Trailer | Real Talk with Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and Qaanitah Hunter
LET’S CHAT | First impressions, Hijab, Highschool Awkwardness | New Series with Dr Tesneem Alkiek
Why is Marriage So Complicated? | SERIES PREMIERE | Real Talk ft. Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
What if it's Not a Gender War? | Real Talk ft. Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
The Problem With Hustle Culture | Real Talk ft. Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
The Social Media Spiral | Real Talk ft. Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
Spiritual Burnout is Real | Real Talk ft. Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
The Healthy Way to Think About Feminism | Real Talk ft. Tesneem Alkiek
Are We Becoming Too Self-Centered? | Real Talk ft. Tesneem Alkiek
Tips for When You're Struggling With Your Faith | Real Talk ft. Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
When You Feel Conflicted About a Hadith | Real Talk ft. Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
Build Your Relationship With the Qur’an Before Ramadan | Real Talk ft. Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
TRAILER: Before You Reject That Hadith | Real Talk Season 2 | Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and Cadar Mohamud
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Understanding the Hadith on Angels Cursing a Wife | Real Talk Season 2 | Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and Cadar Mohamud
Real Talk Series
Understanding the Hadith on Angels Cursing a Wife | Real Talk Season 2 | Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and Cadar Mohamud
“The angels curse her until morning.”
Yaqeen scholar Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and host Cadar Mohamud discuss a hadith that has been used to make Muslim women feel that intimacy is a debt they owe rather than something mutually built.
Dr. Alkiek reads the narration alongside the tradition’s own record of a wife’s sexual rights, including the case of Abu al-Darda (ra) and the men called home from campaign for their wives’ sake, and explains the classical legal principle of ta’assuf fi istiʿmal al-haqq, the wrongful exercise of a legitimate right.
What happens when a wife is exhausted, postpartum, grieving, or unwell? Where does the Shariah place limits on a husband’s claim, and what did the Prophet ﷺ expect of a man before he approached his wife at all?
To learn more read: Marriage and Gender Roles in Islam: Beyond Rights and Duties to learn more: https://yqn.io/57f244
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
00:01That screams the acknowledgement that women's needs are important. He was neglecting her sexual needs.
00:12Are you going to beat your wife, hit your wife like you beat your riding animal and then expect to sleep with her that same night?
00:19I feel like this is implying that this hadith is only about men's needs and that we exist only to please them.
00:31Before we get into this conversation, I have to be honest.
00:37This hadith about marriage is probably the most misinterpreted, misunderstood, most debated, okay? Ever. In my opinion. In my humble opinion. And the hadith goes as follows.
00:52If a man calls his wife to bed and she refuses and he goes to sleep angry with her, the angels curse her until morning. I'm saying these aren't fringe questions.
01:05And I have to say, like, when I first heard this hadith, I didn't have a reaction at first.
01:11But I did hear a story or I had an experience with a sister where I realized, wait, there's actually real consequences to the misinterpretation of this hadith. I'll tell you a story. I had a friend. Let's call her Hafsa.
01:25And she was living in a homeless shelter, a mixed homeless shelter with six children. And in the community, we're trying to figure out how to help her.
01:35I remember we went, we tried to help her. We were talking, trying to figure out some solution to get her out of what she was in. Because to be in a mixed homeless shelter with boys and girls, it's just not ideal.
01:46But I did remember asking her, I was like, how does this happen? How do you end up in a homeless shelter with six children? And I remember it really struck me like this was like, wait, what?
01:58She said, well, I wanted to obey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, so I obeyed my husband.
02:06And even though I knew that he wasn't fulfilling my rights, whenever he would call me to bed, because of the hadith, I didn't want the angels to be cursing me until the morning. And so I complied. I was shocked.
02:20Because I was like, how does someone take this hadith and think, OK, let me just keep fulfilling his rights, even though you're being neglected? And here you are, six children in a mixed homeless shelter.
02:33And so I think we need to have some real talk about this topic. Yeah, no, this hadith, I think opens a can of worms. Yeah. A lot of questions. Yeah.
02:45Why does it feel like I, number one, why does it feel like I exist for my husband? Because the way that I hear this hadith is, snap, you do what I want and I don't care what you're doing. You come and do what I as the husband wants.
02:59That's the impression you get, number one. Number two, this hadith is like spiritual blackmail. If you don't do what I want right now, you're going to be cursed all night.
03:11Three, why is intimacy this obligation, like this robotic response that I have to do? What if I'm just exhausted? Yeah. I'm postpartum. Yeah.
03:24I have kids, I'm working, whatever it is. What if I just can't or I'm not interested right now? It's a big one. And I think the fourth big question that comes out of this hadith is, what about my needs?
03:38Like, why is the perspective framed from the man's view where it's like when he wants it, now we have to respond. But what about me? What about when I want it? Does that even matter? Are we even in the equation? Yeah.
