Muslim Money Talk
Introducing the Muslim Money Talk Podcast, a place for all things Muslim and Money related.
Every week we'll be sitting down with Founders, leaders and industry experts from across multiple disciplines to discuss lessons learned, mistakes made and most importantly 'How they did it?'.
Brought to you by Kestrl: The Muslim Money App, software to help Muslims grow their wealth without compromise. Find out more here: https://kestrl.io/
Muslim Money Talk
The Nikkah Expert: Rising Divorce Rates, Inter-Cultural Marriages and More | Shabbir Hassan - MMT #36
This episode of Muslim Money Talk features Imam Shabbir Hassan, founder of The Nikkah Co., discussing modern Muslim marriage trends, challenges, and solutions. From rising intercultural marriages and shifting wedding costs to divorce trends and the impact of marriage apps, the conversation explores how faith, culture, and financial awareness intersect in today’s Muslim relationships.
This podcast is hosted by Areeb Siddiqui, the founder and CEO of Kestrl, the app that helps people to grow their wealth without compromise
Find out more about our app here: https://kestrl.io/
And how we help banks here: https://business.kestrl.io/
Show Notes:
00:00 - Opening
5:20 - From Devon to Islamic Scholar: An Unexpected Journey
17:38 -The Birth of The Nikah Co and Marriage Specialization
28:56 - Wedding Statistics and Cultural Time Management
38:53 - Money, Marriage and Cultural Expectations
49:06 - Why Muslim Marriages Survive or Fail
1:03:19 - Finding a Spouse in the Digital Age
1:13:40 - Overlooking Flaws and Finding Barakah in Marriage
You've spent 50k on a wedding. Now you almost feel pressured Like that's too much, too big of an investment. So let me just see it through and live a really unhappy life. Oh man, an app can never replace the human connection. That's the main thing, which is why, till this day, the number one method of still getting married is I'm going to try and be like polite about this because I don't want to sound controversial A lot of Muslim women wanting to marry a non and, like I can tell you, in the last six months alone we've had plenty of inquiries. Being in love is a choice. It's not an automatic thing anymore Once the love initial love fades away. Now it's a choice to be in love with this person. You have to choose that right.
Speaker 2:So that effort is where some people struggle with the moment you have to start weaponizing a hadith or something, or the moment you have to start quoting the law no-transcript in today's episode I'm joined by imam shahabir hassan, public speaker, imam, fellow podcast host over at ilm feed and the founder of the nikako, where he's performed over 500 nikas on his own, let alone what his company has done. We talk about money in general, how it's taboo within our religion still to this day and how, as an imam and a founder, he's breaking those barriers. We also dive into some of the hot topics around marriage today how are people finding each other, why are divorce rates seemingly on the rise and how we can get past this. As always, I'm your host, areeb 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 you Now back to the show. Imam Shabir, assalamu Alaikum and welcome to Muslim Money Talk. Wa Alaikum Assalam. Thank you so much for having me. People might recognise we're back in the Leicester studio today. It was like a good halfway point between where you are in.
Speaker 2:Peterborough and where we are in London, so I decided to meet up in Leicester.
Speaker 1:But how are you Good? Alhamdulillah. Yeah, Ramadan's going well, Alhamdulillah. How have you been? How's Ramadan?
Speaker 2:Alhamdulillah, it's been very tiring, I think, so far. Just getting back into it, I did Umrah just before Ramadan, which, alhamdulillah, was yeah, I usually have more hair than this but I've never done that just before Ramadan, so it was like a really nice way of getting into the right mood and the right mindset a couple of weeks before Ramadan. And it's busy out there, it's busy. Very busy, Very very busy, especially now in Ramadan, but even before just a few weeks before.
Speaker 2:yeah, it was really really packed. But alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, good. But I feel a little bit intimidated having you here.
Speaker 1:Why? Because?
Speaker 2:Mashallah, you're the consumer Muslim podcast.
Speaker 1:Host of Ilm Feed. No, it's nice to be on the other side sometimes, you know, as a host, as I can see your mind map and so many things you're trying to think about and keep the flow going. I've actually got an easier job, which is just to answer some questions.
Speaker 2:So, Mashallah, you've done so much in such a short space of time from being an imam, a very well-known public speaker, the host of the Ilm Feed podcast, You're an author as well I heard as well. You're very into spoken word and poetry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I dabble in some poetry as well.
Speaker 2:yeah, so there you go. And, of course, the founder of the Nikako, and I think that will make for a really interesting episode, because I think so much and a lot of what our podcast is about at kestrel and at muslim, money talk is about how money is often seen as a really taboo subject within our religion, and then here we have not just a muslim but an imam who has become, you know, is not just turning that concept on his head, but is actually a founder and an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:so I think you have a lot of very interesting insights in inshallah um, so I suppose, without further ado, let's start at the beginning and um, I guess your path is very interesting because you grew up in a place where there weren't many muslims, correct?
Speaker 1:yes, uh, I mean most of the time. Whenever I mentioned the name, uh, most people have never heard of it or they've never been, or they asked me which country it's in, but it's southwest of England, in Exeter, in Devon, people haven't heard of Devon.
Speaker 1:Exeter they haven't heard of. I mean now maybe, but like before, when I was a lot younger, you know, just people just hadn't heard of it. So yeah, devon, exeter, that's where I grew up. Alhamdulillah, it was a very nice part of the country still is. My family are still based there, my parents and, yeah, I grew up there. You know a good part of you know first 12 years of my life, I would say 13 years. I was there before I then started moving around and you know, due to my studying and pursuit of knowledge and things like that, that's when, like, I was kind of all over Leicester being one of the places actually this is the city where I came to memorize the Quran and spent five years here in.
Speaker 2:Leicester, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:I'm very familiar with Leicester.
Speaker 2:So you did that as a teenager.
Speaker 1:I did that as a teenager, yeah.
Speaker 1:I did that, like while I was doing my you know GCSE secondary school, did well memorizing quran, um before then, you know london and other places, like moving around, alhamdulillah. So, yeah, exit is where I grew up and um, lots of fond memories there, but it was very interesting in the sense that, yeah, being a muslim, you know if you're from one of the major cities london, somewhere else, you have a very different upbringing to what I would have had and what I would have seen growing up in my experience as a muslim which makes your path to becoming an imam and a half is so interesting, I suppose.
Speaker 2:When. How did that happen? Were your parents, did they push you in that route? Or did you have people in your family who were imams or or half, or had done his?
Speaker 1:no, not at all. Um I was the first um, as far as I know, in my family, in my generation, in the whole of devon, um the first in the whole of devon as in like, like a muslim who was born in that part of the country wow the first to have, like, pursued this path, uh, even my family.
Speaker 1:They weren't, like you know, as quote-unquote, practicing at that point um in that sense, and no one ever pushed me to it. It was just a desire that I had, um, which then led me to having to move to leicester and other places, because in Exeter we didn't have the facilities. We had a small mosque, like a house, one of those mosques very different to what we have now, alhamdulillah, which is like a purpose-built masjid. But back then we're talking, you know, going back more than 20 years now. Yeah, it's just a small house, you know, like an imam, part-time kind of thing. So, yeah, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we didn't have, like you know, a lot of things we have now, but as a child, what was it that, I suppose, motivated?
Speaker 1:you know, it's difficult to look back now and pinpoint exactly what it was. Obviously, all we believe, it all comes from allah. Firstly, um. But yeah, it's just this love for the quran. I think that's what it was. You know, I just loved listening to recitation of quran. Um, just, just was always amazed by, you know just, recitation of the just was always amazed by, you know just, recitation of the meaning. And yeah, there's something about the Quran that made me want to just memorize it. You know, that was just my goal as a young kid I want to memorize this Quran, I want to be able to recite it and I just remember just sitting there listening to reciters trying to imitate them. I didn't even have good recitation, tajweed, a good voice or anything like that. It's just a dream of mine. And you know, actually, thanks to the sacrifice of my parents, my family they left everything behind in Exeter, made the move to Leicester.
Speaker 2:Oh, they all moved.
Speaker 1:They all moved. Yeah, because I just, yeah, I couldn't do the whole boarding school thing. I just you know, I had to have my family there with me and they were there to support me Moved to Leicester literally temporarily for about four or five years. They allowed me to just do my thing memorize Quran, finish my school.
Speaker 2:I went to Islamic school here and then moved back to Exeter after that, I suppose for the parents listening. Is there any advice you can give about how to inculcate that love for the Quran and for Islam in children, or do you think it just sort of happens?
Speaker 1:You know the parents, they're a big support, especially as like a motivational factor, where you know it's a long journey, like memorizing Quran. It's not an easy thing, it's a long journey it takes, you know. Took me a good part of just over three years to do, and this was day in, day out me going.
Speaker 2:So of course as a kid Alongside full-time school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, school, yeah, exactly alongside school. So as a kid, you want to do other things. You know, at that age you want to be playing. I'll be playing football. I'm gonna be going to the park. I'm gonna be watching tv. I've like I'm gonna be playing my playstation. At the time, I think it's like a ps2 was like the max we had, or something ps3 maybe, you know like. So these are the kind of things you want to do. So, like, how do you stay motivated? A lot of it comes down to parents. Um, you know the mother having that. You know the mother having that. You know that kind of the softer approach to things, father being there as, like the more right.
Speaker 1:I don't want to mess up, I don't want to disappoint my father, you know always keeping tabs, always keeping track, you know, speaking to my teachers and then love for the Quran is just encouragement. That's what a child needs. They just need encouragement. They need to be in an environment and I think that's where being in a city like Leicester helped a lot. You're in an environment where you've just got messages all around, you've got other students memorizing Quran, whereas where in Exeter, I would have been the only one and even if I had a teacher there, it would have been very difficult for me to stay motivated as a kid. I wouldn't have had other kids around, other friends, colleagues etc. To kind of compete with almost, and to be in that environment.
