unfortunately as well.
Where they can, they only wantto hear something from a man,
and this is also quiteproblematic because a lot of our
understandings aboutmale-female relations, I would
argue, even as a man, it'sbecause I'm seeing things from a

(01:46:00):
male perspective and that'ssomething that you do see that
clearly that I can say a storyand I'm looking at it purely
from a male perspective and notthinking about implications or
men to listen to.
So that's why, again, I thinkit's important that we try and
create that medina society where, if we look at umar bin khattab
, who is known to be, you know,very strong and stern with women

(01:46:21):
, but people forget he was a manof justice and he was a man
that also empowered women.
There are several stories whereI do relay some of them in my
book, but one of two of thestories that I really love is um
, when there was a woman whowent to one of the companions
when Umar was still.
He was in need of the Muslimsat that time and she was saying

(01:46:41):
her husband, you know such abrilliant man, he prays all of
the time during the night, he'salways fasting.
And Umar said, mashallah, youknow, you've got a brilliant man
, a great husband.
And he didn't realize what thewoman was saying indirectly,
that she was saying that heisn't fulfilling her needs, he's
not being attentive towards her.
And then one of the companionswho was with Umar at the time,
he actually told Umar what she'sactually saying, because she

(01:47:04):
didn't want to say directly whatthe issue was.
And Umar then said okay, canyou, can you rule in this, in
this situation?
So that's the example of Umarwho delegated to someone who's
more experienced or has a betterknowledge about a particular
matter.
Another example of Umar againthe brilliant leader, may Allah
be pleased with him that he waswhen he was patrolling the
streets of Medina and he heard awoman who was singing poetry

(01:47:26):
about how, if it wasn't for thefear of Allah, she would have
brought another man into herbedroom to make love with her
because her husband was away.
And then she was, you know, shewas in need of intimacy.
And then, when Omar found outabout this, he then went to his
daughter, hafsa, who was alsothe wife of the Prophet peace be
upon him.
This was when Omar was theleader, so the Prophet, peace be
upon him, had passed away, andthen he asked Hafsa.

(01:47:48):
He said I've got an importantquestion to ask you, and again,
there's no shyness when it comesto religion how long can a
woman be away from her husband?
Then hafsa outshined, as sheindicated with her hands either
four or five months.
And then one narration saidfive or six months.
And then, because of thatrecommendation from his daughter
, he then told because he foundout that the woman's husband was

(01:48:09):
away on jihad, on a militaryexpedition.
He then told the husband tocome back to ensure that he's to
fulfill his wife's desires, andthen he said that no man should
spend more than four monthsaway from his wife.
Why?
Because he's thinking about theneeds of women.
And this is something that whenyou read later scholars.
When they say things like a manshould be with his wife at
least once every four months,you have to understand the

(01:48:30):
context in which it was said.
So this is from the advice of awoman from Hafsa.
So this is an example where hehad men who was in positions of
power, umar, who was consultingwomen about intimate matters.
So this is something that,again, I think we as Muslims, we
lose sight of.
So when you hear Imam Maliksaid this, or the Maliki said
it's not realizing that they aretaking the opinion of Umar, who

(01:48:51):
took this opinion from a womanwho was his daughter, hafsa.
So many of these stories, like Isaid, in the first three
communities where you had womenwho were elevated and respected
and their voices were heard,unfortunately from like you
could say, the third century,fourth century of the Islamic
era, and then the legal schoolswere codified, you didn't have
as many women like scholars, interms of like jurors.

(01:49:14):
You had women in terms ofnarrating hadiths, but in terms
of their legal opinions itwasn't as unfortunate.
So that's why you don't reallyhear their voices and that's why
some of these issues that youfind, especially like these
common day issues, like in thesense of like um secret second
wives and things like that.
It's a really like polarizingtopic, because when you listen
to women it's very clear this isclearly un-Islamic, it's

(01:49:34):
clearly unethical.
How can you have a secretsecond wife?
Or when you speak to a number ofbrothers who are knowledgeable,
or technically it's halal,technically I don't need
permission, so it's not wrongand it's just that you're
clearly going against the spiritof the law.
Do you think the Prophet peacebe upon him would have done this
?
Do you think any companionwould have done this and the
Prophet would have said this iscompletely fine.
But because you are stuck inthis echo chamber of other

(01:49:57):
brothers who are saying or thisscholar said you can do it, and
then there's this story by thisscholar who may have done this
and it's like but you know fromthe principle of Islam, again,
as a lay person, it is areligion that you have to be
honest, you have to be upright,you can't be deceitful.
How can you?
If you understand that, how canyou then think that you can
even deceive your wife?
If you ask 99 of women, theanswer is very clear.