03:52So I think these are like really big, important questions that we have to discuss. But it's going like there's so many layered elements to it. It's not just like, okay, how do we understand this? What does it mean about who I am as a woman? What does it mean about what a husband can expect?
04:06And how does that like really affect a relationship? I think most women listening right now are like, the first thing they're thinking about is that it doesn't, in the hadith itself, it doesn't discuss our needs. It just makes him the focal point.
04:19And so it just, that's where the robotic comes from. Because why wouldn't Allah say both? Fulfill both your needs. Make sure you both are happy. Yeah. But that's not what he says.
04:34Let's tackle it as a first question. Are women's sexual needs acknowledged in Islam, right? Because honestly, that's up for debate if all you know is the framing of this hadith.
04:44And I'm happy to reassure you that they, of course, are acknowledged. And again, this is happening as early as the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him. He had this famous story of Salman al-Farisi, the Persian companion who ends up converting to Islam.
04:58He's going to check in on his friend, Abu al-Darda. He's going to his house. He knocks on the door and Umm al-Darda, his wife, answers. And she's clearly in a disheveled state. So he's looking at her and he's like, hey, what's going on?
05:12Like, how, like, there's something off here. Are you okay? Just checking in on her. And she responds essentially that, look, your friend Abu al-Darda has no need for this world. Prays all night.
05:26He fasts all day. Like, he's doing his thing. Salman understood what she was trying to say because like you look at her and it's clear that she's been neglected in the process.
05:35And Salman goes to Abu al-Darda and comes back to him and says, look, your Lord has a right upon you. So your body has a right upon you. Your family also has a right upon you. Like, your wife has rights.
05:47And he's also suggesting that she has sexual intimate rights. And now Abu al-Darda takes Salman al-Farisi. They both go to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and Salman tells him what he told Abu al-Darda.
06:01And the Prophet, peace be upon him, says, like, he affirms what he says. That's correct, right? So this idea that a woman could be neglected because, look, he's doing great things. Masha'Allah. Like praying all night, fasting all day.
06:14That should be the golden standard. Yeah. Should it not? Yeah. No. And there's a correction that we get early on is that no, no. Like there's other ways of worshiping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And one of them is the fact that your wife has a right upon you.
06:28And you have to respect that, right? And we have a couple of examples from the time of 'Umar al-Khattab, which I think are great because they're so explicit and to the point.
06:39You have one famous one where he's now caliph and he's patrolling the streets of Medina at night. And essentially at one point he's passing by a woman's house and he can hear her reciting poetry out loud.
06:51And in these lines of poetry, she's basically talking about how much she misses her husband in a very intimate way. Her husband was out in jihad, right? He was fighting in the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
07:04He was fighting for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And she's complaining about how now he's gone and now I have all of these unfulfilled sexual needs. So 'Umar al-Khattab is shocked like, whoa, clearly there's a problem here, right?
07:18So he goes back to Hafsa, his daughter, and he asks her, how long can a woman last without her husband, right? And Hafsa suggests, you know, probably around six months. Like that's probably the max that most women can handle.
07:32And because of that, 'Umar al-Khattab institutes a policy where now he says the max a man can go for jihad is six months. And it counts for one month of travel there, one month of travel returning.
07:46So because again, this concern for this woman has her needs and she has the right to have them fulfilled. He changed literally the policy around jihad, right?
07:57And these examples are important because you would assume that there's nothing more important in this world than jihad, praying all night or fasting all day. But there's this balance that you see as early as the time of the companions.
08:10And another incident with 'Umar, same thing. Well, similar thing.
08:15A woman comes up to him and she says, in the presence of a tabi'i, Ka'b ibn Sur, she comes up and says, you know, my husband, like, same thing, praying all night, fasting all day.
08:26Like, just listing off all of these incredible deeds her husband's doing. And 'Umar al-Khattab's like, Masha'Allah, like, your husband's so righteous. This is great, fantastic.
08:38And Ka'b ibn Sur, who's standing right there, goes, I think she's saying that she's upset with the fact or that she's complaining about her husband's actions because by doing that, he was neglecting her sexual needs.
08:55And 'Umar al-Khattab's like, whoa, that slipped past me, right? So he looks to Ka'b ibn Sur and says, you adjudicate between her and her husband because clearly you got something I didn't get, right? And so now you have, like, this is the precedent, right?
09:09This is the precedent that's set. You have someone like Ibn Taymiyyah who comes back and says, look, if a woman complains about sexual harm, when Hafsa al-Dunya came back and said six months, she was giving an approximation. Some women it's less.
09:23And you need, like, that number is not a fixed number. It can depend on a culture. It can depend on a relationship. It can depend on a society. The point is that that need is there and it needs to be acknowledged, right?
09:35And so you have these examples from the legacy of the, you know, the companions. But you also have even the example in the Qur'an, the concept of i'la'.