Speaker 2:So environment is such a big thing, incredible. So you finished your your memorization of the quran here in leicester, yeah. And then you made an interesting choice because you decided to go to the famous ibrahim college in london, in london yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So even before that, by the way, like I moved back to exeter in that time, right, I took a couple of years, went to college, you know, did the usual thing and at that point in life it was for me it was the standard path of go to college, go to university, get a degree in something. At that time you know, this is where my book writing and poetry comes from, it's the love for english language. So it was like I'll do a degree in english or something and become a teacher, like that was my kind of set path that I had in mind. Um, but then, yeah, when I went to college, I realized I don't think I'm going to pursue this.
Speaker 1:Like you know, I don't think I'm going to pursue this. Like you know, I don't think I'm going to go to university. There was a lot of factors like A, because I just couldn't see myself. I did like English language, English literature in college. I was like I cannot see myself going and doing a degree in this for another few years, like I just kind of fell out of love with it almost ambitions and then during this time I kind of had a patch where I had this emptiness, like I've memorized Quran. I spent all these years like going to Islamic school memorizing Quran and now I'm here in like college and learning English and things.
Speaker 1:Just like I just didn't feel fulfilled and I was like I have to go back to what I love, and I love the Quran, and the best days of my life were memorizing Quran. I was like you know? You know what the next stage for me is? What's the meaning of all of this?
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I'm leading Salah. I'm leading Taraweeh prayers in Ramadan. You know like.
Speaker 2:Wow at that age.
Speaker 1:At that age, yeah, yeah, because Exeter. Of course, like I was forced to lead from a very young age 15, 16, khutbahs, very young age, like even before I probably learned arabic, I was like I was given the platform and this is where the public speaking side come, uh, comes from. Because, yeah, for you know, like almost like 15 years, 14, 15 years now, I've been doing this thing of public speaking from a very young age so I've kind of been trained, almost, and molded, uh, to do that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's like you know I realized I need to go back. So then my next kind of step was okay, I can't get my parents, my family, to move with me again. And now it's like I'm older, now I need to make the next step myself and become independent. So then I took a gap year after college and in that gap year I said to myself right, I am gonna save as much money as I can in order to fund my studies moving forward wow, fund it entirely on your own, yeah just just fund it entirely on my own.
Speaker 1:So literally what I did for the next year a good part of a year got a job at a call center, full time, and I just worked. I just worked, like you know, full time, monday to Friday, did overtime, did extra hours. The only thing I remember spending money on was my driving lessons, literally. Apart from that, I'm living at home with my parents. I didn't have any like expenses or anything like that. Didn't buy a car, nothing, even though I passed my driving and all I did was just save. I didn't know spending, no buying extra clothes or these nice fancy things, nothing. I just saved money and I remember it was like in the region of like 10k which I ended up saving so you saved 10 000 pounds at the age of 18 at the age of before that like yeah, 17, 18 which you know, as an 18 year old, that's a huge amount of money.
Speaker 2:It's pretty much unprecedented. Yeah, that's huge, it's huge right.
Speaker 1:So I'm thinking right, 10k in my account. I'm ready to make the move. Ibrahim College London that was the best option at the time because I wasn't again willing to kind of go to a boarding school and go like full, full time. So, like Ibrahim College was the, which is a full-time course.
Speaker 2:Monday to Friday. Okay, fine, and did you ever consider going to university to do, I don't know, some other degree and then going to Ibrahim College?
Speaker 1:No, no, for me it was like the earlier the better, let me get into it and I had the motivation, I had the funds at that point, and that's when I made the move to London. So, first time moving to London by myself with this kind of money. I'm like, okay, I have to now have to think about paying fees, I have to think about rent in london, I have to think about travel, I have to think all of these things right.
Speaker 2:So that's when kind of reality hit and I'll make make the next big move, which is in the capital so had you always had that mindset of saving and being good with money, or was that something that was entirely born of your need to become self-sufficient as quickly as possible to achieve your goal?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it comes from my father for sure, like you know, he kind of always instilled that within us. Like you know, if you get money, you know value it, don't waste money. You know that kind of thing. And he's that kind of person who is kind of very careful with how he spends it. So I think I've kind of got it from my father, so it I kind of got it from my father, so it's kind of that nurture side of things. But yeah, I think it's also within my nature just to just, like you know, find avenues and find ways, if I want something, to just kind of make it happen. And I realize, obviously, you know, life teaches you a lot over the years that you just got to find. You know, and this is where, like a lot of things like Nikako and things were born from which is just like I don't want to wait for an opportunity.
Speaker 2:I just need to just kind of carve my own path and create something and then see. You see where it goes. And do you have any tips for people listening about how to, how to do that, how to save and how to spend mindfully?
Speaker 1:if you're in the fortunate position which I think a lot of people are, which is you're living at home with family at a young age, living with parents and they're taking care of a lot of things then you don't really have an excuse per se to what are you spending money on at that point.
Speaker 1:So, for example, with me, even after I moved to London, I didn't buy a car until towards the end of my studies, so it was all public transport I'm relying on. I remember when I had to go back to Exeter obviously I'm going back every month or so to visit my family. I'm looking at mega bus and, like you know, like forget even trains like National Express, like the cheapest tickets I'm booking in advance, like I'm trying to shave costs wherever I can because at that point, as a student as you, as you would know, and you're doing your student days, I mean you know like money is everything. So like you're not earning, you're studying full time, you're studying full time, you're having to pay rent and all of these other expenses. So for me, I'm trying to save where I can. And you know, whereas I had some friends, I had people I know who bought cars at a very young age, just for me it's unnecessary, you don't need a car at that age especially like some of the cars they had mashallah, it's a decent car.
Speaker 1:You don't really need a decent car at that age. Transport, you know saving, just just. You know basic lunch, you know no kind of going out, not kind of like messing about um. So I was very kind of focused and I think that was quite necessary for me. It's like I had to be so how long?
Speaker 2:so could you explain to me how it works? So ibrahim college is where you go yeah, to study to become an official emr? Yeah, it's called like the alim, alim year course.
Speaker 1:It's a program you start like it's kind of in stages, so like the first year is like Arabic, just Arabic language. One year is Arabic intensive, and then the following four years is like the core essential sciences that you need to learn as an alim. So, for example, like the meaning of Quran, tafsir, hadith. You have fiqh right, so the legal side of things, jurisprudence, and then many other things, sira, et cetera, et cetera. So that's like four core years and then you have an additional final year which is like, again like specialization in Hadith.
Speaker 1:You go through all the main books. So it's six years full-time. So it's Monday to lot of commitment so we started with 30 brothers, uh, six graduated including myself. Yeah, so no, majority, don't make it, because it's a big, big, it's almost like, it's like medicine yeah it's not like a degree is like three years you can kind of get through. But this, this is like medicine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but with a far higher dropout rate. It's like 80% of the class. Yeah, it's crazy. So what happens? I suppose people just get pulled in different directions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah because, okay, let's take something. You go to university, usually there's a system in place student loans, you know, like it's kind of funded for you, whereas this kind of stuff it's it's purely self-funded. There's no like loans you can take, there's no scholarships most of the time and things. So sometimes, a lot of times, it comes down to finances. Like a student most students couldn't fund the whole six years themselves. As you go to university, it's funded for you. You take out loans etc. You pay it back over over the years. Um, so funding is a big thing. Motivation, just seeing something through for six years is a really big thing to do.
Speaker 1:So motivation maybe Some people like they get really kind of amazed and initially, like you know, it's this whole thing about Arabic. Oh yeah, I love to learn Arabic language. It's such a cool thing. And then they, you know, they realize that actually there's a lot more to it than just being able to speak a bit of Arabic and it sounds nice and impressive to speak Arabic. It's like, okay, you have to learn the grammar, you have to learn, like, all of these intricate things and then the meanings of the Quran. So, yeah, it can sometimes get a little bit overwhelming to learn these things in such detail. So there's so many factors, of course, in life as well. Life gets in the way, I think, just results in such a high dropout rate for these things. Crazy.
Speaker 2:Wow. So then six years six years have gone by, so you're what like 23, 24 years old now yeah. And I suppose, what does a career look like for an imam? I don't know. We don't often think about that. But it comes down to this interesting idea of money and faith again, where I think a lot of people feel weird. When it comes back to this interesting idea of money and faith, again where I think a lot of people feel weird when it comes to imams charging for things. I know that's not right.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are saying, oh, you should just be doing it, you know, for free, free Sevilillah. Yeah, which is weird, but I don't know what did you? What does that path look like?
Speaker 1:Oh man, it's so weird honestly, like for imams generally speaking, although I can't speak for all of them, but yeah, the general kind of you know kind of path afterwards is, for the majority, the kind of default is you become an imam, meaning you become an imam in a mosque in a masjid like a full-time imam.
Speaker 1:That's like a position which is filled um, so a lot of them go into that, which I'll come to like. That includes, like when you say imam, that means you have like 10 different roles and responsibilities all in one right, because essentially that's what imam has to do leading prayers, teaching kids, you know, delivering khutbahs, doing the marriages, like everything all in one the counseling, the, the advice, etc. That's usually what an imam ends up doing and that's usually the kind of default like we don't have a set career path, we're not going to taught these things, like it's just like you'll have to just find your way because you know, that's just how it is, whereas I would say the majority of graduates, they end up just going into normal jobs, you know, just normal jobs. They end up going into you know, uber, taxi, driving different fields, because there's no like where, where are the opportunities? Uh, not everyone can go.
Speaker 1:Like this if there's thousands of graduates each year yeah, let's just say in the uk alone then they all, they can't all become imams or full-time imams.
Speaker 2:So why do people do? It if there's no like set job lined up at the end, as opposed just to be a community leader.
Speaker 1:And well, yeah, it depends on what your motivation was, of course, for for, for for a lot of them it's the fact that they want to learn, they want to seek this knowledge, this sacred knowledge. And then I'm not saying that those who don't become full-time imams, they're not contributing in any way, shape or form. Of course you can still work full-time elsewhere. You go into a different field, different area, and then you're on the side You're doing the khutbahs, you, you're doing the khutbahs, you're teaching, you know, etc. So you can still use those skills, which is not a problem, to do that. I'm just saying that it's very difficult to have a set career path as an imam where most kind of just go into some full-time employment and they kind of see their way through there, whereas for me, when I graduated, or even actually before I graduated while I was studying, the niqaqo came about while I was studying. So it was in the last kind of few years of my life, of my of my life as a student at Abraham College. So for me I don't like going into like full-time employment and just being in one place.