(01:50:21):
If you ask a lot of men, I'll behonest, people are, but
technically, because we canjustify and rationalize that.
You know, if I tell her she'll,you know, kick off and I might
lose my kids, I might lose myhouse.
So you rationalize somethingthat from the spirit of the of
Islam, if you understand thesunnah, you know that he will
not allow that.
You know that he will never dothat.
But if you are just thinkingabout theoretical Islam or Islam

(01:50:42):
by technicality or legality,you can.
This is something, like I said,we lose sight of when we forget
about the sunnah.
I'm not talking about when he'slike the sunnah, the spirit,
and when I'm talking about thesunnah, it's only the sunnah of
the prophet, peace be upon him,because he said follow his
sunnah and the sunnah of thekhulafah of Rashidun, which are
the four rightly guided chanels,and Umar is one of them.
So this is why, like, again, alot of brothers, we know about
Umar being very stern and harsh,but we forget that there were

(01:51:04):
several instances where helistened to women, he was
corrected by a woman and hewasn't fine with that because he
was a man of justice, and Ijust think that that's something
that we need to embody, notjust to live in the past and
think.
Unless I can get this clearstatement from a classical
scholar that said this islamdoes allow you know such and
such.
This is perfectly permissible.

(01:51:25):
So I just embody the spirit andthis is something that, if we
do that, because when you lookat a lot of our luminary
scholars, whether they'real-ghazazali or Ibn Khaymar,
jauziyah or Ibn Arabin, and whathave you Non-Muslims Respect to
them.
Ibn Sina, how many Non-MuslimsAre respecting Our scholars For
their brilliance?

(01:51:45):
Because we're living In thepast?
They're not really.
They don't think Islam Is likebeing practical Because we're
living In the past.
They wasn't living in the pastand that's why, again, it's
about trying to again embody thespirit of Islam and then deal
with hard-hitting but realissues that Muslims are dealing
with and not just trying to livein the past.
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:52:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, brother, have you ever
been accused of being a feminist?
It just occurred to me to askyou.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
I've been accused.
I've been accused of being afeminist.
I've been accused of being ablack nationalist.
I've been accused of being asimp.
I've been accused of lovingwomen too much.
I've been accused of so manythings, so like, even with the
feminist.
I'm not.
Yeah, I'm not.
I'm not a feminist.
I don't like the term feminismbut I do understand where it
came from and I don't have thishatred towards feminism.

(01:52:34):
I have issues with it becauseof how it um came about, but in
it.
But I do have a lot of empathyfor um feminist writers and I do
read some books by um feminists, both Muslim and non-Muslim
feminists.
I don't have this becausesomeone I don't agree with some
parts of feminism or I don'tagree with the label.
Therefore, you know I ridiculeum feminism and, again, I just

(01:52:55):
think it's um someone who'simmature, intellectually
immature, can't listen tosomeone that you might disagree
with some of their opinions, youknow.
So this whole idea thatbrothers unfortunately nowadays
like to throw around that ifsomeone's speaking about women's
rights in islam, from the quran, from the sunnah, they label
the feminist, which is crazy,and that is just.

(01:53:15):
That's just.
That is just where we've cometo, that where if someone is
speaking about, like someonesaid to me recently, you black
feminists.
I said I know I'm black, but thefeminist part, where did you
get that from?
You said, oh, because you'respeaking about women's rights
too much.
And I said I was like, okay,I'm speaking about women's
rights in where.
He said in Islam.
I said, and you're quotingscholars and stuff speaking

(01:53:37):
about women's rights, what aboutbrothers rights?
I'm like, so you have a problemwith me just talking about what
scholars or what the prophetpeace be upon him said about
being right by women.
You have problems with meemphasizing or speaking about
how the prophet, even before hepassed away on his deathbed,
will say and this certainly,certainly, sir in telling men,
warning men.
So, whilst we know about thehadiths of women are fitna, yes,

(01:53:58):
we know about those hadiths andwe talk at length about
feminism and women are fitna,but you don't think about the
hadiths where the Prophet istalking about how you should be
responsible for women.
You don't talk about the versein the.
This is from Allah, this is notfrom those scholars.
So Allah is telling you that,but you want to ignore that.
You're just thinking offinancial providing.

(01:54:22):
You're not thinking aboutlooking after their emotional
and spiritual welfare.
You're not thinking aboutmaking sure they feel safe in
their bedroom, you're not makingsure that they're living in an
environment where they feel safeand protected.
You don't even feel embarrassed.
As a Muslim and I'm speakingpersonally I feel more
comfortable to go intonon-muslim circles my wife down
in many muslim majoritycountries and environments,
because when you're in a lot ofmuslim not all, but a lot of

(01:54:44):
muslim majority communities,they're layering, they're
looking sometimes and it's likeI don't have that in many
non-muslim majority communitiesand I'm saying that is a shame
on us as muslims.
That is a shame on us asmuslims.
So this idea that so we cantalk about islam, which is gives
women's rights and this and theother, but we embody now which
are we trying to make that a litreality?
And that's the problem.