09:44I'la' is this practice that was present at the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that Islam came and regulates it where men would come back and just swear off intimacy, either because they were upset with their wives.
09:59They took an oath. They, whatever it was, for whatever reason, something happened between him and his spouse. And the husband would come back and say, look, I'm not engaging in intimacy with you.
10:13And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Qur'an says, those of you who take these oaths, who swear off intimacy, you get four months and that's all you get. Wow. Because previously it was open ended. They would swear it off and it could be years.
10:27It could be a lifetime. Wow. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala places a limit: four months max, because the assumption is that you're swearing an oath because you need to place distance. It's signaling something, whatever. It's communicating something about your relationship.
10:41Yeah. You got four months max. After that, you have to make a decision. Either you resume relations or you divorce your wife because you cannot keep her in limbo. Yeah. You cannot keep her in a relationship where her needs are not met.
10:54That screams the acknowledgment that women's needs are important. And we see this time and again in terms of how scholars understood this and how, of course, the Prophet, peace be upon him, in the Qur'an also addressed these concerns.
11:07I'm still at the... Woman reciting poetry and making her need public policy. I'm still there. Yeah.
11:18Because if we're coming with this perspective that our needs, our sexual needs are not even considered. Right. Because sometimes conversations do happen. When we look at the hadith, that's what some women are thinking. But for you to lay it out plainly, that was never the case.
11:32That's not how they thought. It really changes our thinking a little bit. But then I have another question. Women go through many things. Postpartum. They might go through stresses. Right.
11:44Intimate acts require two people. And they have to be in that headspace. And this hadith sometimes feels like it's all about women responding. Right. If he wants it, it's right now. But how does that include women's experience?
11:58Sometimes you just can't. You're not feeling well. Is that ignored? Is that considered? What's the story there? Okay. So, look, let's put it in perspective here.
12:11The hadith is obviously communicating that sexual intimacy is a very big deal in marriage. You have another similar hadith. It's not in Bukhari and Muslim. But it's still authentic.
12:23Where the Prophet, peace be upon him, says that if a husband calls his wife to bed, even if she's at the oven, she should respond. Do you burn the house down? No. Do you turn off the oven? Right. Do you burn the house down? No. But it's saying something.
12:37Yeah. It's using strong language to communicate something. This is a big deal, right? So, I don't want to dismiss the importance of intimacy in that case.
12:49But you can have a right in marriage, both a husband and a wife. But you cannot ever abuse your rights.
12:59So, if you're using your rights or invoking your rights in a way that would cause harm to another person, that makes it prohibited. Look, I'll give you an example. There's a concept in Islamic law called darar.
13:13You can have a right. But that doesn't mean you can invoke them in a way that would cause harm. So, let me give you a textbook example because you see this specific principle. You have land. You own the land.
13:27If I'm thinking of my rights solely from the perspective of my right, I can do whatever I want with that land. Do you know what scholars come back and say? Based on this principle and other principles in Islamic law, you can't build a wall that would block sunlight to your neighbor.
13:41You can't build a well that might obstruct their water. You can't do X, Y, Z. It's like HOA laws on steroids, right? There's regulations.
13:51You can't do anything you want on your property just because it's your property. You can come back to me and be like, well, I own the land. I can do whatever. No. You can't do whatever you want. It's a right. It's an important right.
14:04We want to preserve it as much as possible for both husband and wife.
14:07But look, at the end of the day, if you are abusing that right in situations where there is serious exhaustion or busyness or you're grieving, whatever the case is, then that's a point to reevaluate.
14:23What's happening here? Is this just invoking your right or are you taking it to the next level? Yeah. And I like this. This is a really important distinction, right? Because we see in our society many people have authority, right? Mothers have authority over their children. Does that mean that mother can abuse their children?
14:37A boss has authority over their employee. Does that mean he can violate his employee's rights? No, he can't. And so I think what you're trying to say is about ethics, right? These are your rights, but how you practice those rights also are really important.
14:51Because so far what we've been talking about and using the example as a prophetic model, his vision of marriage. And that was a lot different than just reading people's rights, but how it's practiced. Yeah. Absolutely. Exactly. And I think that's the point I'm trying to make.
15:05It's like this idea of an ethical vision, right? It's not about just the letter of the law.
15:09And it's fascinating because you think about how, like, Christianity—well, prior to Christianity, Judaism—how the Jewish community took the letter of the law to one extreme. And the Qur'an criticizes them for that.
15:23You went too far. And then you have the Christian community who now almost lost the letter of the law with compassion and everything is sort of overlooked and forgiven.
15:36That's the other extreme, right? Like, what is Islam except the intention, the middle ground? You have law, but you also have ethics.
15:47And I think this is, again, the fatal mistake that we keep returning to, which is causing so much confusion, is this idea that I'm going to understand my right as my right and now it's suddenly immutable. I can invoke it anytime, at any place.
