This is our summary of an article first published by The Muslim Vibe (written by Maryam Bashir). Read the full piece on their site.
Read on The Muslim VibeIt asks searching singles and parents to reconsider what they are really looking for, and offers ideas for better preparing young people for marriage.
Key takeaways
- Ask yourself what the purpose of your marriage is beyond comfort and companionship.
- Put faith and character ahead of wealth, looks and status when assessing a prospective spouse.
- Limit exposure to social media content that fuels unrealistic or materialistic expectations.
- Choose someone whose values you would want to pass on to your children.
- Ask about a prospective spouse's understanding of marriage, its rights and its purpose.
What the article says
Maryam Bashir argues that marriage has become one of the hardest issues facing Muslims today. She links rising instability partly to media and social media, which she believes have shifted young people's attention toward worldly desires and reduced marriage to custom or material satisfaction. For her, marriage is a Sunnah and therefore part of faith, and like any act of worship it needs a purpose to give it life. A couple can be content together and still lack that deeper aim, which she identifies as seeking Allah's pleasure together.
“Without purpose, a marriage becomes a soulless relationship standing on tradition—like worship devoid of love—even if both individuals are living together happily.”
Maryam Bashir
She criticises the shift from choosing a spouse for religion and character toward wealth and appearance, citing the well-known hadith on the four reasons people marry and the Qur'anic instruction to lower the gaze, which she applies to social media habits as well. She also argues that marriage has its own rights, including raising children who love the faith, so spouses should share values and a vision for parenting.
As a practical step, she proposes structured pre-marital education from a young age, real-life case studies, and fuller ways of assessing prospective spouses, including questions about their understanding of belief, spousal rights and the purpose of marriage, and even values-based personality assessments, rather than relying on long online conversations.
Why it matters for Muslim marriages
This essay echoes something we hear often from parents: a worry that the search has become about appearances and status. Its call to put faith and character first, and to think about the kind of home and children you hope for, fits the heart of how we approach matchmaking. We would add gentleness: no one is a finished project, and good intentions grow within a marriage. Still, asking a prospective spouse what they hope marriage will mean for their deen is a conversation worth having early.
Originally published by The Muslim Vibe. Summary and reflections by the BeyondChai team.