(01:55:05):
And I think the fact that anypushback that someone's actually
saying that we should treatwomen as human beings and they
should feel respected, it's likeno, you're going too far.
This is feminism, this iswestern.
And then those same brothersthey can.
They wouldn't want to live in amuslim world or they would only
want to live in a muslim world.
They've got all of the rightsand they're treated like kings
and this and the other, andthey're using their american

(01:55:26):
dollar or the canadian dollar orthe british pounds to live like
a wealthy person.
Because they see the injustice.
And I'll argue, because a lotof those countries are not
embodying what islam came tobring.
So yeah, the whole feminismstuff and again it's easy for me
to say because even if I'mbeing accused of being a
feminist, it doesn't hit and itjust, unfortunately it's used
against women a lot and this iswhat I think as brothers we

(01:55:49):
should be more man enough tokind of talk about these issues
that we have a problem.
Let's not make out like becausewe can talk about red pill and
divorce and you know we talk andthere are issues, but they're
also, if you read our literature, it's not from our religion.
But if you read our tradition,there is a lot of misogyny.
There are opinions that youthink what is this that has

(01:56:10):
still been enforced in the nameof islam?
So we have.
So we can't pretend that thisdoesn't exist.
And anyone who's studied willknow this, and there are people
that have studied these textsand that's why they have these
ideas.
And again, you can stillrespect our scholars.
You can still respect you know,appreciate and benefit their
works, but there are a number ofthings that some of our
scholars have said that maybeit's not compatible with this

(01:56:36):
day and age.
We have to be realistic andhonest with ourselves but
unfortunately, because I thinkpeople don't want to be seen to
question or challenge what aprevious scholar has said, even
if it clearly goes against theQuran I'm not talking about
hadith, where a scholar hasclearly like there's a scholar,
I'm not going to say his name,name we spoke about um women I.
He said that women are inferiorto men and he gave 18 reasons

(01:56:58):
why women are.
And this is a classicalrespecter scholar and this book
is even translated into english.
So people will probably, ifthey read the book, they know
what I'm talking about.
But this is my point, that theywill say, like he said that
women are inferior to men and hegave 18 reasons why women are
inferior.
He mentioned, like menstruation.
He said childbirth, becausethey can't divorce.
So he's given all of theserationale.

(01:57:19):
That's clearly from a judo,christian perspective, or a
persian, because he wasinfluenced.
He made the evil great scholar.
Now my issue is that, because alot of muslims have studied with
some people, because theyrevere this color so much they
don't want to call it out andsay that's not islamic.
They will say oh well, you knowtechnically what he means is
this, and they're trying to make, rather than just saying, okay,

(01:57:39):
that was his opinion.
That clearly contradicts thequran and so now we don't accept
that.
We don't need to accept that.
But because they revere thescholars so much, it's like
they're just trying to makeexcuses and, to be honest, the
people that are really callingout for the most part, it's
normally feminists, whetherthey're muslim or muslim.
That's the reality.
That's why, because they'recalling this out and because a
lot of the muslims weretraditionally trained and men,

(01:58:01):
they revere some of thesescholars, even though they might
know what they're saying istrue, they don't want to admit
it and this is also a problem,and I'm seeing this not only
with, like the, some of therampant misogyny finding our
tradition, issues like femalegenital cutting as well, which
is unfortunately an issue and isprevalent in some parts of the
muslim world and when.
I'll be speaking about this alot of times the people that are
calling this out are feministsor non-muslims and a lot of the

(01:58:24):
people are traditionally trained, because a scholar has said
this, and even when they willread some great scholars who've
said things like female genitalcutting or khitan is important
or it's good for women becauseit perfects them and the reason
why khitan is good.
Or it's important because if awoman was not circumcised, she
would have excessive lust andshe'll start to be promiscuous

(01:58:46):
like non-muslims and there are anumber of this is well known in
especially a number of ummuslim countries in africa, as
well as in arabia, as well as inparts of Southeast Asia.
But because a lot of people aretraditionally trained, don't
feel like I don't want to goagainst what the scholar or
previous scholars have said,even though I know medically and
all the rest of it is wrong andit clearly contradicts the
Quran and Sunnah.