15:59And I don't care what you're feeling or experiencing. Then you look at the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him, right? The precedent he set, always talking about the importance of foreplay, of being gentle, of tenderness,
16:13and of doing that himself, right, with his wives. And there's one hadith in specific that the Prophet, peace be upon him, says, look, are you going to beat your wife, hit your wife like you beat your riding animal, and then expect to sleep with her that same night?
16:28And that hadith is interesting because Ibn Hajar, again, one of the most famous commentators, comes back and he reads this hadith and he says, what is the Prophet saying here? He explains that, well, cohabitation, right, intimacy is only desirable
16:43when you have a certain mood, you're in a certain mood. Consensual. You have that certain relationship with your spouse. So you want to set the precedent where you're just doing whatever you want and now invoking your right.
16:55The Prophet, peace be upon him, is suggesting here, like, that's not okay, right? That there are ways to approach it. And based on all of the different ways the Prophet, peace be upon him,
17:06communicated the importance of that gentleness, of the foreplay, of the tenderness, you have scholars from the first centuries, who are writing books on adab al-jima', the etiquette of intimacy. And they go into so much detail.
17:20How to approach your spouse with this tenderness and love and this is what you can do to make this desirable and, right? That's the setting, the perspective these scholars are coming with. Not because that's what they thought was appropriate per se,
17:34but because they knew the sayings, the teachings, the legacy of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Do you really think the Prophet, peace be upon him, to help his wives get on a camel, like, literally put his thigh out so they could step on his thigh, like, it's the Prophet of God.
17:49The same Prophet of God who, when his wife would drink from a cup or eat from something, he would literally twist the cup so he could drink from the same place. Like, you know, really, the most thoughtful human being.
18:01Now he's going to come back and you're going to assume based on his Sunnah that that's something that you're like, I don't, frankly, don't care what you feel right now. That's impossible to make that association with the Prophet, peace be upon him, right?
18:13And so, like, the idea that this is, like, your state of mind, your exhaustion, your postpartum, whatever it is, it's something that, like, you sort of just toss out the window
18:26and now, you know, you can expect it at any moment. That is when you take away the law from the ethics. Yeah. And that's not okay. So you can't, it's not possible to understand this hadith
18:40without the ethic and the precedent that the Prophet, peace be upon him, set because that's how scholars understood it as well. I understand that with our rights, it's governed by mercy. And I deeply understand the prophetic vision of marriage
18:54that is built on kindness, love, compassion. I mean, earlier you were saying that a wife has a right to a smiley husband, right? I mean, this is a stark image of, like, what we deserve.
19:05Yeah, when you look at this hadith, oftentimes women are not introduced to this hadith with a smiley husband, I'm going to be real. They're introduced with it as ammunition to get what they want. Yeah.
19:16And we can't skip the fact that the language is also very, it's severe. Yeah, yeah. So how does that play into this? Anyone can abuse anything. Yeah. I can take a lot of hadith and I can use them in a way that works great for my rights
19:31and works great for my pleasure. Mm-hmm. That doesn't make it okay. It will never make it okay, right? So what I want you to do is to separate the negative experience
19:44that is so extremely painful and real, right, with what is the Prophet, peace be upon him, trying to do here, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam? Wa alayhi wa sallam. And look, I know that's extremely hard, especially when it's been used in moments of vulnerability
19:57and it's been used again and again, like the situation, the story that you shared earlier, in ways when your rights are not even being fulfilled and now someone's hanging this over your head. Yeah. It's hard, but let's put that aside for just a second.
20:11Not because it's not real or it's not acknowledged, but because what we're trying to do for this episode is understand what could the Prophet, peace be upon him, have meant by this? How can we understand it? How can we learn from it and grow from it?
20:24So anyone can abuse anything. And this goes back to how the Prophet, peace be upon him, spoke to people, right? And sometimes he's using harsh language, sometimes he's not, right? So I'll give you an example because I think this exclusively happens with hadith on women, right?
20:38And so we don't get to see the balancing act that happens when you actually use, when you look at hadith with severe language directed towards men and think to yourself, oh, the Prophet, peace be upon him,
20:49actually talked to a lot of people like that based on the context, based on the situation, not necessarily because they were men or because they were women, right? This is a hadith.
21:00I want to give you this as an example because I don't know if it gets any more intense than this, right? Like you hear the hadith on, okay, an angel curses, like, whoa, right? There's a hadith, an authentic hadith.
21:12The Prophet, peace be upon him, was so frustrated with the men who were not coming to the masjid to pray in congregation, to pray jama'a with all the other men in the masjid
21:23that he considered having the salah called, appointing someone to lead the salah, and then taking men with him and collecting firewood to burn down the houses of people
21:36who were not praying in the masjid in jama'a. The Prophet, peace be upon him, considered burning your house down because you didn't pray in jama'a, in the masjid? I mean, that's terrifying, right?
