Muslim Money Talk
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Muslim Money Talk
Marriage Finance Expert: Mehrs, Prenups, Second Wives & More! | Ep 48 - Khizar Muhammad
In this episode of Muslim Money Talk, Areeb Siddiqui speaks with Khizar Muhammad, a Shariah scholar and Islamic finance professional, about the often-overlooked intersection of money and marriage in Muslim communities. They explore topics such as mahr (dowry), prenups, financial expectations, marital communication, and societal shifts that are reshaping how Muslim couples approach marriage today.
This podcast is hosted by Areeb Siddiqui, the founder and CEO of Kestrl, the app that helps people to grow their wealth without compromise
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Show Notes:
00:00 - Trailer
02:40 - Eid weddings & reflections on the marriage industry
04:13 - Khizar’s public speaking nerves and nikah khutbah advice
05:34 - Core purpose of marriage in Islam
07:21 - Decline in societal trust and rise of adversarial prenups
10:47 -Khizar's Personal Journey to Islamic Studies
18:34 - Communication Issues in Marital Finances
29:28 - Understanding Mahar as a Gift, Not Failsafe
39:25 - Prenups and Marriage Contract Conditions
46:30 - Financial Rights and Responsibilities in Islam
53:10 - Lessons from Afghanistan and Beyond
01:07:25 - Closing Thoughts and Farewells
Crazy divorces and abuse situations and secret second wives and all of these kind of horror stories. So women are like I need a bail safe.
Speaker 2:In your opinion, what are the biggest mistakes Muslims make when it comes to money and marriage?
Speaker 1:I think a common one that's coming up nowadays is about mortgages and home ownership. One person might say I want to rent forever because I don't believe these Islamic finance products are halal and I don't want to go for the riba option either.
Speaker 2:The right amount for today was the market rate.
Speaker 1:Think of it as a wedding present that you're getting from your husband. So if he can afford to get you a G-Wagon or a five-star trip to Bali or the Bahamas or whatever, and that's what you want be my guest.
Speaker 2:What's your take on prenups? Are they appropriate or not?
Speaker 1:be my guest. What's your take on on prenups? Are they appropriate or not?
Speaker 2:I think, logically speaking, if I was to take all of the emotion outside of it, I think it makes absolute sense there was this phrase that emerged a few years ago that your money is your money and his money is your money as well. Is there any basis to that?
Speaker 1:the short answer to that is no, but there's a caveat today's episode I'm joined by Khidr Muhammad.
Speaker 2:He's head of lead generation over at Nesta, which is a Sharia compliant peer-to-peer property financing platform, and he used to be the community lead over at Islamic Finance Guru. He was also a trained scholar, a khatib, and have assumed by local imam, so he's going to bring a very interesting lens to this topic that we're going to discuss today, which is all about Muslims, money and marriages. It's quite a fiery topic today, so we're going to be talking about everything that people should and often don't, consider before they take that leap and actually sign the Nikah contract Prenups, mehers, what are the rights of a man and what are the rights of a woman? We're going to get into all of that today. So, as always, I'm your host, arif Siddiqui, and this is Muslim Money Talk.
Speaker 2:Before we begin, we actually noticed only about 10% of you are subscribed to the podcast. So if you like what you're listening to and you want to hear more from us and see more things Muslim and money related, then please consider subscribing and, of course, leaving this episode a like and share it with your friends, leave us a comment or a review, because it really really does help us out and help more people to find us, thank you. Now back to the show.
Speaker 1:Okay then, assalamu alaikum and thank you. Now back to the show.
Speaker 2:Lots to do this weekend nice, okay and um, how was that overall very busy. Do many people get married on eid?
Speaker 1:so they didn't get married on eid day, it was two days after eid, but what that means is there's a lot of running around before eid day. After eid day, there's a lot of talk of the marriage on eid day, so it makes for an exciting weekend. Did you? Did you actually like do the nikah yourself? So I knew them quite well, but it was nice. You know, weddings are very happy occasions. Marriages in general. People are very excited about them. They say three of the best areas of business to go into and this is a side tangent, but it relates to this is three of the best areas to go into business is marriages, births ie new babies coming into the world and funerals, because these are, these are times of high emotion and people love to spend and love to be fully invested in these moments wow, I've not heard that before, but that does make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Okay, and it's very topical for what we're we're discussing today. Definitely, we've had um. I've always wanted this. We had imam shah on from the nico company and he's conducted hundreds and hundreds of marriages. Do you ever get a bit nervous when you're actually performing that?
Speaker 1:I think my years of being a khatib have really kind of maybe desensitized the nerves a little bit. But I always find the dua of Musa alayhi salam very comforting and I always make an effort to recite it before I'm ever going to do anything, any kind of public speaking, and what I find is that I don't know what it is Maybe it's the barakah from that dua, but it instantly kind of settles my nerves a little bit and I understand. The nikah is a big day for a lot of people and two moments that tend to be fairly focused upon within the nikah or a wedding in general is either the khutbah of the nikah, because that's one time in the whole ceremony where everyone quietens down and listens to one person, or it's the food.
Speaker 1:So those are the two things that everyone going to the wedding will kind of be more conscious of and everyone's waiting for one to finish so I try, I try to keep it short, keep it sweet, keep it to the point um, and really keep it as general as I can so that it's not just a kind of reminder to the new couple, but it's a reminder to all those people that are sitting there, anyone that's soon going to get married in the future, people that have even been married for years or decades. You know that advice is always in handy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, and I mean I've seen some couples which are less than amazing sometimes, but often it's like, well, you shouldn't be spending too much on on the wedding. When it's clear that the couple has spent too much on the wedding and it's like there's nothing they can do about it now. So it feels almost like they're getting a telling off. What stuff do you like to talk about?
Speaker 1:I think I always like to bring it back to the purpose of marriage that Allah talks about in the Quran, which is for us to find Sakina, Mawadda and Rahma within our marriages. That you know, human beings are not made to be isolated and single Like, I mean, Adam. He had Jannah with him when he was created. He was in the gardens of paradise, he was enjoying himself, but that emptiness he felt, who did Allah send him when he felt lonely? Allah didn't give him parents. He didn't give him lonely. Allah didn't give him parents. He didn't give him children. He didn't give him siblings. He gave him a spouse Because, naturally, human beings seek companionship At least the vast majority of human beings do and so every one of us has a desire.
Speaker 1:I'd say, most generally, 95% of people have a desire to get married and find that person and find that companionship. And so I think that you know I like to bring it back to that point that this is what marriage is all about. It's about respect, forgiveness, finding tranquility within each other, and I think sometimes in the hubbub of life we kind of lose that.
Speaker 2:We do, and sometimes you can feel very adversarial, especially when people start breaking down the Nikon contract into the very contractual elements of it People wanting to change things or negotiating major amounts. You can forget about that beautiful reminder that you just gave us as well.