Speaker 1:For me I like, I like doing different things and I guess while I was a student I experimented a lot. That's where Ilm Feed podcast came about, like presenting public. I was doing public speaking. I was doing doing the poetry side. I was doing a lot of writing. I was, you know, doing events already, um, so I was doing a lot of things already while I was a student. I think it's very important, um, to experiment, especially at a young age, when you're in those like early 20s to mid-20s. Those are like the golden years is where you learn a lot about yourself. And for me, you know you're not married, like there's nothing tying you down, so I I fill that time with, okay, I'm studying, I'm taking my studies seriously, but I'm just like doing loads of other things as well at the same time, like I'm just trying different things out. This is how I I learned like, okay, I'm, I'm pretty okay at this, like presenting stuff I was doing tv presenting so I started with like a small tv channel.
Speaker 1:Eventually got to like islam channel. So, like I'm good at tv, I'm good at podcasting, I enjoy doing events and public speaking. So nikahka was actually a combination of those skills. If you think about it, like to officiate a nikah as an imam, because the thing is like not all imams are public speakers. You know, public speaking is a skill in and of itself. People spend thousands and thousands of dollars to become experts in public speaking. So just because you're an imam doesn't mean you automatically become a public speaker. And you're great at giving khutbahs A lot of imams who don't want to do that side of things.
Speaker 2:So that's the problem I guess you identified. So you graduate from Ibrahim College.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you'd already kind of started sowing the seeds for the Nikah Co.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So can you give like a one line, because I've heard it described in a few different ways. One of the more interesting ones was uh the uber for nikka? Oh, interesting yeah, I haven't used that one in a while it was from a few years ago, yeah, but I thought they really I really like sometimes that the something of something, but yeah, yeah, the uber of nikka the uber of nikas, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was like in the very early days where we said, well, essentially Nikah shouldn't just be about me as a brand, it all becomes about me as a personal brand and it's like only I'm doing it, like no, we need to find imams of a certain caliber, certain experience, with certain skills all over the country and that way you can scale and cover as many Nikahs as possible, as opposed to just me doing it. So country who can? And that way you can scale and cover as many niqabs as possible, as opposed to just me doing it. So it started there with just me doing the niqabs, and then I got you know one of my colleagues, um imam sultan, on board, um, and then it's just a case of now expanding and getting other imams. So like, okay, I'm having to travel all the way to manchester to do any car, this is not feasible for me to do week in, week out. Let's find someone in that area who's also of this caliber and things. So that's what the Uber kind of idea came from, but essentially it's a bespoke Nikah service provider. So we are specialists in the Nikah side of things. This is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Like with imams, there is no specialization. Well, there is, in the academic sense, where you can go and what we call tahassus, which is specializing in a subject area. So you'll go and specialize in hadith. You'll go and specialize in fiqh or Islamic finance. You know, like you could specialize in a certain from an academic point of view you can, but not like as a role. You know, and the way I look at it is any other field you think of, like medicine, let's just say you graduate, you have to pick a field to specialize in, like are you going to become a GP? Are you pick a field to specialize in? Like are you going to become a gp? Are you going to go? And even in within hospital, you can become a surgeon, nurse, like what is it that you're going to become like? Is it? Is it with um, what do they call it? Obs and gynecology and stuff like. There's lots of areas law, what, what law are you specializing in? Family law, commercial law, etc. Even in the world of business and entrepreneurship, and you know tech, there's areas. So, like with imams, it's always like you're an imam. So that means you wear like 15 different hats. You know what I mean like.
Speaker 1:So it would be great if we could empower imams to specialize in a field. So imagine if you had imams who go into, like, specialize in counseling, mental health, others who go into, let's say, islamic finance, others who are in education management, you see, um, but no, we just say, yeah, this imam, you, you're a counselor, teacher, leading prayers, uh, public speaker, etc. So for us it's okay. Nikako is all about specializing in this one thing, which is like marriages, basically, right, um, so the way I uh, now I kind of like summarize it into like three e's, which is so nikako is like expertise in marriage. So we, we bring that expertise. We've got, you know now, eight years of experience as opposed to an imam who's juggling all these different roles and can do marriages. Any imam can do the nikah, but is this what you're a specialist in? You see what I mean.
Speaker 2:Very interesting.
Speaker 1:That's the first thing. So you've got expertise. The second E is education. So it's like there's an educational side to it. So it's not just about turning up on the day and doing the nikah. It's like with the couple. You're educating them along the way. Their questions, their concerns it's a daunting thing the nikah, marriage itself, et cetera. Even afterwards, a lot of the times, we stay in touch. And the third is experience. What I mean by experience is the nikah actually becomes an experience. The number one feedback that we have from our Nikahs is that, you know, months later, years later, the couples they say our guests, they can't stop talking about the Nikah ceremony.
Speaker 2:Really, that became the highlight of the day. It's incredible feedback.
Speaker 1:And when you think about it, like think about how many weddings you've been to, like, do you remember from a wedding like months later you're like, oh that cake, oh the food, like you're happy for the couple and you leave, unless something really wrong happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unless there's something that goes wrong or there's something memorable, but the Nikar. We've made it an experience where the way that we deliver it now it's not just for the couple but the guests that are there. They're really like wow, okay, that was a really good ceremony. That's the number one feedback that we have's. Those three e's combined makes what, basically what we do at the nikako okay, incredible.
Speaker 2:So the problem that you'd identified it's kind of like a twofold problem. I guess one was finding someone who could, who could bring and perform the nikka yeah, with the same quality as every other aspect of the wedding people are spending a lot of money on the cake and the decor and the venue but.
Speaker 2:But they wanted the khutbah or the service to actually live up to the same expectations. So that's on the one side. On the other side is perhaps imams who wanted to I don't know specialize, Specialize in this kind of space and sphere. So, it's almost like I'm just thinking Uber like a platform, two sides of the platform. Is that kind of how you would describe the problem?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Things have evolved over time where, once upon a time, it was just a case of you want your niqah done, you go to your local masjid, local imam, you get the niqah done. Obviously, things have evolved over time. Now, where muslim communities have grown, now you've got venues, you've got halls, you've got all of these things right. Most of the weddings are taking place there.
Speaker 1:You've got guests that are coming, so it's an event in and of itself right um, now, as part of that event, you need a nikah, so you need an imam to now come and to give. Nasi had to give, to do a khutbah, to do recitation, to, to, to create, like I said, an experience on the day. But then a lot of like what was happening was imams were just going. I don't even blame them because they've got so many other things going on.
Speaker 2:They don't have the time to like spend on this couple let me craft a bespoke speech for this specific.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to turn up and get this nikah done. I need to get back to my job again, so this is a problem. We found there wasn't relevance. There was like a. There's like a. Yeah, you know, like there was a gap really where couples were like you know, you've got this younger generation now coming up. You have to understand like we're part of like a new generation now. Right, so we've come from a particular generation. Now the next generation have come up and they want different things now and they want relevancy, they want english speaking, they want to understand, they want to be a part of it, right. So we kind of like came at a at a time where we're kind of seeing this new generation coming up now and we're trying to fill that kind of gap. And yeah, just like like you said just specialize in this thing.
Speaker 1:Um, so you know, like now, eight years in alhamdulillah, as a team we've done more than 12 and almost 1300 nikahs. Wow, um, as an individual me personally I've done almost half of those, so like I've done about 600 now nikah ceremonies. You can imagine 600 ceremonies all across the uk, all across the like, different parts of the world. That's a lot of experience to have in one particular thing for sure and I'm sure you generated some very interesting stats yes, yeah we'll come on to.
Speaker 2:But as we were talking, when you were saying do you ever remember? Yeah? Do you ever remember I do remember, actually, I do remember one in particular, but it's probably the antithesis to what what you guys do at the nikkur, because the thing I remember the most was what the imam did at this one, and I think it was the couple had not discussed the arrangement with with the imam beforehand and this particular mom did not, uh, did not like the idea of a a nikah parada.
Speaker 2:So you know, it's like become quite trendy where the?
Speaker 1:I don't know if I've ever had this.
Speaker 2:But yeah, there's a partition, yeah, there's like a curtain made of flowers, right, and the groom says on one side, the bride sits on the other side, and he was very much of the opinion that the bride should be in another room separately. So what proceeded to happen was he sort of just rearranged the whole room, no way, and said the bride's family needs to go over here outside in this side?
Speaker 2:right and I'm going to sign over here with the mail relatives and then I'm going to go over there to the bride's side interest and then I think he gave like an off-the-cuff speech, okay, where it was all about people spending too much money on my dates. There you go See there you go.
Speaker 1:So this was the number one complaint that we had from married couples, which was the speech itself was like about, I don't know, like divorce, or it's about something really negative, or you know, couples. So there's a time and place for all of those topics. They're important topics to address. Maybe on a Friday, you know, sermon khutbah, but not on the wedding day. So this is another thing that we found like okay. So we need to craft a speech based on it's an enjoyable day, it's a, it's an occasion. Even as Muslims, we believe we celebrate this occasion. You know the process, I. There's going to be relevancy there, but it's going to be not like a lecture, I'm telling you off.
Speaker 1:You know it's going to be nice uplifting points about marriage and you know some light pieces of advice and things. So this is a common complaint, like exactly what you're saying, the whole arrangement thing, like it's probably because the imam again like I'm not criticizing the imam himself, but probably because there was no communication beforehand.
Speaker 2:That's what it was. That's basically what we had. No one had said before. It was just oh, this is the local imam, obviously this is who we're going to use, but they hadn't said anything about the arrangements and he had a different view of how it should go down.