21:49You don't see that hadith being used, I mean, maybe I don't. I don't know if this actually happens, right? You hear people over the intercom, like, we will come down, burn your house down, right?
22:02You deserve to all go to hell because, no, right? And women don't know when they're out using that against their husbands. Right, yeah, like, as a woman, do women go to their husbands and threaten them, you better go to Fajr right now or we're going to burn this house down,
22:16or you're like, no, you don't do that, right? So I think that, unfortunately, there's an exclusive pattern when it comes to hadith
22:24that use strong language toward women that is somehow now hung over your head. But that's a you problem, right? It's a real problem.
22:36But that shouldn't dismiss what the Prophet, peace be upon him, was saying in this hadith. And at the same time, that can't be used to belittle someone, to berate someone, to coerce someone.
22:49Like, that's simply not how the Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, set a precedent for us. Can we sit with that for a second? Basically, what you're trying to say is that anybody can weaponize any text to push their agenda. Is that what you're saying? Absolutely.
23:03And we see this today, and not even just in cases of hadith on women. How else do we see people take verses from the Qur'an and justify violence, right? Justify extremism.
23:17You have a mission, you've got an agenda. You're going to use whatever ammo you have to push that agenda. Okay, so that's a real problem. But again, we need to differentiate between the two. And I get it. It's not easy. I know it's not easy.
23:30And so the way I think about this is that when a husband hears this hadith, he should be thinking, based on the prophetic precedent, okay, how is it that I can create an environment, right?
23:44How can I create a space where my wife feels comfortable, where she feels supported, where I can now create that opportunity for tenderness, for love, all of that. And at the same time, a woman should hear this hadith and think,
23:59this is a really big deal. And it's emphasized for a reason. I might be tired, I might be busy, but I should take this seriously in the sense that this is something the Prophet wanted to communicate. There's a message here.
24:12And so maybe I'm thinking to myself, how can I push myself a little more? How can I go the extra mile to be able to engage in something that will also make my husband happy, right? So it's like a mutual sacrifice.
24:26You're mutually thinking about one another. That's what marriage is. Husbands, you want to be able to create that intimate space. And a wife, you want to be able to respond in a way that creates that pleasure and that intimacy.
24:39And I just want to add one point here because I think it's fascinating. Scholars have come back and said, you don't want angels to curse your wife. Remember, you love this woman. I forgot about that part. Right, you forgot about that part. You love this woman.
24:54You don't want that for your wife. And so the hadith in many versions says, and the husband spends the night angry with her. That's when he's upset. He's been rejected, whatever the case is.
25:07That scholars come back and tell men, look, even if that's something you asked for and you didn't get what you wanted, forgive and forget because you don't want that for your wife, right?
25:18So now it's like, okay, now it's a different type of thinking here. Is this like, I have, this is something that like, oh, snap of the finger, I have to just do. And none of my emotional state or anything is taken into consideration. No, we're not. That's not what we're saying.
25:32We're saying that there's an opportunity here for both spouses to think of this as an opportunity to come closer to one another. As an opportunity to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right?
25:45And please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through that act of sacrifice on both ends. Can we zoom out for a moment? I feel like this conversation isn't about intimacy anymore. I think when women read this hadith, there's something that always comes up.
25:58They always say, I feel like this is implying that this hadith is only about men's needs and that we exist only to please them. And so I want to ask you, are we reading this incorrectly?
26:11Look, at this point, we can agree that women's sexual needs matter.
26:21We can agree that emotional difficulty, your mental state of being, is taken into consideration.
26:28Now, the idea there really is still that idea of like, okay, but why is the hadith directed to like framed in a way that feels like your whole purpose is to please your husband, right? Look, but I want to pivot here for a second.
26:42And I think it's important to talk a little bit about the history of marriage, because for most of history, you got married for very practical reasons.
26:52There are pragmatic reasons you married because you needed to survive and you needed financial support or labor support. You married for political ties. You married for social, economic reasons, whatever the case is.
27:04Very rarely are you marrying out of like love or just happiness, right? Fast forward or rewind to maybe now, like 150, 200 years ago at most. The concept of now I'm going to get married, married out of love.
27:19I don't have a strong conception of marriage overall. Right. I'm going to get married out of love. That's a pretty recent phenomenon in the grand scheme of things.
27:31Right. And now fast forward to the 2000s, where you get married, not just out of love, but because your spouse is an opportunity for you to become the best version of yourself.
27:46Right. It's this idea of self-actualization. So something changed in the past century. And now we're thinking we're going into marriage and asking, is this person going to help me become a better person? Is this person going to help me reach my truest self?