Speaker 1:And I think there's a good reason for why people are so adversarial and I do think it comes down to a lack of trust in society today. I think that in our parents' time, or maybe grandparents' time, things were a lot more kind of black and white. They lived in their villages or they lived in their cities or areas, or they lived in their cities or areas generally. Their whole generations kind of stayed in one location. Everyone knew everyone. So there was greater trust in society. You kind of knew the neighbors, kids. You kind of knew everyone. So when intermarriages would happen between the neighbors or people, you generally knew who was who. Everyone knew.
Speaker 1:Okay, this kid's the bad kid, or that girl, she's not suitable for marriage. Or this guy, he's a bum and he's not working and he doesn't do this or contribute. So everyone kind of knew that. Okay, if I marry my daughter to this person, he comes from an honorable family, he's from a good family. I'm sure there's still skeletons in the closet and stuff, but there was trust. There's still skeletons in the closet and stuff, but there was trust. But now, with the age of social media, we've got, you know, a thousand and one horror stories online and they'd all the happy marriages are kind of drowned out by these loud stories that are online and that creates this distrust in society, where women are like I don't want to be abused, so I need a big mahar, or I need financial security, or I need this or I need that yeah, you get echo chambers forming online exactly even muslim men going towards this red pill movement 100 and then you've got muslim women just hating on muslim men, or specifically pakistani men or somalia, whoever they might be.
Speaker 1:It's both ways. Yeah, absolutely. Even with men. You'll have that distrust of women that, oh, she'll divorce me after a few years and take the house that I've built and take this and I'll be on the streets. And because both genders are now distrusting each other, all of a sudden they're becoming more picky or they're making their marriage requirements harder, and that leads to a circular problem of making it harder to get married.
Speaker 2:Gosh. Okay, I really want to dive into that, but before we do, let's rewind a little bit and let's talk about you and your origins. You are a Sharia scholar, Mashallah. You work in the Islamic finance industry. You also have experience dealing with family matters as well, just as your local imam as my local imam as well, I've never had someone who's delivered my Friday prayers, friday jumla, just here.
Speaker 2:It's very interesting, very cool. So I want to ask you is this what you imagined you'd be doing as a child? Was anyone in your family a scholar before you is? Was that always the plan?
Speaker 1:um, far from it, actually. So my um, my family, are very traditional pakistanis. So in the sense, like you know, they're from the cities they were. I don't like to use the word modern, but I think it's probably the closest I can get to what an accurate description was. I mean, it was the kind of sense that you know, islam is part of our culture. It was very much looked at as a cultural um element within our lives, like we would pray when we could, um, we would fast ramadan and we would give sadaqah and, if we can, go for hajj, and that was kind of the extent to which islam was incorporated into our lives, at least while we were growing up. And you know that's how my parents learned it, and from my grandparents and so on and so forth. That's just where they came from, um, and it kind of I so therefore kind of grew up, I guess kind of very fairly liberal, I'd say like we were practicing mus Muslims, like we would pray when we could, but like in terms of anything deeper than just the five prayers, or if we even prayed five times a day, it might be two or three times a day. At that point we would just kind of not really consider Islam as a big thing outside of that.
Speaker 1:But then what really happened was that when I went to sixth form, I saw a lot of my uh friends they were kind of a lot of my non-muslim friends were engaging in things that I was explicitly told I cannot engage in. So they might go drinking, they might go clubbing and partying. And when I was told that, okay, I can't do that, I understood that, okay, it's for religious reasons. But then I thought to myself, do I really like am, do I really believe this or am I just kind of like here? If so, if I believe in it, then why am I not more committed to it? Because I knew for a fact that I wasn't praying all my prayers, I wasn't doing all the things that I should be doing as a Muslim. But I was like, if I don't believe in this stuff, then why am I holding myself back from enjoying my life? And that kind of led me to this journey where I was like, okay, I need to understand the Quran first because, like, how do I know this religion is true? And then I had a non-Muslim friend of mine say to me that, well, why are you looking at Islam? Only then, because you're born in a Muslim family. So really you should look at all the religions and and see which one is true, because maybe you're very being very biased and I was like that's valid.
Speaker 1:So I kind of went systematically, I kind of created this criteria in my head I think I was probably 17, 18 at the time and I was like, okay, if it's, if there is a religion from god or gods now there would be it would have to be a universal religion that applied to all human beings, because I couldn't see a religion being specific to one person or one race or one people.
Speaker 1:It would have to be a religion that was there from the beginning. It can't have just shown up, you know, in the last millennia or something, because for me that would show that God forgot about all the humans before that. It would have to be logically consistent, like it couldn't not make sense. And I had a bunch of criterias like that and as I looked into it I just kind of came to I narrowed it down from the world religions, because one of the other criteria was that it had to have at least spread throughout the world, because that would mean that some people didn't get the message. So it kind of narrowed it down to the big religions. But then when you kind of put all the other filters on, like being logically consistent, it knocked out a few religions.
Speaker 2:You know, being there from the beginning of time, again knocked out a few religions and when people say, oh well, islam's only been around here for 1400 years, I think the easy pushback to that is well, the message has always been the same yeah, one god exactly that's the one thing that every single prophet in the abrahamic tradition has always pushed the singular message that there is only one God.
Speaker 1:And I think that's exactly why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in the Quran, constantly references us to Adam alayhi salam and all the prophets throughout, to show that, no, this is what Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is bringing to the Arabs at the time is not something new. This has been here forever. It's just that you guys, you humans, have kept on missing the message and losing it and corrupting it.
Speaker 2:So here's a final revelation to kind of set it straight, set the record straight for you so what a powerful journey that you went on at the age of 18 and that did you start your studies. Then what happened?
Speaker 1:yes, exactly so once I kind of came to the conclusion that, okay, only islam is the viable truth, that that's when I was like, okay, I need to understand this religion because I would have. I would watch a lot of talks online and I would see lots of different opinions by scholars and I would be like he's contradicting what he's saying. He's saying what he's saying and it was confusing to me and I'm even at that young age. I like to read a lot and I like to think for myself. I was very critical thinking. I enjoyed critical thinking, so I kind of was like, okay, I need to study this for myself, because I'm not. I don't understand what, why these people? Why so many scholars are differing on these different things.
Speaker 1:So then I started reading the Quran myself and then, coincidentally, my local imam started an Arabic course and then I joined the Arabic course and I spent a lot of time with him. I started learning the basics of Arabic from there. He kind of referred me on to As-Salam Institute where I started studying over 10 years with Sheikh Muhammad Akram Nadwi and he mashallah, he was such an amazing scholar that all the thoughts that were in my mind he was able to lay them out very clearly for me and help me understand the religion to a degree where I was able to be more, a lot more comfortable in my beliefs and be able to separate what was cultural and what was just the ijtihad or the kind of judgments of the scholars, versus what was actually established by the religion and the dean itself, and that that really helped me in my journey, and once I got a taste of that I just couldn't stop, so I just had to keep on studying more wow, how did your family react?