Speaker 1:So we would never show up at a wedding not knowing what the plan is what the itinerary is so we are like a part of that.
Speaker 2:So like if, just putting it out there, I know my wife is watching, but I am married. But if I just rewind the clock, if someone were to be looking to get married and they call you guys, at what point do you get involved? Is it before, Is it like just before? Do you do any of like the premarital counseling stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or do you just get involved on the day, like how does it work for you guys?
Speaker 1:So yeah, or do you just get involved on the day? How does it work for you guys? So yeah, you'd get in touch initially with just someone from admin who takes you through the whole process, the booking and things like that. But as soon as the booking is secured, you're then in touch with the email. So that could be months before your actual Nikah, and usually we have, at the very least, depending on what kind of package you've gone for, because we have more tailored things, things. At the very least you have like a one phone call going through everything, or we have zoom calls. You're in direct like contact, messaging and things like that. Um, and we, we literally go through like everything, not just like the nikah itself, the ceremony, or you might have questions about. Oh, um, what do I say?
Speaker 1:what do I say is part of my acceptance, or oh the mahar, like you know how does that work? Or who can be my witnesses, like's. Lots of questions, the same kind of FAQs that we kind of go through. We take them through that. But also, like, what I love doing is like I like to see what the plan is for the day, like what are your timings, what's the itinerary? Like you know what time are your guests coming and how many guests are there going to be, what kind of venue Muslims attending as well, what's your demographic like in terms of? So I ask all of these things so that I can really see, okay, what kind of wedding is this? Is this like a wedding where I'm going to show up and it's like 500 people there and it's going to be like mad? Or is it like a really intimate one?
Speaker 1:Every Nikah is different, even culture, like I get to know what. What cultural background are these? You know the couple culture now, because I've done so many, I know, okay, what kind of things happen at these weddings, like just just in terms of even, for example, let's say, pakistani weddings. Okay, which was the? Based on 2024 stats that was a majority that we actually did almost like 50 percent of pakistani weddings that we did um or bridegroom, being of pakistani background, so, um, like, I know, like what happens at these weddings.
Speaker 1:Now, I know the kind of culture, I know the expectation, like Islamically. I know how a nikah works. Okay, it's very basic, certain things that happen, acceptances okay, there needs to be witnesses and so on. But in some cultures they have other additional things right. So, for example, in Pakistani culture, what I've found a lot is that now, islamically, if you were to give your acceptance, you just need to say it once, whereas in pakistani culture they ask three times. Now, islamic, you don't need to ask three times, but in pakistani culture that's the norm where does that come from?
Speaker 1:three is sunnah. Okay, um, you know, I don't know where it comes from exactly, but it's the whole three is sunnah and that that's you know. It's just, it's just become a normalized kind of uh, custom over the centuries. Okay, so now I know this, so I will ask the couple beforehand oh, by the way, um, like, would you want to be asked three times, or you know and they're like, oh, actually, that's a good point. Yeah, you know our parents I think they're quite traditional in that sense they would want, because what's happened in the past is that I've asked the ones like they've done it the islamic way, and then someone's come up to me, an uncle's come up to me, and and hey, you know, I've never seen a niqab done like this before.
Speaker 1:When I did it, it was three times and I've always done it, like in our family it's always been three. I don't want to cause problems and what I'm doing is I'm doing what's required Islamically. Now I could be the imam that just says no, no, no, islamically once. That's it factoring in cultures. If the custom is like completely un-Islamic or contradictory to Islam, of course I'm going to say no, no, no, I'm sorry. Like, for example, there was one custom.
Speaker 1:I think it's in like Iranian culture, but it's taken from like Persian, you know like which is when the bride enters and I've seen it in other cultures as well, not specific to them the bride enters, they carry a mushaf, a Quran, over her head as she enters oh, I've seen that, I think in a Turkish wedding, as well, okay, yeah, turkish as well. Yeah, now that, for example, someone asked me about this, like, oh, we may potentially be doing this, for me personally, this is almost like a disrespect to the Quran, because, the Quran is not a prop.
Speaker 1:It's to be read, it's to be recited. You don't use it as a prop for the bride coming in. I mean, there's other usages for it. So I just said no, I wouldn't be comfortable with you picking up a Quran and putting it overhead like this is not Islamic, it is purely cultural and it's disrespectful to the Quran and the nature of the Quran, the very essence of it. So do you see, like? This is how we offer advice, culture. You know all of these things. We have these discussions beforehand, and then you know paperwork, so the admin side, all of that. And then on the day I know I come in, I know they know what time I'm coming, they know what to expect from the Nikah, I know what to expect from them, and that's where the actual Nikah happens.
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:So let's talk about timing, because I think when I first came across you it was actually through a post that you put out on LinkedIn which you went through all of the stats of the weddings that you had performed yeah in 2024, and I think one of the key finding was how many of these weddings started on time. Right, it was a very small number. I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me find it, it was uh yeah, so basically in summary um as a team on the line 2024, we did about 200 nikas in total. Uh, of the the 200, I did about, I did 60, exactly six zero. So I didn't have the stats for the whole team, but I recorded along the way my personal Nikahs that I did and then you know, like here's a funny thing, right. So before we get to the stats, it's like someone who is a founder entrepreneur, like usually the end of year review is all about what it's about how much money you made, right, the finance side of things, um, I'll be honest with you, I haven't even looked at that and you know, for some people that might be like that's bad business, um, but I'm not like overly concerned with that side of things because for me it's like if you focus on the service, doing like giving it your all with the service and you know, high quality, then the reviews, the feedback, that's going to be positive.
Speaker 1:And as a result, the bookings will come in anyway, like there's going to be a good amount, inshallah, of income. So I'm not overly concerned about oh, how much did we make, etc. I didn't even look at that in 2024. For me it was like no, how can we improve the service going forward? And that's why I recorded these. I didn't record the stats to like put anyone down or to shame you know couples and be like it was. For me personally, like oh, these are interesting trends, this is what I can learn from and take it forward, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I think you said the out of only three of the 60 knickers that you did started on time.
Speaker 1:Yes. And the longest delay was over two hours, yeah, where the groom's entrance took 45 minutes, correct, yeah. And, by the way, uh, we're kind of still in the beginning stages of 2025 and we've already had something really close to that really this year out of like again, I've only done.
Speaker 1:I've done nine or ten nikahs up until now already so far this year, and the longest delay was one and a half hours, so the bride wasn't even there, like the groom groom's side were there, which is really strange, and the bride came like more than an hour later.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just really really delayed. So it started one and a half hours late. So we're really close to that two hours limit. But yeah, it's crazy. So, yeah, three started on time.
Speaker 1:So for me, like, the biggest quality is time, right. So I looked there's delays and there's travel. Those are the two things, because when you see the Imam on the day, you think oh, he's only there for like 30, 40 minutes on stage, maybe, that's like, and then he's charging for that, but then they don't factor in actually. So travel time what was it From the 60 niqabs? It was a total of 191 hours spent on the road traveling, which is in days, that's eight days worth of traveling, just back to back, traveling, right.
Speaker 1:So on average, the travel time was about three, four hours per nika as a round trip, right. So imagine you're spending three, four hours just traveling there. You've got a minimum of per nika, 30 to 40 minute delay, which is the average. Um, so already there you're looking at four and a half, you know whatever, five hours. And then you've got the actual delivering, the nikah, the service itself. You've got all of the stuff in between, the consultations beforehand, et cetera. So there's a lot of time actually that goes into each nikah. But yeah, so timekeeping, I don't know what it is, especially with events like Muslim events or weddings. It's almost like what do they call it.
Speaker 2:It's like GMmt, general muslim time.
Speaker 1:It just like if it says if it says a time, you add on an hour. Like thinking yeah, it's not gonna start on time, like where did that come from?
Speaker 2:which is weird, isn't it because, as muslims, we're so focused on time? You have to pray on time. Exactly, you break your fast. We're supposed to be very disciplined and like so it has to be cultural it's definitely cultural.
Speaker 1:It's definitely cultural, but you know, like it's, it's just a sad reality, especially I'm talking about events like, okay, you as an individual you're bad with timekeeping. I understand that that mainly affects you, can sometimes affect people, but where it's like events, weddings, etc. It's affecting a lot of people. Everyone, um, you know, affects everyone. So for me, yeah, it's, it's really so. Just weddings aren't starting on time for various reasons. So then, like, what we had to start doing was we start asking really specific questions. So instead of saying because if you ask the bride and groom, they'll be like, yeah, it's a lunchtime wedding, 1pm. I've never done a Nikah at 1pm, I'll tell you that for a fact. I mean very rarely I've done a nikah at 1 pm. Because then I ask, okay, you're saying the wedding's at 1 pm, so I ask specific questions like what is the guest arrival time?
Speaker 1:12, 30 okay, fine how many guests are coming 100 a half an hour for 100 guests to arrive and settle in and be ready for a nikah, it just doesn't happen right. And 100 is being, you know, very conservative here in terms of number right. Maybe like okay, what time is your, what time you plan to make an entrance? Then 12, 45, so 12, 30 guests arrive, 100 of them bang on time, 12, 45 you're making an entrance. And then you know, like culturally, like um, especially in the south asian, you know, pakistani, bangladeshi, etc. Indian weddings we have, like the groom's entrance is not just like when we say entrance you think he rocks up outside the venue and he just walks straight in and he's on stage and the imam's ready, like that's not how it works.
Speaker 1:So I say to him you do know like are you having a what we call like a gate thing? You know, like there's a gate where you're going to hold the, the groom ransom at the gate.
Speaker 1:That itself is like 15 minutes, yeah, and then if you have photographers and stuff, he's entering the photographer saying, stop here, let's take photos, get family photos, that's another half an hour gone. So the entrance is like you have to factor in at least half an hour 45 minutes for an entrance my brother, who's sometimes the co-host on this yeah, if he doesn't mind, we'll use some footage of it. But he got a horse and not just any horse.
Speaker 2:It was like the biggest horse oh my god serious so we had to get like a ladder for him to get onto the horse and then it started like on the other end of the venue, so we were all walking and he's just a horse, so there's a 30 minute walk it was a lot of fun, but um, it does take a lot of time.