28:01And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
28:03But the problem is that when that becomes the ultimate goal and not just a byproduct, a convenient or beautiful thing about marriage, when that's the ultimate goal, when you have to start making sacrifice after sacrifice, it almost feels like it is affecting your potential—that you can be so much more if you didn't have to give up so much of yourself.
28:27And so the point is that. Generally speaking, sacrifice in marriage, when it's redundant.
28:36Kind of feels like it weighs you down here, right, that it holds you back in many situations, and so that idea is technically a relatively recent phenomenon, because, again, if you go back.
28:49A few hundred years ago, that's all you did in marriage—you're constantly giving part of yourself up for whatever it was that you needed out of it.
28:59But that perspective has changed, not necessarily a bad one, but it can affect your relationship if you let it control your marriage. But can I challenge that for a second? What's wrong with wanting to be fulfilled in your marriage in that way?
29:12Look, I can't say it's wrong or right. But what I would say is that. In our society today, the highest moral good, the best thing you can do for yourself is be true to yourself, right? And so.
29:28Now, when we're talking about intimacy. What does being true to yourself look like? Well, if it requires.
29:38Sacrifice or being in a state that I'm not in the mood for, it happens a lot because we're exhausted, right—we're overworked, we're exhausted, we're balancing a lot. Like I'm not saying that's not real, but now we're in these situations.
29:53And if I have to now engage when I'm not there, I don't have that headspace. It feels performative, it feels inauthentic, and it feels like I'm betraying myself.
30:06This is exactly where the reframing has to happen, because if you go down that hole, you will go down deep—really, really quickly.
30:17Because then every act of sacrifice becomes, again, it feels like a burden and it feels like you're just giving up part of yourself. The game changer here is when you look at this and say, look. God is the center of my life.
30:32I do things to please Him. And now when I make sacrifices in marriage, whether I'm male or female, like the gender element is irrespective here. It's not about losing myself. I'm making that sacrifice for Allah.
30:47I'm making that sacrifice, not necessarily for my spouse all the time. Right. Because sometimes when it requires that extra push, there's nothing but God that's getting you through it. Right. Look, at the end of the day.
31:01When you do things for the sake of God, when you have that reframe. It gives you that strength to push through, because look, there's a lot of things that you have to do.
31:15That you might not necessarily enjoy, but fasting is not something I find pleasure in by any means. I like my coffee. I like my chocolate. I like snacking all day. Fasting is very difficult for me.
31:26But I know it's worth it because of what it means to Allah, because I know what my purpose is. Praying Fajr—right now is three in the morning. For me is 11 p.m. I'm dying.
31:40I'm the "get into bed at 8:30 p.m. knock out by 9 p.m." type of person. But I have to push myself. And where do I find that source of strength? Where do I get that energy? Except by knowing like this isn't about me.
31:53This is about a greater purpose. And that purpose is defined by what is pleasing to Allah. Look, my point is that you don't exist to please your husband; you exist to please Allah.
32:06In some ways, to come closer to Allah is through pleasing others, right? Making sacrifices for others—whether that's your husband, whether that's your children, whether that is your community. That is something that we value and appreciate.
32:19And it's through that act of sacrifice, time and again, when you don't want to, right? Sacrifice isn't when it's convenient. At that point, that's not sacrifice.
32:28Sacrifice comes in when it's hard, because that's really how you build a deep relationship—by constantly making those sacrifices for someone greater than yourself.
32:38And that dedication is what builds a greater love between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I think that's a beautiful statement. I think that's even a beneficial statement because it's not about "Why am I serving this human being?"
32:52Instead, it's about "How am I worshiping Allah through the relationships He's entrusted me with?" Right? Then it becomes ibadah. Right? We're willing to compromise.
33:05If it's ibadah, there's no debate. Let's do it, right? Let me make sure that I do ihsan. But I think it's how we're thinking about these relationships, subhanallah, that makes all the difference.
33:18I think an important part of this conversation is that it feels difficult because I think we might sense that women give up a lot more in marriage. You said it, not me.
33:33It's one thing to say, okay, sacrifice is important. I agree with you. Yeah. Giving is important. Doing love, all of this—like doing it all is important. Repurposing yourself for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
33:47That's all important. Why does it always have to come from me as a woman? Right? And, you know, I want to share a hadith of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that I think is really perspective-shaping.
33:58He says, there's a dinar you spend for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in jihad. There's a dinar you spend to free a slave. There's a dinar you spend to donate in charity.
34:10The dinar you spend on your family carries the greatest reward.
34:14And I think, I mean, obviously the beautiful element of it is like, this is beautiful because when you spend on your family, that becomes an act of ibadah, right?
34:26Again, making that sacrifice for your family carries ibadah, that carries an act of worship, of pleasing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. More so than the dinar that you just spent for freeing a slave and going to jihad.
34:41Things that, again, have high value. When you spend it on your family, that's got the greatest reward. There's this perspective-shifting that the Prophet, peace be upon him, offers through this hadith. But I think there's a deeper element to it that we can appreciate.
