A Stronger Family Unit - 4 Tips from Islam

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) frequently talked about the family unit function as tell-tale basis of a flourishing community.

The Prophet was always kind to his Family, He joked frequently with them, spent recreational time together and constantly counseled them to enjoin good and ward off bad.

He informed them frequently that he cared for them very much and Loved them dearly, invoking Allah to bless his household as far as Allah had blessed him.

He often bought presents for them, was only in distributing Gifts, and also seen relatives of his dead wife, Khadijah, (Source: Happy Muslim Family) suggesting that he kept good relations with her loved ones and friends even after her departure.

Muslims tend to be reminded that relatives Are just one of the numerous blessings that people are encouraged and permitted to relish on Earth, demonstrating the significance of good family connections as a glimpse of paradise. Actually, it's said that a loving house is like paradise on Earth.

Nonetheless, in today's modern society, together with time limitations And anxiety, among other obstacles, fantastic family relations have a tendency to fall apart, leaving the Muslim household in shambles and the barriers to building a solid nation even harder than previously.

Many contemporary families consist of Two working parents, leaving hardly any time for your household to recuperate from extended hours apart from each other -- not just for the interest of the kids, but also for the individual parents themselves.

Sometimes, households are split geographically, with Children working or studying overseas, based on the conditions. This may lead to family connections to become even more strained and great household relationships difficult to attain.

Create an Attempt to Spend Quality Time as a Family

For active families Which Are often aside for long hours of this Afternoon, making an excess effort to spend quality time together is crucial.

Ideally, this should be done every day, particularly if kids Remain young and live together and rely on their parents to get appreciation, praise and also a feeling of belonging.

Enjoying dinner together is a simple way to spend quality Family time, bearing in mind that parents should eliminate their stress and anxieties and other negative emotions prior to the dining table session whilst conveying to their kids. This also demonstrates that they love the existence of the kids following a hectic day on the job.

Reading positive stories is a Great way to reinforce family relations. If a part of the household is facing a issue, if at college or in work, then it may also be shared.

A golden rule is that everybody positively pitches in with Constructive options to help solve the challenge. This makes family time a "secure" time, giving a safe place for household members to voice their issues, knowing that they are inside a circle of service.

Obviously if you're pressing problems at hand, It's Important for relatives to be more clear with one another so as to construct confidence and respect.

If supper time Isn't the Most Suitable time to talk about Such things, then relatives shouldn't be scared to ask for a few silent, jointly time to go over these problems. Other members of this household should hold this petition with honor and respect the time spent to help solve any difficulties.

This Kind of quality time slots help strengthen household Bonds, and construct a solid focus on the house as a secure environment, filled with confidence and esteem. A powerful family is one which conveys well, doesn't judge, or make assumptions concerning the well-being of their other household members.

Spend Time Engaging in Activities of Interests

Folks tend to be happier when they Can be engaged in Actions that spur their own interest. So long as these actions don't contradict Islam, relatives must come across actions of mutual interests to cultivate a solid relationship with one another.

This invitation may and should also involve other family Members, like grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. In this manner, folks have the ability to appreciate what they do best, in the business of people who care for them the most.

Tasks can vary from attending religious classes, Engaging in charity conducts, doing volunteer work, library visits, appreciating sporting events.... The list is infinite, and as long as there is mutual respect and attention, these kinds of rendezvous can greatly strengthen the understanding between household members and act as powerful mutual grounds to get a strong family unit.

Making structures for social gatherings is just another way to strengthen family ties. When it's a weekly get-together in the park or a monthly barbecue it's a fantastic way to meet up with family members and catch up with each other; and also allows people to release tension and recount the main blessings which God has bestowed upon them.

Use Technology to Your Advantage

For households who are split geographically, Facebook, Skype, email and blogs are only a couple strategies to stay in touch -- this kind of communication is easy, borderless and user friendly. It's likewise not time consuming in any way.

There are advantages and disadvantages of utilizing technologies, But in the case, the good outweighs the bad, and also long distance family members are going to have the ability to stay in touch and current with all the happenings of the nearest and dearest throughout the world.

Remember, however, some programs are found publicly, Also it's still very important to respect privacy between relatives. Therefore, it pays to be cautious when using specific software to stay in touch. In spite of a geographical separation, it's very important to keep mutual respect and confidence between relatives.