Speaker 1:It takes time so I mean, if it's not a horse, then it's these. What the you?
Speaker 2:know the supercars, the revving the cars and coming in. Yeah, yeah, of course it all takes time.
Speaker 1:So again, fine, you can do all of that, it's not a problem. It's just that I'm going to manage your expectations for you and ask you these specific questions. So if you're saying 1 pm, I'm going to say to you 1, 32 pm, that's when the nikah will start, the wedding. Fine, 1 pm you're saying. But so? So now what we do is we manage expectations. So that's how we've cut down the delay time a lot over the years. So again, like, if I hadn't like noted these things, I wouldn't have known and I wouldn't have been able to, and that actually makes life a lot easier for the couple. Now there's things that cause they're getting married for the first time Super stressful it's probably not being.
Speaker 2:it's very stressful.
Speaker 1:I can't blame them for like delays, it's out of their hands. A lot of the times as well, they don't know. Here you have someone who's been to 500 weddings now over the past few years. I know exactly how things work. So this is where I can give you my input, my expertise, and it actually makes their life easier. So they've come to me for a niqab and they end up getting and this is why I always say like you know, any like.
Speaker 1:There's three things Every business venture and any endeavor in life needs, and these are three Islamic concepts. This is how I break it down. It's it's what I call like nib, n-i-b. Okay, so you've got. N represents nia, the I is ihsan and b is baraka. So nia is the intention, the y, ihsan is we translate as excellence, and then the baraka comes, which is the blessings from allah. This is what I, what I believe. Every Muslim business or whatever like project that you're working on, it needs these three things. So the niyyah, the intention, of course, why you're doing it. Obviously, again, if you're speaking from purely business terms, you start a business to just make money, right.
Speaker 1:Make as much profit as possible. Now, for us, as Muslims, no problem in making money, as we said, but that shouldn't be just the primary intention, because then it's too worldly right and we know that you shouldn't be too consumed with wealth and money and things. So have that inshallah as a result, as a byproduct of what as what we call. Even again, in business or in customer service, we say like you identify a problem, you offer a solution, right. So for us, as Muslims, there's a big thing called khidmah, which is service. So you want to serve people, you want to help them out, and in the process of serving them, you're basically using the skills, the talents that Allah has given you and then you're utilising that and giving back. So for me, a win-win situation is if you have something you're really good at, you have a skill and talent, and then you use that to help people and then, as a result, you make money from it, that that to help people, and then, as a result, you make money from it. That's like the biggest win. So the intention actually is that I'm going to use what Allah's given me these skills, I'm going to help people. So for me, with Nikako, it's I'm going to help couples with their marriages and I'm going to hopefully get them married in the best possible way and start their married life off in the best way to start the marriage. Hopefully that reflects right. So there's a niyyah, the intention.
Speaker 1:Then there's ihsan, which is excellence. So, as Muslims, sometimes we have very low standards or we're unprofessional, or, you know, we just we kind of aim for average in whatever it is that we do. But you want to be like the very best, so you want to like put time into it. You know, one of the definitions that the scholars gave of Ihsan is that you go above and beyond. And again, customer service. What is the difference between good customer service and great customer service? It's that you go above and beyond for the customer. You give them things or do things for them that they didn't even ask for or even expect.
Speaker 1:So again, with our businesses, with our projects, especially if you're serving people, you don't want to just do the bare minimum. Okay, you paid for a nikah, I'm going to show up on the day and do a nikah. No, like, I'm going to do extra things. So, like I said, this whole itinerary stuff, like that's not part of the package, they didn't pay for that. But I'm, I'm telling them look, I've got experience here, I've got expertise in this area. I'm going to help you, even with your itinerary on the day. There's many, a lot of weddings where I'm making announcements outside of the nikah. I'm just helping the the event run smoothly oh really, because I've got experience, so I'm like you know, because I can see that.
Speaker 2:So you take on the role of like organiser?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I can see they've sent their like cousin to make announcements and this poor guy, he's like no one's listening. But I'm someone who knows how to like work the mic.
Speaker 1:I've got a certain voice. I've got the experience from it. So when I make the announcement, people listen. So I'm helping them like, run the event, so this excellence or ihsan, or going above and beyond, just doing extra. And then finally you've got the barakah, which is, again, people want to prioritize business or profits over blessings. I'd rather have make less money but have more barakah in my business, which is, as a result, the business will be more beneficial, it will be more long lasting, even if there's competitors that come in. I know if I have barakah in my business, I don't need to worry about competitors or, you know, I don't need to cut corners. That's where barakah comes from, and barakah is a direct result of the first two. If you have a right intention and you do the best that you can, it should be the outcome.
Speaker 1:The outcome, because you can't control the outcome. We believe the barakah comes from Allah.
Speaker 2:So then, inshallah, there's blessings and that's like a that would have. That's the long-term kind of game for us. Um, it's a beautiful way about thinking about business as a muslim, because I think, for the most part, there's still I think it's falling away, but there's still so much of a, a taboo or an idea that we cannot be rich as muslims. We shouldn't be focused on that. Uh, parents feeling weird about it, mixing, or like paying a mom for a service or something like that. But I think that's starting to fall away and I think that's a really interesting way of looking at it. It's almost like an accounting balance between the deen and the dunya when you look at your business, and we try and do the same at Kestrel, like our.
Speaker 2:One underlying prayer that we make for us here is that Allah uses us and doesn't replace us with someone else as long as our niyyah is still there and our intention is still where it was, which is helping as many Muslims as possible to grow their wealth without compromise, then, inshallah, we hope that that will maintain. But coming back to the stats, yes, the stats.
Speaker 1:What were we talking about?
Speaker 2:We were talking about delays. What else did you experience? Do you see things changing?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So lots of other interesting trends I've I've realized over the years. So especially, you've got this um, post-covid and pre-covid era. Now yeah, okay, which which I call bc, which is before covid, and then right, so you have after covid. So things have changed. Because covid what it did was obviously everything shut down, no weddings at all, no events, etc. And then eventually, when it did come back up, they were like, remember, there was very specific rules about bubbles yes, how many max?
Speaker 1:in in a gathering and social distancing, so all of these things, right. So, um, what started happening was when, when, like when things were opened up slowly again, um, people were having these like 30 person weddings, right, or they were doing it at home, or they were doing it in a very small venue, in a marquee, in the garden, right, and then that trend almost just kept going, even when things opened up, right, people were like oh, we can have a wedding where there's less people, we don't need to invite the whole, you know like 500-odd people to the wedding, so you can do it. So now what I found is that, what was the stat that? What was the start? It was, out of those 60 nikahs, I did more than 40, so that's like almost 70 percent uh, were small nikahs held at home or in the masjid or in a very small venue where they were like less than so. For me, small means we're talking less than 70 80 guests which is relatively small if you think about it right.
Speaker 1:Um, that was almost 70 percent of the nikahs that I did last year, and then the rest were, you know, the kind of bigger weddings and functions, right. So that's a really positive trend, I would say.
Speaker 2:Do you think the costs are scaling down as well, or are people spending more in other ways? Because I think I saw an interesting stat which IFG put out. I think, a while back, which was that.
Speaker 1:Was it the 50K one? Yeah, so on average muslims are spending about 50k in this country on weddings. Do you think that's come down?
Speaker 2:that's coming down now for sure, as a result of doing things smaller, which is great, which just shows that people were just spending for other people, like just for the sake of show you're just showing literally, yeah, it's just this cultural kind of pressure that was there crazy you know we've invited these amount of people.
Speaker 1:You need to do the same, and yeah you know, oh, they have, they had this standard at this kind of venue and whatever. I need to do the same now. It's a lot of money that goes on. Weddings like that are unnecessary, um, that you don't really need. Like I remember for my wedding, you know, my brother drove me to the venue. I didn't, I didn't hire I mean, I know people are into their cars, but I didn't. I just didn't see a need to hire out cars, just an extra cost. Yeah, like you just go with basic things you know, like, and you'd be surprised how much money you can shave off. Like we're not talking about hundreds, talking about thousands of pounds. You can save by just not doing even like the dress or the outfit. Like you can, you can buy a nice outfit without spending like, yeah, hundreds and hundreds of pounds on that, I remember for my wedding I I drove myself because me and my brothers in the car and I didn't feel comfortable one of them driving so I drove and we stopped.
Speaker 2:We stopped just outside the venue and put like some, uh some ribbons yeah, yeah, just so it looked a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, okay, so costs are coming down. That's, that's amazing yeah, cost of coming down and I think I saw something about intermarriages between cultures becoming more common. Yeah, a lot more common. So again, um, like a third of the nikass that I did last year, um were into what you call intercultural. So that's different cultures, um, like muslim cultures, like you know, uh like uh north africa and marrying uh south asian, whatever, but that also a lot of that also includes, like reverts so you know, a lot of reverts marrying.
Speaker 1:Then you know, like I don't know, born Muslim from a certain culture. So a third of niqabs. And already this year, you know, like I remember, a few weeks ago, on one weekend, I did like two, three niqabs and all of them were intercultural ones. So it's becoming very common. Why? Because that's just as a result of you know the UK, how multicultural it is now. In the big cities like london, for example, how many different cultures there are have mixed together, whereas once upon a time it was like this section of the community was yeah this was somali and that's how you kind of stuck together.
Speaker 1:Now it's just like a big mix. It's a whole melting pot of, like, different cultures and you know the the demand for marriage is more now because there's more muslims. Um, the demand is more and there's. So you know, like that's ultimately what it is right.
Speaker 2:Do you think that's the natural state for Muslims living in the West? Is that Because I think our ties to our cultures and our home countries becomes more and more diluted. And we end up having greater affinity for people who just grew up in a similar country to us. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's exactly like. You've explained it perfectly well. So I think, even like the older generation, the parents and grandparents you know, just a couple of decades ago they would have really, really looked down on you know, marrying outside your culture.