Speaker 1:in the beginning, I think my, my dad was very supportive. He was very happy that I was going on this journey. My mom was more apprehensive but from a career's perspective, she was thinking, okay, like how is the corporate world going to view your long beard and you going off to pray at certain times? I'm bearing in mind this is like 10, 15 years ago, I think there's um about 10 years ago. Sorry, there was a lot more, um a lot less kind of inclusion of muslims in the world inclusion the big muslim societies exactly weren't really there, weren't as strong exactly so my mom was kind of worried from that point of view.
Speaker 1:Of course she saw it as a good thing, but she was just kind of like, you know, you should be a bit careful.
Speaker 1:Of course we're still looking at um, a time where there was there was racism.
Speaker 1:I mean that it's there, still is, but people back then, I think, were a lot more forthcoming. Um, and you know you had all this stuff with isis going on and all of that. So you had worries from family members outside of my immediate family that were kind of like he's getting radicalized, because you had these stories coming up with people going to x countries and committing x atrocities and then my family members were like worried that was going to be me. So and I don't think that's an that's an unfair worry to have. I think that's you know, that's common. You know, based on what they're seeing, it's very fair of them to think that. Um, but Alhamdulillah, what I think a difference that I probably did that made sure that I didn't end up on that kind of track, was that I stuck to the scholars because I viewed them as authorities and I would spend a lot of time properly studying with the scholars and reading the books and going on long term courses, rather than kind of short YouTube videos or TikToks and short courses.
Speaker 2:It's so easy, because I think that's how most of the younger generation of Muslims actually consume Islamic content. Yeah, there's a short form on TikTok or they get lost into, like echo chambers on X or Twitter or Instagram reels, which I think has its place, but, like you say, it can be very, very dangerous. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:Just from one point of view I agree.
Speaker 2:Okay, gosh Okay. And then it turns out your mom didn't have to worry because you found yourself as Islamic Finance Guru, ifg, as a community lead, and then after that over at Nesta. So you've been in the Islamic finance space. Now for what?
Speaker 1:maybe seven, eight years total, I think a bit less than that. Maybe I'd say about five years now, but prior to that I was working at. So I mean I, my background and profession is in public relations and communications that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:So I kind of I mean, originally the plan was to go into medical school. I got into medical school but I, I had a south african passport, so I didn't qualify for uh, I was born in south africa, yeah, yeah. So, um, yeah, I had a south african passport, I, I, so therefore I was counted as an international student couldn't pay the fees yeah, it was like 22 grand a year without living accommodation and all of that, and you, you didn't qualify for student loans, so it was up front, um. And so therefore, I kind of went on a bit of a spirit not spiritual journey, of corporate journey, of trying to figure out what I want to do. And I was always told that I'm relatively good at speaking, public speaking and such, and so then I was like, okay, comms, pr and comm sounds interesting, let me go into that um. And so I went down that route, um. And then I found the corporate world, like I found the training was very useful in how to be a professional, um, but it wasn't the most conducive to my dean, like certain things in the corporate world, like taking clients out to drinks, um, and that kind of culture just really wasn't me and um, it wasn't for me, obviously, as a Muslim, and the thing is to climb the career ladder in public relations especially, it's all about like what happens outside of work than what's inside of work. So I kind of made a segue into the East London Mosque, which is the largest mosque or I should say the busiest mosque in Western Europe, and I started working there and that really helped me study the Muslim community in the UK, because the East London Mosque are very much the leaders in the UK, I would say, about where things go, how things are done, and a lot of smaller mosques follow suit with what the East London Mosque do. So that you know that was a very exciting time. I learned a lot about the politics within Muslim communities, within Muslim charities, how you know the charity space runs.
Speaker 1:But then how I got into Islamic finance was interesting because during COVID we had to arrange all of the Ramadan programs online because you know no one could come to the mosque anymore. So then I had. I knew about Islamic finance guru and their work and I thought it was amazing. So I for a online program of which I was the host for the East London mosque and it's still on YouTube, I think you can find it. I called Ibrahim Khan to come down and let's do a kind of not podcast, but I guess it was a podcast about Muslims and wealth and that kind of introduced me to him. Afterwards I gave him like some advice on his social media, because I thought that their IFG social media at the time was very limited and minimal. And it turns out that Ibrahim was actually interviewing me at that time, so he was kind of throwing questions my way and then, the next thing I know, a few weeks later he offered me a job and I took it and that was my. The rest is history. Yeah, and here I am.
Speaker 2:There you are, wow, okay, you know, in a different setting we could go all into the ins and outs of islamic finance, how you communicate different messages, because, like personally, that's a big issue that we face right now how the public interprets islamic finance today, but that's not what we're here to talk about. Yeah, so in your opinion, what are the biggest?
Speaker 1:mistakes muslims make when it comes to money and marriage. The biggest problems, I think, is just communication, and I think you could you could spread this like line of communication on a lot of the major problems within marriage itself. But let's focus on money. A lot of the times the thing is, every couple and every person worries about security. It's, it's natural, it's within your soul to want to worry about what happens tomorrow and you want to have that peace of mind. So for a man, it's always kind of like okay, I need to provide x, I've got these bills to pay, I've got this to do. What's my security? For a woman, it's, it's the same, especially if she's a working woman. She wants to guarantee her safety and her security.
Speaker 1:And the thing is, when there's no communication between couples on how the finances are going to be managed and there's always prior expectations so maybe you grow up one couple, one person in the couple, might grow up with their father taking care of all of the expenses and the mother doesn't, and she's a housewife. The other person might have the expectation that, okay, both my parents were working and they both split everything 50-50. And because many times there's no communication on what the expectations are when, finally, you get to that moment where that talk has to be had, because everyone will inevitably have that talk, whether it's before or after marriage. It causes problems. You'll.
Speaker 1:You'll see that, um, someone will say, oh, but I expected you to do this. And then he'll say, well, look at the economy. I can't take care of this whole household myself. We need to go 50 50. And then the woman will say, but what about this? And chores and the kids and I, I can't do all of that. And then it turns into a bit of a argument and because money is such a sensitive issue naturally because it relates to security it always turns emotional do you think money is often left out of the pre-marital conversation because people often talk about.
Speaker 2:You know, um all of the questions that you should ask before you get married, but I don't often hear people talking. You know all of the questions that you should ask before you get married, but I don't often hear people talking about the finance side of it.