34:56Because clearly the Prophet, peace be upon him, is trying to motivate men here. Not just men, but men are responsible for spending on their families.
35:08So, I think about the fact that, outside of my bubble or the world's view, we think of work—always we equate work with career, work with love, work with passion, right?
35:25The assumption is that work is a luxury that I get to do to fulfill my dreams, right? But most of the world is working to survive. Most of the world is working to put food on the table.
35:39Like, it's such a privilege for us to come back and have these debates. Should I be a career woman? Should I not work? This and that. Because again, that's assuming that you have the luxury to work or to not work. Or that you get to work in something that you love.
35:53Because most of the world doesn't have that privilege, right? And so, one benefit of this hadith is telling men who work hard labor jobs, who are sweating,
36:04who are grinding to literally put food on the table—by the way, all of that effort is not wasted. Your effort to go put food on the table is great. That reward is greater than the money spent in jihad. It's perspective-shifting.
36:19And it speaks a lot to men about the sacrifices that they have to bring to a relationship. And I say this because again, I think what happens for a lot of us, because we live in such comfort and luxury.
36:34That it always feels like we're giving up more. I'm not saying we don't or we do. That's, put that aside. But I think for most of history, for most communities who don't have the world that we're living in.
36:47A man's responsibility to put food on the table is something that requires enormous effort. And I can imagine if I'm a man living like I have to go work a construction job. Or I have to work something that's physically exhausting every single day.
36:59Because that's my job as a Muslim husband and father. I can only imagine like, I'm putting so much into this. I don't feel like it today. I don't want to today. I'm not in the mood, whatever the case is.
37:12And in this way, like this hadith is kind of perspective-shifting. It's like, no, there's reward in it. And you see the same thing happening when the Prophet ﷺ talks about intimacy.
37:22The same thing happening when the Prophet ﷺ is saying to his companions. You get reward in intimacy. The Companions are shocked, like "We're getting a reward for something we enjoy?"
37:37And the Prophet ﷺ, like, perspective shifts. Well, if you do it in a manner that's haram, that's impermissible, then you get a sin for it. So if you do it in a manner that's permissible, then you get reward for it. And so now it's like this perspective-shifting.
37:52And we need that as women, as a perspective-shift. Because sometimes it's not just about that personal circumstance or that personal situation. It's just a reminder that, look, we center. Where are we going with this?
38:05Okay, this is not something that I am always interested in engaging in. But now we have that motivation, that re-perspective. This is ibadah. This is something that you do for the sake of your spouse, for, more importantly,
38:20the sake of Allah ﷻ. I share this because a lot of times the conversation gets stuck on obligation. Do what you're told. Be robotic and forget your feelings. It's not about your feelings. All of that matters.
38:34Your existence matters. Your purpose matters. Your feelings and your reality matter. Take those into consideration. No one's telling you to burn yourself out. But the point is also we can say that at the same time, acknowledge that you can push yourself.
38:49Your husband can push himself too, right? We can both push ourselves. And if anyone married knows, it's not going to be 50-50. So sometimes you give more. Sometimes you get more, right? And so it's that sort of give and take that, like,
39:03can I take a hadith like this and think of it as something that I can work on? Something that can make my marriage better? And just really having why, what's the point of it all? Having that re-perspective, that grounding. It's not even about you.
39:17It's not about your husband or about you. It's about something else. Knowing all of this now, let's go back to the original hadith. What do the scholars say this hadith actually means?
39:30So let's understand this hadith at face value, based on how scholars of the past have understood this hadith. Let's take a look at what Ibn Hajar,
39:43a huge prominent hadith commentator and scholar, comes back and says, this hadith is referring to a woman who is withholding intimacy without a valid reason. Meaning what? She's doing it out of spite.
39:58There's intentionality behind it. That's extremely important. Not because you're exhausted, not because you're grieving the death of a family member, not because fill in the blank.
40:14In many ways, you're weaponizing intimacy. You're doing it out of spite. You're doing it for a reason. Yeah. Right? And what I find fascinating is that you have al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra, another hadith commentator.
40:30He comes back and says that, essentially, if you withhold a right in marriage, bodily, meaning like sexually, or amaliyyan, meaning financially,
40:44both of those incur the displeasure of Allah. And this is fascinating because what is he doing here? He's saying, look, if a woman does that, or if even a man does it, he actually doesn't say men or women.
40:57If you are holding intimacy from your spouse out of spite, or if you're a man holding finances out of spite, you didn't do what I wanted you to do. I'm not paying your bills.
41:11You're not getting groceries this week. You're not, right? If a man were to do that, he's like, look, at the end of the day, that you're going to get Allah's displeasure as well. And he makes an important connection here because at the end of the day,
41:24this emphasis might seem like it's one directional, but these scholars are understanding this to be bi-directional. Anyone who does that, you come into marriage and you're withholding someone's right. You're hanging that over their head.