Speaker 1:If not just looked down it would have been just completely unacceptable, whereas now I'm seeing like it's just perfectly normal now, like even for my own parents, when I think of like ask them 10, 15 years ago not about us per se, but just like the perception of, you know, the perception of marrying outside culture it was deemed no, I don't think it would work, because it's happened now so many times within our own families, within society. They're just like okay, it can work the expectation's there.
Speaker 1:The expectation's there. So I think again, it's one of those positives. Where it's another taboo you've kind of just smashed it and said it can work. Um, you know, although I I'm still a big advocate for I don't think that should become the default. I think, still, within your own culture, I think it there's a lot of benefits, yeah for sure, um, for family, for yourself and so on, familiarity, compatibility, these are all big things, even islamically. So I'm not going to say just marry outside your culture for the sake of it.
Speaker 1:Just to you know, be a bit rebellious you know like uh, but there's a lot of benefits there. But at the same time, let's also be perfectly accepting of the fact that marriage can work and, like you said, in the in the west, like we, we've got a lot of similarities despite having different cultures, but at the end of the day, we speak the same language, where we've got a lot of Western customs. You could say that we're accustomed to.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think it's all good. It's a very interesting trend. I wanted to ask you as well do you offer or ever talk to couples about premarital concerns or doing any sort of that counseling? So it's a separate thing, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not part of the standard Nikako. The thing is with the Nikako. The other thing was I didn't want to like add too much into it. I could do, like courses and you know, seminars and all these things which we've done, but like when you know like you're doing good in something, you just need to like focus on that thing and just perfect it.
Speaker 2:And just do really well in that founder mode a few things, but very very so.
Speaker 1:For me, nikahko should just be the Nikah side of things and, alhamdulillah, we've done really well so far. Let's just keep going. And we've barely scratched the surface with Nikahs. If you think about how many like we did 200 last year, for example Nikahs but think about how many Muslim weddings there were last year. There were probably thousands. Probably not really reached everyone. And that's okay as well, because not everyone is going to want Nikah, they're going to want a local imam, they're going to want other things happening there. So no problem with that. But yeah, so I think for us there is a separate process for that.
Speaker 1:There's a separate option for the premarital stuff which is becoming more and more common, which is good, because it's just that, as cliched and as basic as it sounds, you, as cliched and as basic as it sounds, you do need education. Before you do something, you do need to be prepared. And there is a level of preparation, because the other extreme is someone says I'm not ready to get married. It's like if you keep telling yourself that you can never actually be ready, right, you're married yourself. You can never be ready to get married. You just got to. Sometimes just take the plunge right, which?
Speaker 2:is scary. It's scary for right.
Speaker 1:Same with having kids. Like, who can ever claim that? You know, I'm 100% ready to become a father or a mother? You just got to when you have a kid.
Speaker 2:I think if they claim that there's a reality that happens Exactly, your expectation is way too high.
Speaker 1:So, like sometimes you're like I'm not really ready, but I've looked into things, okay, bismillah, let's go for it. That's where the tawakkul side comes into it. You kind of trust God and then you learn a lot and you struggle with things. So marriage is exactly the same. You can't master it. Even someone who's been married for 50 years hasn't mastered marriage. There's still things that they learn because people evolve over the years. Right, the person you married is probably not the same person Today. You're not the same person today. You're not the same person either. There's a lot of changes within yourself.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, there's a lot of things that we offer, and I think it's just part of being a little bit extra prepared for marriage. And and when we talk about education in marriage because it is one of the the factors I know we'll speak about, like why marriages maybe are failing or why the divorce rates are high, we'll come to that, but one of the reasons is because you just haven't prepared yourself for marriage. You know, you've kind of romanticized the idea of getting married. So I think there's a quote like you know, people love the idea of, you know, falling in love and getting married, whatever, but they just love, but that's all it is. They love the idea of it, but then not the actual reality of being married and then seeing the marriage through. So they're not really ready. They don't know they've got an expectation.
Speaker 2:It's just like, yeah, it's just going to be all rosy when I get married. They believe the this is coming from my own experience. You believe the story ends once you've got the girl yes, and you'll be married. Yeah, yeah you don't realize?
Speaker 1:there's a whole other chapter, that's just yeah, that's just the beginning for us yeah um, and a whole life journey ahead and so many different stages along the way. So, yeah, it just helps you be a little bit prepared. That's what it is.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about that, because I don't know if it's just anecdotal or I'm just seeing it in my own life and with the people around me, or if it is a real trend, but it feels like, unfortunately, a lot of marriages are falling apart in our communities. Unfortunately, I've had four friends in the past two years who, within one to 18, sorry, within 12 to 18 months, their marriages fell apart and they ended up getting divorced. Okay, yeah, is this a trend that you are seeing? Is that something you would track at the Nikko?
Speaker 1:So I mean naturally, yes, like it's something that, and I always say like, of course I need to make a few disclaimers. So firstly, the more Nikkas we do, the more chance there is of hearing about right.
Speaker 1:So in the early days we never heard of divorce. Great, because we weren't doing as many. So of course, right, that's number one Number. Because we weren't doing as many. So of course, right, that's number one. Number two I just want to mention is that I'm not a spokesperson. I don't have all the stats to hand so I can't really speak for, like, I don't know Muslims in the UK or whatever. I can just give like general kind of pointers.
Speaker 1:And the third thing I want to mention, before we talk about divorce rates and things, is that of course divorce is not always a bad thing. Of course put it out there, because when we talk about divorce rates it's always like doom and gloom. But maybe someone really was like unhappy in their marriage. There's abuse, there's like things happening, really serious things, and they needed to get out of that marriage. That's okay. Other times it just didn't work out. Fine.
Speaker 1:Maybe another factor to why divorce rates are higher is because before it was really really stigmatized and like no matter how unhappy you were, you were just stuck, whereas today people have more education on this and they realize, okay, actually, if it's not working out, we can get divorced and I think that's okay. Like you know, maybe that's also why it has. If the rates have gone up which I think it has, that's one of the factors is just because people are just okay with just getting divorced. You know, it's not like before, where, well, even till today it still exists. Where we spoke about the finance side of weddings right, you've spent 50k on a wedding. Now you almost feel pressured like I can't leave this marriage now because I spent 50k. And what am I going to say? What are people going to say? What am I like? That's too much, too big of an investment for me to, so let me just see it through and live a really unhappy life, oh man you see, so there's a lot of factors there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course this is a big cultural thing because, like, we spent too much money. Yeah, we can't like, because then for them it's like, well, if I leave this marriage, I probably have to do it again, I have to spend more money and I have to, like, invest that time again and rebuild my life. I'd just, let's just stay here, I'd be unhappy. But whatever, you know, there's a really sad reality. But I want to make those disclaimers before we talk about, yes, the reality is, of course, there is an increasing rate of divorce and I would put it down to, let's say, three factors, three main things. The first is what I spoke about the lack of education, the lack of preparation, whatever you want to call it. The lack of, or even expectation is another word, right, the managing expectations beforehand. So, yeah, just basic things. So, of course, course, like, when we talk about education as an example, what do you need to know before you get married? As a muslim, you could say, yeah, the islamic side of things, the fiqh, for example. Right, that's important, of course, yeah, so you should know the fiqh, you should know the islamic side, like you know rights, responsibilities.
Speaker 1:Again, just on this note, by the way, I don't know if it's slightly controversial or not, but we live in an age today where it's all about rights. Yes, okay, that's the only focus. So, in other words, what we're saying is that, okay, there's, and of course, rights exist, and no one's denying that Islam gives rights. Women's rights, men, husbands, children have rights. Everyone has rights. Okay, but I think we're overly focused on rights. What do I get? So, going into marriage, what do I get from this? What do you owe me, whereas there's a responsibility that comes with it. In the Quran, allah mainly talks about responsibility Marriage, even as a parent, you have big, big responsibilities, right? So if you're just focused on, okay, what do you owe me, as opposed to what is upon me, what is due upon me to give right, then there's actually a big problem. Does that make sense in marriage? You go into it thinking, okay, what you owe me, this or this is my right, and you get very legal very contract contract yeah, contractual, very legalistic, very like you know, that's not how a marriage works of
Speaker 1:course, right, even if something, legally or technically speaking, is is due upon you. That's not how you don't wake up with a you know a list of things like today, you need to do this right. That's not how marriage works. So, if you think about, if each couple, if each individual, just focus on what's my responsibility, then, as a result, the rights are being fulfilled, because you're worrying about what do I owe this person, the person is worried about what they owe you, and then the rights are fulfilled. It's like a mutually it's done. So, yeah, that I just wanted to make that point is that, again, we focus too much before marriage on rights, rights, rights, but rights and responsibilities, and you have to focus on your responsibilities as an individual. So learn about that, fine. But then there's other basic things, like even finance, for example. Like you know, one of the reasons why you know like couples run into issues is because, yeah, financially, it impacts your family life, it impacts your, you know. So learn a little basics about just finance and saving and being sensible with money.
Speaker 2:And there was a trend that emerged a few years ago on social media, where I think it was. I think the line was her money is her money and your money is her money Right and I don't know where it came from. Yeah, Is there any basis to that, or was it?
Speaker 1:So, legally speaking, no, there's no basis for that. It's a nice quote, it's one of those nice things that, basically, you know, of course, islam, like you know, I think it comes from almost like trying, we, as Muslims, trying to prove to the world we do give women rights. Because the world has a perception, and because of how muslims are negatively portrayed in media and outside world of like, oh, you're oppressive to women and hijab and all of these things, right, it's like we go to the other extreme, like, no, no, we really are good to our woman, right, we, everything's hers, okay, which, look, it's not legally true, right? You know, ultimately, like even zakat as an example, like you know, technically, a woman has her own zakat due upon her. A man pays his own zakat. Now, of course, if you're married, there is an option where the man can, the husband can, take the woman's zakat upon himself and pay on her behalf, right, but the default is it's due upon you.