Speaker 1:I think it's kind of like an awkward and sometimes ugly conversation to have, because, especially if you don't know what the other side is kind of thinking, it can make you more apprehensive. So say, for example say, you're my prospective spouse, I'll imagine you're a very beautiful woman in front of me right now and I am coming to your house to take your hand and I have to. I'm, you know, I'm flattering you with gifts and I'm saying you know, we're gonna have a nice house, we're gonna do this, we're gonna have children, we're gonna. And then all of a sudden I'm like, well, I would. Uh, so what bills would you like to cover? Or how you bring up? It's just such an awkward topic to bring up because it it turns marriage from this fantasy thing where you're all like romantic and everything, to something very practical and gray and realistic.
Speaker 2:I had a friend who's um. When he was looking to get married, the father of a girl that he was talking to sat him down and said I want to see your payslip, I want to know how much you're making and I just want to know whether you can provide. Is it acceptable for the other half's parent to do that?
Speaker 1:I think, different strokes for different folks. I think we live in quite a multicultural society, um, even globally. We live in a very globalized world where I don't think any most like 90 of the world is pretty much connected to the, this global monoculture we live in, so especially in like places, like the cities and hubs, and so what happens is that it's you've got this global culture and you've got this multi like the local ethnic culture that mixes in with this global culture, and you've got this multi like the local ethnic culture that mixes in with this global culture and creates its own kind of subculture. And then what happens as a result is that people aren't really sure where they stand anymore, because culture, the whole idea of culture, is what's normal in society, that's what culture is, what's expected. But when you've got this mix, it's hard to ascertain what's okay for one and what's not okay for the other. So in the Pakistani community, for example, in London, there's kind of like a like a culture there, especially amongst a certain sub-dem demographics such as Mirpuris or you know from people from Karachi or something like that, they'll have some kind of like inclination.
Speaker 1:But even then it splits off. Especially when there's intermarriages, interracial marriages. Then it gets very complicated because every culture has their own expectations. So if a father was to say, can I see your payslip? Maybe in his culture it might be fine, but in their culture it's considered like bad. Or maybe if you're not further along in the marriage talks enough, then it might be seen as something that well, this is very premature. Or maybe the father will say like, look, I want to see it now, early on, so I know I'm not wasting my time or my daughter's time. So it varies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I know I'm not wasting my time or my daughter's time, so it varies.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Muslim Money Talk. If you like what you've heard so far, you might be interested in checking out what we do at Kestrel, the Muslim money app. Kestrel is a service that helps Muslims who want to grow their wealth without having to compromise, whether it's on their belief or user experience or price. I founded Kestrel because of how fed up I was at how poor Islamic financial services were in this country. Often people didn't use them because of how bad the user experience or customer service and indeed, how high in price they were. So Kestrel was the answer to that. If you download the Kestrel app today, it can help you by creating a budgeting plan. Plug in whatever bank account you have and it will create an auto budget just for you. You can then tell us what goals you're saving for, and we'll save towards them automatically into pots and then, crucially, link you towards Sharia compliant investment and savings products as well. So download Kestrel today and try it out for yourself. Now back to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's talk about the rights. I want to talk about men, I want. I want to talk about prenups. Um, let's start with men, because I feel like with women, it's kind of one of two things that ends up happening. Either they're not thinking about it seriously enough or they start saying, oh, you know, I want it to be a cat, or you know, anything is fine, whatever's fine, or they're even told that it doesn't. You know, you should try and ask for a low amount because you don't want to put someone off of marriage. And then on the other end of the spectrum I don't know how many people this is, but you often see the big cases where it's like someone's asking for £50,000, £100,000 and you know where it's like someone's asking for £50,000, £100,000, and a really expensive car and a down payment on a house and all of that Is that reality.
Speaker 2:Do you think women understand what mehed is and what is mehed?
Speaker 1:It's a big topic and it's very confusing for a lot of people because generally, there's two ways in which it can be seen. If we go back to the point where we talked about financial security and everyone wanting that security for themselves, a lot of people tend to view Mahrez this is the price of my security. I want, you know, 50k, so that's like you know, just in case you turn out to be an abusive husband and I'm. I've had three kids with you or whatever, and when I leave that marriage, I've now got some security or I've got a house in which I'm safe. I can make sure that I'm okay Because, look, marriage is something scary.
Speaker 1:It is, and especially for women. I can easily see why it would be terrifying. You're going into, you're leaving the domain of your parents, where there's security, there's familiarity, and you're going with this man who you don't know intimately, you don't know what he's like behind closed doors, and so they want that. Okay, this is my backup plan if I've got something. However, shari'i wise, the mahr isn't a financial backbone on which you can stand. It's the mahr is considered a gift. The mahr is considered a gift from the man to the woman to say look, I know you don't know me intimately yet. I know you're coming with me and you're leaving everything behind. That you know. But here's something to kind of warm you up, here's something to make you feel like, look, you can trust me, here's a nice gift. So, and hence why we have narrations of the prophet saying to some of the sahaba and I'm paraphrasing here, of course, of the hadith, but he once, a hubby, gave us mahar something from the quran. He taught his wife a surah from the quran that he knew of by heart. One sahabi gave an iron ring, some sahaba gave money, some and, and it will always vary, because the Ulama have this concept of kafaa Kafaa is, I guess, you could count as suitability, and what that really means is that when you have a male and a female, you want to make sure that what she's going from is familiar to her, because it makes marriage problems like less likely to happen.
Speaker 1:So, for example, if she's used to having maids and servants, the ulama will argue that she should marry a man that can provide that sort of lifestyle for her, because otherwise it will be very difficult for her to maintain it. And therefore, if all of her sisters got a mahr of 100K or 50K, then she should ideally marry a man that can provide it, not saying that if she doesn't, it's haram for her or the nikah is invalid. It's just that the ulama are trying to reduce friction and so. But in either case, the mahr is, the woman has the right to demand what she wants, but at the same time, we shouldn't make marriage difficult for brothers as well, because there's only a few, there's only a very small percentage of people that would be able to pay 50k or 100k or a down payment on a house and all of these demands.
Speaker 2:So what's the right amount for a? What's the market rate?
Speaker 1:I think, I genuinely think, like it does come down to different strokes for different folks, in the sense that, like, if you're going to ask for the hand of a saudi princess, for example, versus someone from a working class family, the mahar isn't the price of a woman.
Speaker 1:But we are looking at what they used to because again you, the ulama, want to reduce friction. I know cases of sisters who literally got 50 pounds, 100 pounds, because they didn't like they were told don't be materialistic, and I do feel like this is the extreme length of the spectrum. Um, and funny story, I actually know someone who got 50 pounds for maher and then they spent that money the next day buying their new husband a pair of trousers. So, like, I think these are extreme cases, I don't think it should be that less, but I also do think that it shouldn't be as high as what some people make, unless that is kind of the type of um, the type of uh, I guess, financial status of the man, if he can, if he can afford to pay 50k is giving 50 pounds.
Speaker 2:That would be a bit weird. I think, yeah, exactly, I would say that's very strange. This is meant to be a gift of course, exactly that's the whole point.