(01:59:06):
I'm just going to keep quiet,and the people that are speaking
out against it are oftentimespeople that are not from our
tradition, or people that mightbe you can consider to be
radical feminists.
So this is why it's a problemthat.
But then I'm asking okay, thoseimams, scholars or what have
you?
Do you have more allegiance toyour scholars or the quran and
sunnah?
exactly and if you have thequran and sunnah, you can be

(01:59:27):
like.
No, I still respect thosescholars, but I don't agree with
that.
That's incorrect yeah justhaving that spirit of trying to.
We're all trying to servepeople, obviously, and worship
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, butembodying the spirit that Quran
and Sunnah encourage us to speakthe heart and speak out for
truth.
And you find a lot of injusticein our Muslim communities that

(01:59:48):
has been done in the name ofIslam, unfortunately so.
But in answer to your question,yes, I've been accused of being
a feminist.
I'm not a feminist, but peoplecome wherever they like and
sometimes, when they dm me, Iclap back and give them.
I should be better, not my duderesponse okay, your books um

(02:00:09):
brother habib.

Speaker 3 (02:00:10):
Where can um anyone find them?
And if someone's seeking anycounseling or seeking your
services, how can they reach you?

Speaker 1 (02:00:18):
Yeah, so my books are available on Amazon or you can
check out Mecca Books.
So meccabookscom they're themain distributor in North
America, so you can check themout.
I don't have basicallycounselling services anymore.
I've got a lot on Even like thework that I'm doing.
I'm, like Robert said, Icounselling services anymore.
Um, I've got a lot on even likethe work that I'm doing.
I'm a, like brother says I'm a,I've got a nine to five, I've
got a family.

(02:00:38):
I'm a chartered accountant byprofession, so this is like I do
on the side.
It's not so, and so that's whyI would.
I would try and signpost peopleto, um, you know, muslim
counsellors if they need any,but I do try and post some on my
instagram page and things likethat a lot of recommended
counsellors or sex therapists orlike if they need matchmaking
services, like the great workthat you're doing.
So our people's.

(02:00:59):
Again, it's not about yeah, I'mnot telling people to come to
me for counselling services andI'm not a matchmaker as well.
Let me just please say that I'mnot a matchmaker, so please do
not contact me asking you can goto Hibben's aid.
You don't.
Don't ask me because I'm not amatchmaker.
So just wanted to make thatquite clear.

Speaker 3 (02:01:17):
Wonderful, wonderful, and your services, the online
course you have.

Speaker 1 (02:01:23):
Yeah, so my website are erotologyinstitutecom, so
I've got a number of onlinecourses on African intimacy and
Islamic sexology, so a number oflike what we've been speaking
about.
I've got a number of courses onthat website so you can check
them out.
There's some courses that arefree and there's also some that
you have to subscribe to, butyou can check that out.

Speaker 3 (02:01:45):
Wonderful.
We will link inshallah, yourwebsite and your Instagram
handle.
And Zaid, do you have any morequestions?
No more questions.
Actually, Zaid, do you have anymore questions?

Speaker 2 (02:01:53):
No more questions.
Actually, just one thing Iwanted to plug in when Brother
Habib was recommending resourcesand other professionals Of
course, sister Amira Zaki.
She does courses for both menand women, so if anybody is
interested in premaritalcoaching or preparing for
intimacy, so she is anotherwonderful option and you guys

(02:02:16):
can check her out on Instagram.
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (02:02:19):
Yeah, sorry, I forgot to mention, forgive me.
Yes, sorry, there are otherresources.
Emre Rezaki, like you mentioned, the vaginismus coach, there is
Angelica Lindsay Ali, who's asexual health educator, and
she's got an institute calledthe village answer institute and
got courses, so you can again,especially for women.
It's important that women knowthey have resources available,

(02:02:39):
um, there is um dr sadaf lodi,who's an intimacy coach as well
as being a gynecologist, umbased in new york.
She's um, so you can check herout.
There's a muslim um sextherapist.
She's a nationally recognizedsex therapist, dr shannon
Shannon Chavez.
She's got a website as well,the same name, and you can check
her out.

(02:02:59):
So, again, there areprofessionals, especially, you
know, for women in particular,because I think men are more
aware of some of these services,but maybe women not so much.
So you do have people who areculturally informed, experts,
have experience in different,whether it's counseling, whether
it's sex therapy, um, and ifpeople want to be educated as
well.
So, yeah, thank you, amzay forfor bringing that to my

(02:03:21):
attention.

Speaker 3 (02:03:22):
I forgot about that no problem, brother habib, we
are very grateful and honored tohave you and, uh, I think we
ourselves learned a lot, and I'msure our listeners have as well
.
And, yeah, maybe we can haveyou again in the future.
We already have a topic in mind.

Speaker 2 (02:03:39):
And inshallah.

Speaker 3 (02:03:41):
Inshallah, jazakum Allah, khair, and yeah,
assalamualaikum, waalaikumsalam.

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