Speaker 1:Even in the Quran, when Allah addresses, in Surah Al-Ahzab, when Allah addresses the wives of the Prophet, he literally says to them وَأَقِمْنَا الصَّلَاةَ, وَآتِينَ الزَّكَاةَ, وَأَطِعْنَا اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ. He says to our mothers these are the wives of the Prophet, that you need to establish the prayer and you need to give agreement. I'm going to pay on your behalf, no problem. So do you see, like there is, individually speaking, your money is your money, the husband's is the husband's, but the husband the difference is that he part of that money. Whatever it is, it depends on marriage to marriage, on case to case is that it is due upon the wife. That's the expenditure and all of that right, so part of that is hers, but not all of it. You can't just say by default, it's all has right. So I think it's inaccurate.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, again, when we can't think legally, like when we got, when I got married, for example, right, me and my wife, we didn't say like, okay, it's gonna be 50, 50, right, and you know, the money in my account is my money and I'll only give you this, this amount. That's not how marriage works like it's. Like you know, the money in my account is my money and I'll only give you this, this amount. That's not how a marriage works Like it was, like you know what we're, a team, that's, and this is actually one of the things I mentioned in Nikar's speech.
Speaker 1:Like you know, before today you two you were just two individuals on your own path. After today, you're a team, you're one unit, you're going to work together. So, of course, I don't mention the finances. You're a team. So, if I make more money, what's in my account? That's going to benefit you. If you're making some money, that's going to benefit us. So, when we go on a holiday together, when we give ourselves that break, when we buy if we're buying a house I don't know what it is a new car, we're going to team up and do this together.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's just the's an emergency. And what am I going to say? No, no, I agree to give you x amount this month. Why should I give you more? She's like, no, no, but there's this, do you see? No, okay, inshallah, let's, let's work together, let's balance things out. So you just got to be a team. I think that's the most important thing. Uh, when it comes to um, when it comes to finances, okay, yeah, so that's really important. So you've got the financial side of things. Education, you've got even like basic psychology or gender differences. I think it's really important to just know.
Speaker 1:Honestly, like you'd be surprised how there's a funny story where, like you know, like men sometimes are just men. We have what we call in Arabic, like in the Islamic concepts, the fitra. Just have a natural, just the nature of men, the nature of woman. You can't change the nature of a man or the nature of a woman. So when you get married, a big problem is that the man tries to make the woman think like a man and the woman wants the man to like, be like a woman or think like a woman. Do you see, like you can't change the nature of things. Yeah, so you can change, you can, people can change. I not saying that, but if something is at the core, if you're wired to think a particular way and there's loads of examples of this right, Then you can't necessarily change that.
Speaker 1:So there's this funny story about how, like you know, like, once, like a woman came to her husband right and said, oh, I had this dream last night and in my dream it was my birthday, and like I received a box, a present, and I opened it up and it had like really nice bracelets and jewelry in there. I wonder what this dream means. And the husband was like you know what, let's wait to your birthday. I'll show you what the dream means. And she was like okay, okay, and then her birthday finally comes, and then she gets a box. And you know, the husband presents a box. Then she opens the box and obviously in her mind she's expecting. And she opens it and it's a book how to interpret dreams, right, and she's just like forget it, I'm done with this guy Right and the and the moral of the story is sometimes men just don't get it.
Speaker 1:Like you know, sometimes you have to kind of like be straight with them. You can't. You can't say you should know how I'm feeling, right, you should know. Sometimes with men you just got to spell it out right communicate.
Speaker 1:There's so many basic differences which you'll be surprised how many of these basic, minor differences cause so many major problems in a marriage because you just haven't understood each other's nature, you haven't understood what it means to how each uh approach conflict, how each approach space and wanting space, and you know how each approach they're just just views and and you know so many different things. So it's just really basic things. But I think you should just know um and again, I think, as a muslim community, because you know we've got this idea of which is, which is important of course, but like you know, segregation and not being. You know like not, not not being in, kind of like you know in, in in touch with, like a woman from the outside and things. I think because because of that, because we've kind of like isolated or segregated ourselves, we don't understand how the opposite gender, works?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and that's where a lot of it comes from. So, basically, I mean, I grew up with just brothers, right, like the only woman I really knew was my mom.
Speaker 1:So it was weird. It was like a real culture shock, to be honest.
Speaker 2:Just everything from being in the same living space, just even the way you eat meals.
Speaker 1:It's going to be very, very different, Exactly Okay so that's really interesting.
Speaker 2:So education, finances and understanding nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that all falls under the first, which is just pairing yourself a little bit before marriage, so you're not like the educational side or even expectations. So we kind of touched on it, which is like going into marriage thinking it's the end, or going into marriage like with this concept of love and romance but, not realizing that that's not going to last forever.
Speaker 1:Um has a short lifespan of and it was so interesting you mentioned that some of your friends who, sadly, you know, went through divorce 12 to 18 months, so that's really common. So you know, the two-year mark, the 24 months mark, is the kind of the the critical point in everyone's marriage. So within that time, that's where most divorces happen. It's within the first two years, right? I mean, how often do you hear of a couple who have been married for 20 years and then get a divorce like?
Speaker 1:it's very rare right compared to the first few years. Critical why? Because that's when you're getting to know each other, you're getting used to each other, right, you're learning about each other, and eventually it's it's a choice now, like, okay, so I know this person, now they're not what I expected them to be, that I don't really like them, so let's opt out now that kind of thing. Right, it's, it's almost like, but obviously that's not how marriage works. You need to, you need to manage that expectation before that they're not going to be exactly how I've seen them, or you know there's going to be certain changes.
Speaker 1:But what are the like non-negotiables for me? And there has to be just a few things, and then the rest you're just going to have to adjust around. Do you know what I mean? Like there's a lot of things my wife doesn't like about me, right, but they're not like critical things that are, like you know, like same thing with my wife as well, but ultimately there's certain things that, okay, the marriage isn't going to work out, right.
Speaker 1:So you should have a few like you know red lines or you know non-negotiables, and then, outside of that, hey, we're just humans, right? No one's perfect. So I think that's the first, and there are two other things that I found right. The second again, I'm going to try and be like polite about this because I don't want to sound controversial, but it is almost like a um, like a generational kind of shift from. You think about previous generations again parents, grandparents and you go back and you find that a lot of them were married for long, long periods of time. You didn't really hear of divorce again, maybe because of the stigma side as well, I'm not going to deny that.
Speaker 1:But also then you have a generation which is like wants to, doesn't want to work as hard. You know, know, wants the easy, make easy money. You know passive income, just somehow just make an investment and you're set for life. So there's that side of things, there's just not wanting to work hard, as if you think of like stories of our parents and grandparents they worked you know their entire lives are just working really hard.
Speaker 1:It was like a survival mode, whereas for us we've kind of privileged. So what that's done over time has kind of made us a little bit weaker, right, a little bit soft, so to speak. Right, um, to the extent, like I've heard people say, oh, don't ask how old are. You, ask how young you are, like it's like, it's like we've become so soft, like you don't want to be known as old anymore. It's like, bro, if you're 30, just say you're 30, like you don't need to like be around the bush, kind of thing, right, yeah, so we've kind of got this thing like we've become a little bit softer in that sense, a little bit weaker where that affects your levels of patience and perseverance. So when it comes to a relationship now, the moment there's a bit of disruption, a bit of turbulence, a bit of a few problems, you're like, yeah, I don't think this is going to work, whereas before, if there was a problem, it's just like okay, let's, we're going to find a solution, I'm going to make this work and we're going to see it through. So I genuinely do feel like there's a lack of patience or understanding and a lack of, you know, kind of empathy and whatever you want to call it, perseverance, and that has translated in different aspects of life, but into relationships, not into marriage. When I just don't, you can't see it through, that hardworking aspect that you find in the workplace which has come down, that's now translated into not wanting to work hard in your marriage, because marriage is about making an effort.
Speaker 1:They say that love is a verb, so it's a doing thing. Falling in love is different to being in love. So falling in love is the easy thing, it's an automatic thing. It's the feelings, it's all of those things that come together, whereas being in love is actually being in love is a choice. It's not an automatic thing anymore. Once the love, the, the, the initial love, fades away. Now it's a choice to be in love with this person. You have to choose that right.
Speaker 1:So that effort is where some people struggle with, like, oh, I didn't know how to make this much effort to to make the marriage work. No, every day is an effort. You know, know, like one of the um I forgot who was gary chapman or someone who called it the love tank. So every couple, every individual, they have a love tank and, just like you know, when you fill your car over time, the love tank gets emptier, and then you have to fill that love tank again. So you've got to do something. An act of service, buy a gift, you know whatever that person's love language, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then?
Speaker 1:the love tank fills up a little bit more, okay, and then that keeps your marriage going for for longer, whereas for us the love tank is kind of emptied and then we don't make the effort to like fill it up again. We're like no, you should, just you should just like, you should just love me, you should just. The marriage should just work on autopilot. Oh, man, and that's where? Do you see, like you know, there's a lot of really sad.
Speaker 2:So basically, if you don't figure that out in the first two years, yeah, a lot of people are tending to cut and run now without understanding how, I suppose, they fill up the other person's tank exactly or what does it?
Speaker 1:they say pour into my cup, yeah, yeah yeah, whatever term you want to use, it's just a case of. In summary, it's just making some extra effort now, sure, right, and just finding what makes this person happy. You know, you've learned about this person by the end of this one and a half, two years now. You know this person, uh, you've lived with them, so you know what. You know what irritates them, so try not to do those things as much. Uh, at the same time, you know what makes them happy. You know what kind of love language they have, so try and tap into those.
Speaker 1:So that's the second, and the third that I'll end with is, uh, legitimate, like legitimate issues. So the third reason why couples get divorced is there are legitimate issues, right? So the first was like things that you can avoid or things you can prepare for. There's the third category is like things that you can't really prepare yourself for. There's genuine, like you are at conflict with each other, maybe you just weren't compatible. There's communication issues where, like one is really closed off, doesn't share Another one, and this is again like controversial, shouldn't be controversial, not spoken about at all among Muslims, which is lack of intimacy and sexual fulfillment and things like that.