Speaker 1:So that's where kafata comes in. You look at suitability, you look at the man, and I'll talk about my own example. Right when I got married, I was convinced that I need to get married at the age of around 1920. And I got married at the age of 21 to my wife, who was 18. At the time I wasn't financially stable, in fact, I was literally an apprentice and I was getting an apprentice's wage of I think about 17.5k a year. I was literally an apprentice and I was getting an apprentice's wage of I think about 17.5k a year and I was about to graduate and I think it moved up to 22k.
Speaker 1:But what my father-in-law looked at me is and I think this is what he looked at me is that he saw someone that wanted to work and someone that wasn't lazing around, and he saw someone that you know will, inshallah, be able to look after his daughter. So he helped us out. You know he had an extension to his house. We used to live in that which was like this nice one bedroom flat where me and my wife kind of got the best of both worlds and my wife didn't ask for a crazy mahar either, but it wasn't a small, small amount either.
Speaker 1:So, and I think every couple should kind of find that balance don't make it too difficult on the man where he now is in debt going into the marriage, but also don't make it so less that you're devaluing the mahar as a gift, because think about it if you're getting married once, think of it as a wedding present that you're getting from your husband. So if he can afford to get you a g-wagon or a or a you know five-star trip to bali or the bahamas or whatever, and that's what you want, be my guest. But don't make don't make it so difficult that it becomes very hard for you to get married. You're going to get suitors come and go, but you're not going to get married because none of them can afford it so it's a gift, it's not a fail.
Speaker 2:So yes, this is how many people kind of view it? Yeah, as well, these days do you think that's cultural? Is that where that came in from?
Speaker 1:I think it goes back to that deep insecurity that a lot of women feel and have heard from you know places like reddit and tiktok and even online of all these crazy divorces and abuse situations and secret second wives and all of these kind of horror stories. So women are like I need a fail safe because if I'm a stay-at-home mom, I'm looking after his children. He does all of this stuff and he kicks me out because we get a divorce or we separate and we get a divorce. I'm I'm going to be maybe 40 years old with three kids, no career prospects. How am I supposed to look after myself? So that's where this mentality comes and it comes from a place of worry, which is natural and shaitan capitalizes on that. But that makes it so much more important to screen who you're going to marry.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about some of those assurances then. Because, from a civil law perspective, men have to pay child support, and all of this Islamically. Does the idea of child support exist?
Speaker 1:I would say yes, because now how, when we say child support, when, and we say what it means in the english law sense is one thing, but what, islamically, men are obliged to do is look after their children. In fact, the common, what islamic law demands really, is that when children are of a certain age, when they're kind of weaned off from dependency on their mother, they go and live with the father full-time. The mother, of course, has access to them, but typically that was what islamic law would say, because they are his progeny as soon as they're weaned uh well, not weaned off milk, but more kind of like they're not dependent on the mother.
Speaker 1:So you could say the age of six, seven, eight onwards kind of. I mean the ages are like a bit flexible and courts might islamic scholars might differ on this, but generally at that age. After that they'll go to the father because they are his financial responsibility, and then the woman has a choice to get remarried, and it was a lot in the Sahaba's time. Women used to divorced women were sought after. In fact it was considered a dishonor in a society to have a single divorced woman just be single, as in a divorced woman being single.
Speaker 2:Which is why the wisdom of having more than one wife.
Speaker 1:Of course. Yeah, of course, because the fact is, men die more than women. There's a higher population of women than compared to men, and the way life turns out is that, especially back in those days, women needed to be looked after by men. There wasn't, you know, this culture of like, you know, like the Equality Act and this and that and women could go get any job. It was hard, and especially raising children, all of that. So, so, generally, there was a dependency on men and therefore, if there's not enough men in society, they would have to marry more than one so we talked about women wanting to protect themselves and their felses.
Speaker 2:Let's look at it, I guess, from the other end of the spectrum and this doesn't just apply to men, it does definitely apply to women as well but prenups, or prenuptial agreements so interesting story when I was getting married, kestrel was maybe one, one and a half years old and we had a few shareholders on board and when they found out I was getting married, one of them I won't say who, but he called me up, uh, and said reed, I need you to sign a prenup. I was like what?
Speaker 2:okay and he said um, listen, I'm invested in other companies and I've seen cases where it goes bad and then you know, this random, uh wife of of the ceo ends up with 50 of the company and the company ends up tanking right. Um, so I need you to sign that. And I thought about it for a bit and I decided not to because I thought it would be such a just a mood killer right To say oh, by the way, you know, we're going to be spending the rest of our lives together.
Speaker 2:Just sign this in case you decide to, you know, leave me and screw me over like this right.
Speaker 1:But is there a place for it?
Speaker 2:Because in an Islamic contract you can adjust the marriage contract, the. Nip the contract to have different things in there yeah what's your take on on prenups? Are they appropriate or not?
Speaker 1:I think again, just like we were talking about the security of women, prenups kind of fall under that same category of worry, but for men especially, because men usually are. I mean, a lot of women are working now as well, a lot of women are in high flying careers and have a lot of assets. But I'm just going to use men for an example right now, but it applies to both. Men have that worry too, because they've had these very same horror stories online of exactly like a CEO's wife taking 50% of the company. We've seen the biggest divorce payout with Jeff Bezos and his wife and their divorce. You know Bill Gates and his wife they've divorced. So you know these are a lot happens and a lot of men see this and they're worried. They're like, okay, and especially because there is this view I don't know how true it is, but there's this view that the court systems in the West, in US and America and Canada strongly favor the woman's side, and so men are always worried about their own kind of financial stability. There's stories of men having to live in their own cars because they're homeless, though you know the wife gets the kids, so she gets the house as well. Because they want the courts want to keep the same unit together as much as possible, exactly without as much different changes to the kids, and so that harmfully impacts the men. A lot of some of these men have, you know, committed suicide and and so a lot of men are like I need to protect myself, and this causes the same kind of issue that, like I need to get her to sign a prenup. But again, just like we talked about the father demanding to see the pay slip For men, it's a very ugly conversation on like, your marriage is very romantic, it's very lovely, it's. It's meant to make you, the man and woman, feel butterflies inside. You know excitement. But when you go to her or she comes to you and says, look, I've got a lot of assets or I'm going to be very wealthy soon because I'm in this career, or I'm a founder or whatever, or I've, you know, invested a lot of my money. I need you to sign this contract in case we split up, it does kind of break that fantasy a little bit, because you're saying, look, we might divorce and this is for the best. And I think, logically speaking, if I was to take all of the emotion outside of it, I think it makes absolute sense, um, for both couples, especially now that, I think, I would argue, most women work now or most women are on a trajectory of working. So I think it makes sense for both of them to um get a prenup.