41:38You think you're off the hook? Of course not, right? So really the way that you can understand this hadith, given all of this context we've given, that context is important, is acknowledging, again, your situation, your personal situation,
41:53but maybe thinking about it with just more intentionality that Islam and marriages hold sexual intimacy to be a very central component of a relationship.
42:08I'm going to take that seriously and I'm going to put effort in, just like I expect my husband to put effort in, whether it's with intimacy or with any other right that I expect in marriage, right? And so the way I see it is that sexual responsiveness
42:23sometimes requires putting some distance between how you feel in the here and now and your engagements in that relationship. And I understand that it's extremely difficult, right?
42:37Because we're painted this picture that intimacy always has to be fiery, it has to be passionate, it has to be this Hollywood experience, right? And you engaging in something for the sake of your husband
42:51or for the sake of the greater good or whatever, intimacy or not, that feels, and I understand that it's hard. You don't do it to burn yourself out, you don't do it to a mental breaking point, but maybe this is an opportunity for you
43:06to consider one step closer to pushing yourself in a way that strengthens your relationship. So practically speaking, how does this play out in a marriage?
43:20Okay, number one, I want to emphasize that every couple is going to be different. Don't assume a different standard for your situation and compare yourself to others. Because frankly, it doesn't matter what others are doing and how others conduct their relationship.
43:36You need to know your limits, you need to know your expectations, and of course, your spouse's expectations. It reminds me of this case that I read, it was one of the funniest cases that I read in the Nawazil literature, right?
43:48The case studies that are brought forth in front of muftis and judges. And in one case, a woman goes up to the judge and says, look, I can't handle it. He's asking for too much intimacy. This is more than I can handle. And then the judge goes on to rule,
44:03like to assess your situation and comes back and sets a limit for the husband, right? You can only ask for this amount every single day. And that amount is irrelevant for us right now because the point of this example
44:18is that everyone's going to have a limit. Everyone can only tolerate so much. You need to know what that looks like for you. You need to know what that looks like for your spouse. And look, this is, I think, the importance of marital counseling,
44:32premarital counseling, right? The idea that you constantly have this open communication with your spouse, that's part of the healthy marriage, right? So look, I think the reality is that every couple is going to look different. And in your situation,
44:47if it's something that you are unable to tolerate, that might be something that you need to consider in terms of if you want to continue or move forward with it. Because if you feel like now you are not fulfilling your spouse's rights
44:59or this is causing other problems in your marriage, look, this doesn't mean you have to continue a relationship that is not working for you, right? Think of the example that we had earlier, the wife of Thabit bin Qais.
45:14I hate/I dislike you. At that point, she reached a point where she tells the Prophet, peace be upon him, look, I can't do this. I fear that I'm going to be ungrateful, right? Same goes in your situation. If this is just something that is not working out for you,
45:28that doesn't make you a bad human being. That doesn't make you a bad spouse. That means you need to reevaluate your situation and look at different options moving forward. So I really hope it's clear that I'm not trying to imply any experience of harm,
45:41coercion, forcing yourself to do something that you simply cannot do. But I really want to just end on this note, even if it's redundant, two things can be true at the same time. We can encourage women,
45:55and sometimes this might apply to men, right? We can encourage spouses to approach intimacy as an act of sacrifice, but also as an act of love. And we can also encourage men and sometimes women to have that emotional maturity,
46:09to be able to create a space, to create a relationship where your spouse, your wife can feel vulnerable and safe and is comforted and all of that. Those two can both be said at the same time.
46:23And I think what this hadith is reminding us is that it's talking about specific circumstances, that it's being done out of spite. And for many women, that might not be the case. For many women, in fact, that's not the case.
46:35So it really is this delicate balancing act, but ultimately it's a reminder of the significance and importance of intimacy in a marriage. Because at the end of the day, the purpose of marriage is to protect one another with husband and wife,
46:51and to use it as an opportunity to enter Jannah, as an opportunity to please Allah, Subhana Wa Ta'ala. So we always have to have that deeper framing in mind to get us through the difficult moments that will eventually insha'Allah land us in the happiest of moments. Alhamdulillah.
47:05I think the distinction between rights and ethics is really important, right? The idea of the rules, and then how it's actually practiced, and following the prophetic vision of marriage. And that looks a lot like compassion, love, and tranquility.
47:21And so, yeah, that makes sense. That makes absolute sense. And I hope that whoever's listening realizes that there is a choice here, and that marriage is 'ibadah, which I think we're forgetting a lot of the time. Because we do think,
47:34oh, I pick this person, we love each other, here we are. There's a deeper meaning to that relationship. So I hope that everyone is safeguarding it. Ameen, ameen.
47:43As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