Evidently, not everyone is privy to these technological Improvements, and in this circumstance, there's nothing like rekindling conventional values via conventional way of communicating like letter-writing, and needless to say, organizing scheduled visits manner beforehand.

Strengthen Your Relationship with God

Occasionally family relationships can become strained because of Disagreements, misunderstandings or disagreements. It's very important to solve these difficulties.

The very first step would be to turn to God for advice. If someone Continuously submits to God and invokes His mercy, he or she'll have her or his heart full of mercy, peace and patience in handling issues -- even household issues.

The next step is to forgive, apologize and proceed. Anger, Jealousy and standard misunderstanding don't come from great sources; hence it's useless to construct a relationship based on these acts. In the worse type of guilt, Muslims have to peruse a certain degree of civility between one another, particularly with relatives, and to keep mutual respect for one another, however different remarks are.

God will help alleviate this, And, like a family, It's even Better to find God's forgiveness and advice jointly.

Praying together and for each other, or doing good Deeds collectively is a fantastic approach to constantly strengthen one's connection with his god, which will finally have bountiful spill-over impacts upon the device of such a individual's family.

Family unity reflects the basis of a flourishing Muslim community. Muslims have to focus on building healthy relatives inside their single apparatus, extending the exact same for their bigger web of household members; this, subsequently, solidifies the grounds of the country and its potential.

Maintaining good business, including supportive relatives is Only one of the numerous subjective blessings that God has bestowed upon believers, And the ideal way to show gratitude would be love and cherish the very same folks in the Same household unit.

How to Choose your Wife? [4 Criteria given by Islam]

Marriage is no longer a coveted milestone in life for many modern-day young adults, the way acquiring a career or purchasing a home is.

Marriage is fast becoming an ‘optional’ choice for a myriad of reasons, one of the main ones being the reluctance to take on responsibility and give up personal independence and the ‘perks’ associated with having a high-flying, solo lifestyle.

Nevertheless, whenever a man does decide to get married, he always has a vision in mind regarding his future as a result of this conscious choice. Seldom is marriage an act of charity on his behalf, i.e. men do not marry in order to just provide for, protect, and take care of their future family; rather, they get married because they also want something out of this union.

It wouldn’t be a lie to say that most men, if not all, desire to fulfill their sexual desires through marriage. They want to start having legal sexual relations on a regular basis, and most get married primarily for this purpose, i.e. when they can no longer take living as a happy-go-lucky, carefree, no-strings-attached single any more.

Secondly, most men desire to continue their family bloodline through marriage i.e. by having children. Even the most die-hard bachelor types eventually give in to their growing desire to have an heir after they die, especially once they start ‘turning gray’.

Thirdly, and this is perhaps the most poignant reason most men (as well as women) want to marry: they are lonely, and do not want to end up alone, especially when they start getting old and/or their parents die. They want someone to come home to; to be by their side when the going gets tough, and even when the good times are rolling.

Marriage forms the foundation of any family. Every other blood relationship is a result of marriage.

I Want a Wife.. Now, Which One to Choose?

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) gave some very sound advice to the men in his ummah (nation) about what to look for, and give priority to, when seeking a woman for marriage.

In a narration, he stated that a woman is married for four things:

1. Her wealth,

2. Her family status,

3. Her beauty, and

4. Her religion.

Sometimes, it really amazes me how timeless the wisdom found in hadiths is. Even though Prophet Muhammad shared these wise words 14 centuries ago, what he said still holds absolutely true today.

We can now look at each of the four criteria he mentioned one by one.

The Heiress

Marrying a wealthy woman, or rather, marrying into a wealthy family, brings with it many social and financial advantages. It results in an automatic and immediate social-class upgrade, and opens the doors to a completely new lifestyle for a man. That is why heiresses to massive fortunes, and the single daughters of wealthy businessmen, tycoons, and industrialists, have no dearth of marriage proposals.

While it is true that a wealthy woman often has a penchant for putting on airs and graces, but with the incessant support of her financially sound clan behind her, there is bound to be no dearth of material comforts for herself as well as her husband and children, once the marriage has taken place.