Speaker 1:But because of this awkwardness of how do you address this in the situation, what's the other person going to think? Are they going to hate me? Because, of course, in our marriage talks with muslims it's. You're still trying to build an impression with the other person. You're, you don't know them intimately yet, so everything you present to them is going to create the image of in their mind of what you're like, rightfully or wrongfully. So when you put this prenup in front of them and say, hey, I want you to do this Instantly, you're thinking this person's not romantic. This person's trying to protect themselves. This person doesn't think we can last.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's an expectation that it's not going to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you're planning for the worst case scenario exactly, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I genuinely I don't think it's a bad thing, but it's just because there's so much emotion tied into a marriage, it's hard to have that conversation exactly?
Speaker 2:and what about other things that people put in the contract? The other famous one is, uh, that a man cannot take a second wife, right? Although I've heard different takes on this. What's your opinion on people putting that as a as a clause in the nikah contract that they cannot marry again?
Speaker 1:I think depending on how the wording's done, it can mean different things. So I mean, the prophet said that muslims are upon their oaths, so if you take an oath to do something, you should fulfill that oath. We also know that for breaking an oath there are kafara. There are like expiations that you can do, such as fasting X number of days, and there's other kafara as well.
Speaker 1:But I think that so anything that's put in a nikah contract should be upheld and it's only fair that if you say you're going to do something, we Muslims are meant to be people of our word, so you should be fair to that. But does that mean it's haram for you to then break those conditions? The scholars don't say that's haram. What they will say is that, depending on the wording, it will enact certain things. So, for example, if the wording in the nikah contract says if you take a second wife, the power of divorce will be transferred to the woman, for example, say that's the. So the woman will have the ability given to her by the man because he signs the contract, that I can divorce myself.
Speaker 2:So now she has the power to excuse herself outside the marriage or something, but in some ways the woman doesn't already have the ability to initiate divorce herself.
Speaker 1:Via Akhola, but she would have to get her husband to agree to that. So her husband, akhola, is a wife basically going to her husband and saying look, I don't want to be in this marriage anymore, please divorce me. So it's her initiating and if he says no, what happens? Then usually her option is to go to the court. Go to the court. So yes, which is um, I guess, in sharia courts as well, there are opinions of islamic scholars in the west that say that you can go to the western court system if you are registered marriage and if you get a divorce through the western court system. If you are registered marriage and if you get a divorce through the western court system, it counts as a islamic divorce as well, like one islamic divorce. So that would that way is an opinion that is followed too. Um, but yeah, like these contract, these conditions in the contract technically are valid, but it doesn't mean that they can't be broken. But should they be broken, how are they broken? Broken? That's a big conversation.
Speaker 2:The oath that you're making to your other half, but it's not something that renders it haram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, it's an important distinction, because we can't make haram what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has made halal right. So, yeah, so those conditions can be there, because taking a second wife is, of course, permissible.
Speaker 2:But if you say that, look, I'm just not going to do it me personally, and you take an oath on that, that's fine so I want to talk to you about rights and obligations between, between spouses, because there was this phrase that emerged a few years ago that your money is your money and his money is your money as well. Uh, referring to to women talking about their husband's money, and I think think it came from Numan Ali Khan, from Asad Numan Ali Khan, and they took something out of context. Is there any basis to that? Because I think a lot of people out there still believe that all of a man's money is the rights of his wife.
Speaker 1:So the short answer to that is no, but there's a caveat. So Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, in the Quran, says the men are protectors and providers or maintainers of women, meaning that financial obligation has been put on the man to look after women, and that means his wife, it means his daughters, it means also his mother and parents as well, I guess father as well, but in the sense that women, it was not common for women to work. Women did work in the time of the Sahaba, but by and large most women were at home and they didn't work and their husband would provide for them or their father would provide for them, and so, but it was never a case of 100% of the father's wealth or the husband's wealth belongs to his wife, because that's his hard-earned money and Islam acknowledges that. But the acknowledgement also extends that he has to prove he has to use some of it to maintain his wife and the women that he's in charge of, ie, his daughters, um, his mom maybe, for example. So that means, for example, providing living accommodation, paying the bills, providing food, providing clothing.
Speaker 1:Traditionally, islamic scholars used it in very like these black and white terms and in the sense that what they would, some scholars would say what's bil ma'ruf, what is known, so what she's accustomed to. So again we go back to the analogy. If she's a Saudi princess and she's never lifted a finger all her life, her husband like would yeah, he should maintain that lifestyle for her, versus, if she's not from that kind of background, he should maintain what's similar for her. But again, it doesn't mean that she has rights to all of his wealth and to take it. I think you know these small kind of catchphrases are nice to say but generally, like most, most of the time, they always lack nuance, and it's always nuanced in this kind of case yeah, and I think people just want that black and white answer.
Speaker 2:But yeah you know it doesn't really exist. You're using the sally princess example a lot so do you know any I don't, I just usually I.
Speaker 1:I usually don't, but they're one of the royal families that exist, so it's just okay, very cool, very cool.
Speaker 2:Um, so, to summarize, what are the main things that muslim couples looking to get married, or even if they're married today, what are the main monetary or financial decisions they should be making or thinking about?
Speaker 1:I think so if we're looking at before marriage, like in the conversations leading up to marriage or in the Rishta process, they're getting to know each other part they should definitely talk about financial expenditure and how that's going to happen, because this conversation will happen. It can just either happen before marriage and you can get everything cleared up, or it will happen after marriage over an argument or a debate well, do you mean who's going to be paying the bills?
Speaker 2:are we going 50? 50, are we doing?
Speaker 1:I'm going to look after you 100 yeah decide that from the outset, before you get married, yeah, and just be kind of transparent about that. And and I think both the man and the woman should keep an open mind when they approach this conversation. Don't be offended, because this is part of marriage. That's how you know someone's kind of approaching this from a mature angle and they should kind of just have a frank but healthy conversation. And if the man feels uncomfortable talking about that with his prospective wife, then it might be better to have that conversation with her dad and say say that, look, this is what I'm thinking, what are your thoughts? Don't come in like a brunt hammer and be like this is what I'm doing, that's it. You don't have a say.
Speaker 1:Communicate, have a back and forth and find something that's agreeable. If it's not, if it's not agreeable, then maybe ask yourself whether it's worth working on. If, for example, you're expecting a working wife to contribute 50-50, say she's got a very good career, she's a lawyer or accountant or a doctor, and you're like look, this isn't going to be a traditional family household, let's just do 50-50. It makes life easier on both of us Then have that conversation up front and and be reasonable. Don't don't kind of rush and be like, no, I have to have my way, or the highway, or I followed this ideology, so it has to be this way.
Speaker 2:You could frame it in a different way, which is look, I could look after you. 100 and this is maybe the house we could have. Or if we went 50 50 and dual income mortgage. This is the kind of lifestyle we could provide. This is the kind of school we could send our kids to yeah, and that's kind of like more of a positive way of framing it, I suppose yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think absolutely as long as they have that discussion about thinking about the future and the way that they should frame it, exactly how you said, is looking at the future as a couple, not kind of let's, uh, like, you know, what am I doing? What are you doing? What are you bringing to the table? What am I bringing to the table? What can I take from you? What am I trying to give to you? Exactly that's, that's just not healthy, okay fine, so building together.
Speaker 2:So expenses we talked about meh the amount and how it should be a gift and it should be, uh, based on on the person and their lifestyle and what they would maybe expect. Uh, we talked about potential prenup again, whether it's appropriate or not, and and you think it's probably appropriate, if you know you have those assets to maintain and to protect, it's worth talking about, of course, um and then, is there anything else before marriage to discuss?
Speaker 1:I think a common one that's coming up nowadays, uh, is about mortgages and home ownership and, I think, also broader kind of financial planning. Like you know, what's your plan? Some people are like, we want to move abroad, we want to move to dubai or we want to, you know. Or some people say, no, I want to make sure that I I remain in this city because I live here, my family's here. Yeah, I want that.
Speaker 1:So kind of talking about broad plans in a general sense is good and also talking about things like, um, home ownership if it's in the horizon for you what that will look like. So if you're like, okay, are we-50 going to split this house and go contribute both to the mortgage? Are we getting a conventional mortgage under the fatwa of most of the European and Western Islamic councils, or are we going to go for an Islamic mortgage? What are your thoughts on that? Because, again, this can be contentious. One person might say I want to rent forever because I don't believe these islamic finance products are halal and I don't want to go for the riba option either. I just want to rent forever.
Speaker 2:And she might completely throw off the other person's idea of course.
Speaker 1:Of course, because renting forever isn't secure and again, women and men want security in marriage and if you don't have that conversation, it could potentially get ugly.
Speaker 2:We're seeing much higher rates of divorce amongst Muslim couples today than we did in previous generations. I think there's different reasons for that, partly because it's seen as more acceptable than it was in our parents' and grandparents' times. But do you think this is one of the leading causes in your view?
Speaker 1:I think money definitely is the biggest thing that couples argue about, because it's just such a sensitive subject. Naturally it's within the human beings fitra to kind of protect what they've created. So if you've earned all this money, whether you're a man or woman, you'll want to make sure that you're secure. Again, it goes back to the whole security thing and you're going to argue about how it's spent, because maybe different people have different visions for how they want that money spent. Someone might say I want lavish holidays once a year or something, because maybe their family goes on lavish holidays and they want to spend. The other person might say, no, I just want to invest into assets because I want a very comfortable retirement and I want to retire at 45 or 50. So you know, these kind of conversations can be pretty hard. I think debt also is a big conversation, because if one couple comes in with a big credit card debt and the other person in the couple doesn't know about it, that can lead to a lot of fights. It can lead to a lot of.
Speaker 2:It's like, hey, I gave you the mayor, but now there's like 25K of Alex. Yeah, I need to be paying.
Speaker 1:And that goes up to the conversation on prenups again, because um couples typically when they get married their debt gets split between them.
Speaker 2:So if one one person's really like high in debt but they haven't told the other person or communicate, it could be a deal breaker for the other person what examples do you like to draw from from the time of prophet muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam and the sahaba, because I feel like there's lots of examples of beautiful marriages and also dispute resolution from that time. Because you have, you know, prophet muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam's first wife, khadijah. How?
Speaker 2:it wasn't really a typical marriage, set up even by today's standards, where Khadijah was a business owner and much, much wealthier than Prophet Muhammad. And do you think what was the wisdom behind that being his first marriage?
Speaker 1:I think, subhanallah, allah plans as he wills and he, of course, saw. Allah knew that this will be my final messenger that I will send to the world, and he knew that the da'wah will require assets. So, qadrullah Khadijah radiallahu anha, she had two marriages previously and she inherited from those marriages a lot of wealth and because of that, she had assets under her name that would later go on to help finance the call to islam, which now, if you think about it, is amazing because the what 1.7 billion or almost 2 billion muslims that exist today would are all really here because of the investment she kind of put in in the beginning yeah, the first seed investor into islam. And um, I think that you know it shows that there is no fixed way to think about marriage.
Speaker 1:You know, subhanallah, allah tells us what we need to know and he leaves a lot of areas just kind of up in the clouds for us to figure out. So you know even the way that khadijah radiallahu anha, she was the one that approached the prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, via her servant, for marriage. Even in today's day and age, if we were to say to a sister if you see a brother, go send someone to him and propose marriage to him, she'd say no, like he has to propose to me and and you. That's not really done nowadays, even the fact that she was wealthy and the Prophet had no problem marrying her because she was wealthier.
Speaker 2:It shows you how secure he was.
Speaker 1:It wasn't an issue. It wasn't an issue. So I think we as a community need to make marriage not hard.
Speaker 2:And then on the other end of the spectrum you hear about like tough times. There was Ali and Fatima. When they were really struggling, and I don't know if I'm getting this Hadith wrong, right, but I think she went to Prophet Muhammad and asked him for something.
Speaker 1:Yes, she asked him for a servant.
Speaker 2:Yes for a servant, and what did he give her in return?
Speaker 1:He gave her some dhikr that she could do instead every day. That would help her.
Speaker 2:And isn't that, subhanAllah alhamdulillah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the 33, 33 and 34 times yeah.
Speaker 2:What was the wisdom behind that?
Speaker 1:You see, the thing is the way that I see it, and the ulama, I'm sure, have written copious amounts of commentary on this, and the ulama, I'm sure, have written copious amounts of commentary on this, but I'm just kind of giving the perspective that's coming to me at the top of my head Is that in life we will always find challenges and things will be hard. There are ups and downs for couples all the time. I have never heard of a perfect marriage in my life. There's always ups and downs. Even when you read the seerah of the Prophet, you see that there were arguments between him and one of his wives. There was a bit of, you know, falling out. There was even some times where he divorced one of his wives and divorced others. So that would happen and we learned that from the seerah.
Speaker 1:But what I take from that particular incident is that Fatima, she's stuck by Ali's side despite all these difficult times, and when she went and asked for a servant, the Prophet kind of gave her something that would enable her to be a bit more patient through the hardship. Because I think what we forget as Muslims because we're so caught up in the dunya and we live in a very materialistic and extravagant world where all of the luxuries are at our fingertips flying business class mansions and luxury holidays and fantastical cars. We see all of that and we're like, yeah, I want this, I want that. Every time we accumulate something, we want to jump the step up. But what we forget is that this life is a test. Allah sent us to this world to be tested. The whole purpose of this life is just so that you can kind of rack up as much good good deeds as you can.