Therefore, a man who marries a woman for her wealth can sit back and relax about never having to worry about, or struggle too hard for, providing for the basic (and not-so-basic) needs of his wife and children. Instead, he stands to gain more through this marriage in terms of an upgrade of his lifestyle and standard of living.

And that is why the first reason mentioned by the Prophet, for which a women is married by a man, is her wealth.

The Noble Woman

The second reason for which the Prophet mentioned that a woman is married is her lineage or family background (“hasab” in Arabic). It is true that Allah has favored some human beings over others as far as blood line and family nobility is concerned.

It was not just in centuries-old Arabia, but it so happens in every other country of the world, that nobility and royalty is held in higher esteem and regard than the so-called ‘lower’ races. And whilst Islam abolished slavery and equalized all races and ethnicities before Allah, marrying into nobility or “blue blood” is still considered a privilege by most.

A man who marries into a noble family, even if they are no longer wealthy, stands to gain more honor, prestige and respect from society after marriage. He will become related to, and will be able to mingle socially with, people of noble descent: the bloodline descendants of those who achieved worldly, scholarly, royal, or aristocratic greatness.

For example, in the modern day, this scenario can be envisaged by imagining someone marrying a woman who hails from the direct line of descendants of Prophet Muhammad himself. No words are further needed to describe the supremeness of this honor.

The hand of a woman who belongs to a noble and high-class family has a higher value than the one who descends from e.g. a slave tribe, or who was a product of rape or adultery, with the identity of her father unknown.

The Beauty

The third reason for which men seek the hand of a particular woman – and this one is the easiest to understand – is her physical beauty. Men traditionally attach a very high value to physical attractiveness when it comes to choosing the woman they will conjugate with, and who will give birth to their children, for obvious reasons.

In fact, I think that most men today place a higher value on their future’s wife physical beauty, than even upon the other factors mentioned in the above hadith, because of the increasingly superficial, apparent nature of all worldly affairs and relationships today.

In a world that places immense importance upon an individual’s life being outwardly “picture perfect”, on the appeal of “eye candy”, with wedding photos being broadcasted to thousands of viewers in real time with a single tap on a screen, the looks of the woman who will be draped on your arm for the rest of your life carry more worth than even her personal wealth (a.k.a “net worth”) or her family’s social class/status.

The Devout Muslimah

Last but not the least, the fourth reason that Prophet Muhammad mentioned for a woman being sought in marriage, is her Deen or religious commitment. He mentioned it in the end, but empathetically urged all Muslim men to choose their wives for this reason first.

The question remains: why would any man in his right mind give the greatest importance to the faith and religiosity of his future wife?

I mean, wouldn’t he be crazy to do that, knowing that religious women observe much stricter moral standards of actions and behavior, and place many more restrictions upon themselves and their families than the comparatively more easygoing, ‘flexible’ women who have looser morals?

And what man in his right mind would want to be seen with a black burlap-sack in public?

Contrary to popular belief and what is apparent to the naked eye, the religiously-inclined and committed wife is a joy for her husband to be around. I think that the Prophet’s own words should be enough for Muslim men to “hear and obey” them, without requiring explanations and justifications about the “how” and “why”.

That being said, a Muslim man should choose the religious woman when searching for his wife because she will ensure his and their (future) children’s well-being in the Akhirah (Hereafter). She will not give priority to this world at the expense of their Deen, either at a collective or an individual level in their family.

The beautiful and wealthy wives might lose their beauty and wealth, over time or by accident, so the purpose for which they were married will be gone, and this might make the marriage lose its blessings.

The noble woman’s family status might be of temporary benefit only in this world, but it could prove to be a bane if her relatives are debauched and morally corrupt, no matter how blue their blood is.

But the religious wife will always guard her Deen and that of her family with every ounce of will that she possesses. She will take a stand for what is morally right and good, and will push (a.k.a “manipulate”) her husband to do the same. She will refuse to obey him in matters that are haram (impermissible), in effect forcing him to act according to what Islam says, even if he doesn’t initially want to.

Last but not least, she will raise their children upon the Deen as well, leading to ultimate and eternal success for them both in the Akhirah, allowing them to earn good deeds in their graves even after they are dead and gone. There can be no better investment for his eternal future abode than to have such a wife.