Speaker 1:So the wisdom in giving her some zikr was to ask her to be patient. Be patient with the tribulations she's facing and Allah will reward you. And that's the idea that you know, we can always say I like my car, but it's a bit old, I could get something newer. But do you need that new car, is it? You know how are we thinking about expenses in our lifetime. If we actually boiled it down, we could save a lot of money if we just chose to live simpler, more patient lives. But I think, you know, we see the luxury of the world, we see people around us and our friend circle or family circle and they're like, oh, they got that, we need to get something social pressure is very real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100% again mean. I'll give an example of my grandfather who, in Pakistan, I remember my dad tells us that they used to have a one room house in which my dad, my well, my grandma, my grandfather and all nine siblings would sleep in this one room and there was like a kitchen in the corner. And this isn't obviously in pakistan, but, like you know, our grandparents did and they didn't really have a problem with it. But we've now been like, oh, now you know we need, we need a five-bedroom house, because every child needs to have their own room and we need to have one holiday a year and we need to squeeze all of these things in that lifestyle inflation.
Speaker 2:I think it's just natural generation over generation because, everyone wants to give their kids more than they received. Yeah, but I think there's always some sort of inflection point, and maybe it's happening now, where the economy inflation is higher than it has been in a long time and people are having to face these real choices, make these hard, hard decisions. So, yeah, maybe that's why it's a big cause of issues and subhanAllah, divorce as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:We're running quite short on time, but I really wanted to talk about one little thing which I saw you were doing. Was it in Ramadan, where you were in Afghanistan?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Recently distributing aid? Yes, and that's not something I've seen anyone in myself would do. All the places people go to, what was that like? Going to afghanistan, meeting the people there, seeing what it was like. Is it, you know, like? How is it today?
Speaker 1:so I'm a trustee of a charity called Rethink Charity and I'm a big believer in charity work and humanitarian aid and I've always had a soft spot for these kind of projects and for me, I've never had that kind of fear of going into a place that people might consider dangerous. I even went into Syria twice during the war before the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Yes, I went through Turkey, everything through official channels. Um, you know the. We had a Turkish charity, that kind of we partnered up with in order to gain entry into Syria via the Turkish government, into safety mandated areas. But even then, those safe mandated areas still had crazy amounts of like danger to them. They were like I was told the stories of like yeah, just three days ago, you know, isis killed eight people over in this spot right here, and we drove past that spot and I was just laughing at it. I was just like, wow, okay, fine, we're definitely in syria now. So but I mean, I, I like getting into the grit, getting into the nitty-gritty myself, in down into the dirt and trying to actually understand what the problems are. So my brother-in-law he's also an aid worker in syria, so he's told me quite a lot about the stuff that goes on there as well. So our charity, our goal, was just to kind of go there and kind of deliver humanitarian aid, but also deliver more projects that are focused on long-term sustainability. Because, if you think about it, a lot of Muslim charities are pumping a lot of money into these war-torn countries but nothing's really changing and in fact it creates what we call a food box mentality, where literally there was one project we did where we had apartments and other charities were creating homes and what would happen is that people refused to leave the refugee camps for the homes because in the homes, they said, in the refugee camps, they get food parcels every week. And they were like, if we go into those homes, no one brings food parcels to us, so we'd have to work for our living. Rather, here we just get monthly stipends. And so our charity kind of focused on let's bring, let's empower the people, let's give them financial literacy. If there were widows, we would buy them things like a sewing machine. If there were men, we would buy them things like a sewing machine. If there were men, we might give them like a food cart and say here's like one month's worth of stock, go earn your own wage and we'd say that to the sisters as well and then that that way they have a bit more dignity, they're earning their own money and the community, the country, can focus on rebuilding also things like health care, education, investing in these.
Speaker 1:So to afghanistan. Afghanistan's always been a country that I've wanted to visit for a long, long time, um, and I've had a lot of sympathy for the people there and the plight they faced, um. But when I went there I was very, very surprised because, of course, the only view of afghanistan that we get here in the west is one of oppression, one where there's this brutal regime that is controlling the people, forcing the women to stay at home, and you know, the men have to all grow long beards and behave a certain way. It was not the case at all. Like the flights to afghanistan were very nice, the food was delicious, that the we went via turkey with cam air, very nice airline it's, I think it's a afghani airline, and so when we landed, airport was nice, clean, the streets, surprisingly, were very clean of kabul compared to, like. I've been to pakistan multiple times because I've got family there and I would say the streets of Kabul were cleaner than like Karachi, for example. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So I was so shocked and unsurprisingly, I saw women, children, men, all carrying on with their day. I saw women outside without a burqa. I saw, I'm sure, yeah, yeah, I'm sure, in maybe rural parts the women are more likely to cover. We did visit some rural areas where we saw more burqas, but in Kabul, specifically, like there were some women that, like you know, were barely wearing hijab, some women with, like open makeup walking around. I'm not saying that they were the majority, but they existed, they were tourists. We saw some Chinese tourists that had, you know, women with their full hair uncovered and we see, going everywhere. They're investing, they're growing but, of course, like the people were happy, they were living their lives. There's no more war there. How can we, how can we possibly think that's a bad thing?
Speaker 1:And the people, the Taliban was very well. Well, I shouldn't call them the taliban, I should call them the government. Now. They were very friendly, they honored us, they looked after us and afghani hospitality left me like in shock, because I remember there's only a few of us.
Speaker 1:But they took us to a nice restaurant. They fed us wonderful food, like plates and plates of food. There was a lot left over which got distributed to the poor and um uh, you know they asked us questions about okay, like you know how we perceived in the west, what can we do to make our image better? Of course they have their own challenges within their government. The good thing with uh of the current government right now is that they're all consolidated. By and large it's one group that have control over the whole country. There might be some pockets of kind of disagreements with the main government and that leads to kind of political strife there, but by and large is very minimal and there's stability and there's peace. The people are very poor because of, obviously, 40 years plus of war, but they're very keen to grow. They want the. The government wants people to come and invest in afghanistan.
Speaker 2:You can see the partnerships they're doing with china and conversations they're having with other surrounding neighborhood countries as well I think there's so much optimism for a lot of these muslim majority countries now where, I think, in the age of internet and TikTok and YouTubers, there are backpackers from the West who are going through Pakistan and saying this is an incredibly beautiful and welcoming country. We're seeing that in Syria now we're seeing that in Afghanistan and I'm really optimistic for the next few decades inshallah, that these will be the new countries to watch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. I mean even the rural parts of afghanistan that we visited, beautiful, like. When I looked at the scenery there, I was like this is what I imagined jannah would be like. Like I mean, we can't conceptualize jannah, but if I had to conceptualize jannah, it would be something like this rivers and beautiful mountains and greenery everywhere. And it was fantastic. It was a great experience and I definitely recommend people actually travel to Afghanistan.
Speaker 2:Salam, what a beautiful way to end this episode. Okay then, thank you so much for joining us. Assalamu alaikum.
Speaker 1:Wa alaikum assalam, wa rahmatullah, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Muslim Money Talk. It's been a pleasure.