Speaker 1:Do you know how big of a statistically speaking, how big of a factor this is to divorce? You'd be shocked, Really. Yeah, it's a big, big factor.
Speaker 2:Amongst Muslims.
Speaker 1:Generally speaking, but amongst Muslims. But Muslims don't want to talk about it at all. It's very uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:We never. You know, you have to have told your whole life not to talk about it or think about it, exactly, and then suddenly you're Now you're having to think about it, and now you're having to actually not just think, but it's something that's affecting the marriage.
Speaker 1:It's a core part very explicitly. It's mentioned in Hadith. But for us we can't like even those verses, even those Hadiths. We just kind of brush over it. We don't want to like, and again, you know. Coming back to the educational side, you should learn these things from scholars, from, like you know, and we as Imams need to be comfortable addressing these issues as well. You can't just keep kind of hiding away from it, but that, for example, in and of itself is a big factor. Like you'd be surprised, people don't know basic things.
Speaker 2:Um and um, yeah, just fulfillment, love, feelings, communication, I guess I guess the danger there and I I'm, you know, seeing and reading about this, it seems like you know what we were talking about about a relationship becoming about rights very contractual that sometimes, when it comes to the intimate nature of a relationship, yeah, sometimes it can seem like that, like it can seem a little bit contractual yeah someone pulls out of it again.
Speaker 2:This was doing the rounds on socials, but a verse from the quran which says that a woman has to fulfill their husband's needs in this way, otherwise, yeah you know, I think it's like that's a hadith.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a.
Speaker 2:Had a hadith about it, the cursing and the angels that the angels curse them for not doing that. So do you think that's kind of like there's something seriously wrong when a relationship reaches that point that they're starting to discuss things like that. In a fulfilled relationship, they shouldn't even have to be talking about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But then how do you get to that point?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, what we call that is weaponizing a hadith or an ayah in the Quran. You weaponize it At the moment you have to start weaponizing a hadith or something, or the moment you have to start quoting the law. That's when you know things. You know you're at a stage now where you're in a very dangerous territory where this is make or break for you. If you reach that point where you have to threaten now if you don't do this, did you know allah says this about you know? It's just, it's really dangerous, right, um, whereas of course there should just be things where you got out of your way to do and you learn about each other, and this is why I mean, like, by over the year, year and a half, approaching the two years you've you know each other now, like you you've spent time together.
Speaker 1:Um, so the intimacy side of things comes into it where it shouldn't be, that case where you need to there should just be an understanding.
Speaker 1:There just has to be a basic understanding, just like with everything. Just come to an understanding. You've learned about each other. You know what each other, what you like. You know all of these things, even in the intimacy side of things, without going into it. You need to help each other, like you know. Again, you know. Come back to like team. You're a team, right? You know. If one person is not happy or is displeased, it's going to affect. Like you know, when we have small arguments with our spouses, it ruins the home environment Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Your day is ruined.
Speaker 1:You don't feel like. You just feel so low. Imagine now a couple who are having constant issues, right, imagine how low, and you know how much is impacting their life. You don't want that Like it's a big thing. So it's just about discussion, you know, being comfortable enough with each other. Marriage you should never kind of be on like your spouse is the one person you should never be on guard with. Like you should lower your guard Like.
Speaker 1:There's a quote from attributed to the companion, omar. He said that you know a man, when he's with his wife, needs to be like a child, just playing and like. But then when it comes to being a man and being responsible, now you need to be a man. So like, sometimes, as men, we're like, you know, we've got this guard up all the time. We're trying to be, you know, the macho man constantly when you're at home with your wife especially if you've got kids and stuff like that like you should be playful with them. You should be, yeah, that you're not the man on the outside world. Now that's the you know. Yeah, but when it comes to being responsible, when it comes to taking charge, yeah, then you need to be a man, because no woman wants to marry a child. Let's be honest with you. Yeah, like a woman wants to be, a woman wants to marry a man, right? So if you're immature, you know, then a woman doesn't like that. But what we're saying is that with her at home, you banter, you know, you're that enjoyable person.
Speaker 2:Be a bit more vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Don't be the you that you're out there in the world and women trust me, they love that right as much as again, you're going to find the other side of men like nah, I'm sorry, I'm not having that right. You know why should I pander to a woman for, et cetera? I'm sorry, this is not prophetic or it's not Islamic to be a man. We use him as a prime example of.
Speaker 2:You know the man you know, the toughest guy right.
Speaker 1:Everyone's scared of this guy. Shaitan used to cross the road and run from this guy. But yeah, he's saying when you're at home, be like a child, but when you're outside, and when, or even within the marriage, sometimes you need to take responsibility and be the man. That's when you're a man. So, like you know, I think this is something that, again, a lot of people like I just always remember this one example that comes to mind, where we spoke about gender differences and things where one, like you know a couple were having issues.
Speaker 1:The guy says to me, you know like, yeah, we're having major issues, and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it, like what is the issue here? And one of the things he mentioned was that whenever they have an argument and she says to him like you know, like let's go away, give me some space, he's like okay, then, and he leaves the house and he goes and off with the boys or whatever, and he disappears. And then he's like, yeah, I don't understand why she's upset. Like I'm like you know, a woman have a language, a code. Men have a code as well. Right, and you need to learn that language and that code. So when she says to you certain things, like when she says, get away, give me space. That doesn't mean get away, give her space. That means you need to give her more attention now than ever before. You need to go to her.
Speaker 2:Right, you need to literally go and, and, and you know, solve it there and then basically right.
Speaker 1:But when a man, his code is, when a man says, give me space, that means give him a little bit of space, back off a little bit. Now, if you smother him and no, no, no, tell me, let's talk about it right now, let's address it right now. He's not going to like that. So men and women have a code, they have a language. They need to learn that and for him, what that's actually what she means by that. And when he implemented that, he found there's a big difference. Now he's not just going off and she, she now feels more isolated, she feels more upset because, like what he's not like. We had an argument, he did something, he upset me.
Speaker 2:And he doesn't care, he doesn't even care.
Speaker 1:He's gone really basic things, trust me. But in summary, those are the three areas as to why I think you know it contributes to marriages either failing or you know it contributes to marriages either failing or you know higher divorce rates wow, incredible, and and I guess we'd be remiss to talk about this subject without talking about the point about how people are meeting these- days, because I feel like, with the rise of so many apps which are out there now which I think replaced a lot of the web services or there are still
Speaker 1:web services out there I think like singlemuslimcom and things.
Speaker 2:It sounds like people are using these apps more often but maybe not necessarily finding success there. There's like a term like horror stories and all of these that people are finding on certain applications. Do you think people are increasingly meeting each other on these apps or is it kind of sowing more confusion in the community by people kind of going onto these apps not being that serious? Yeah, we've heard a lot of stories about women being messed around. In some cases, men being messed around as well. Do you have a view?
Speaker 1:on that. I mean from observation, of course it's it's it's it's a growing trend. I know people personally who like friends and and close associates who got married through apps like mose, whatever um, you know, there's some people that I know that literally got married through apps like whatever you know. There's some people that I know that literally got married through Instagram or TikTok. I didn't understand how initially, and then they told me like yeah, they just came across a profile or, you know, they commented on a, on a, on a post and then that person commented as well under it, and then they clicked on the
Speaker 1:profile. They they liked what they saw and they just took it forward for marriage purposes. So it's crazy. So there's people that I know who met volunteering at a particular place Organic and I'm a big advocate for the organic kind of meeting. I think that's the best case scenario. It's just organically things happen, as opposed to you going out of your way, searching, searching, searching. So naturally I'm seeing a lot of this like the tech being used, the apps being used a lot more. Like I said, I don't think it's a high success rate from the people I know.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people who there's more complaints that I hear or frustration that I hear than the success stories, but I still believe it can be used in a positive way if you go about things the right way. Like you said, there's a lot of abuse, there's a lot of horror stories out there. If you go about it the right way, the right intention, you involve your family, et cetera, it can be a huge success in these things. But, you know, an app can never replace the human connection. That's the main thing, which is why, till this day, the number one method of still getting married, as boring and as traditional and as archaic as it may sound, is, you know, through recommendations and through families and through exchanging details and I don't know, nowadays you whatsapp groups and cvs and biodatas, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:That is still the most effective way of getting married because it's human connection, it's a recommendation. You know this person or knows of this person. Okay, yeah, I trust that, and you and you send that's the number one way, that's the best way. Then you know, I would say it is apps and things, but even before that, I would say it's the organic way of like, as, as an example, I met someone at my workplace. It's organic. You met someone, you've seen them, they're in front of you, you can't ignore it. You like this person and you go and you approach them for marriage and you get your family involved and you take it forward.
Speaker 1:But I feel like that was fr'm not going to say majority, but I think more than half the marriages that are out there are through this way. Now I think parents over time have kind of like accepted and I think we should be accepting of the fact that if my child or whoever it is, my family member, has come to us saying that we have found someone, you should be thankful to Allah. In the climate that we're in right now, honestly, where people are struggling that they found someone they like and they're coming to you, the second thing you should be thankful for is that they're actually coming to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to vet the person, yeah like they're actually coming to you and saying what do you think, can we proceed? And they're involving you. I think that's actually the best case scenario. Um, so I know it's difficult to sometimes accept because you want to be like no, I want to be in charge, I want to find the person for you. I get that. But honestly, in the west anyway, I think we are moving even away from that as well, where it's become a little bit normal for people to just organically meet.
Speaker 1:You know, as long as you're not doing anything wrong, you're not going off and doing your own thing, you involve your family, let them vet and then, bismillah, you get married. I still think that's perhaps the next best way. But yeah, human connection needs to be there. Otherwise, the apps, they have a limit and, as great as they are, they can connect you to different people and different parts of the world.
Speaker 2:Who was it?
Speaker 1:the other day, literally a few days ago, in Ramadan, one of my students came to me and told me that he's getting married soon, inshallah, and he told me his story of how he got married. Oh, my god, it's crazy, right? Imagine I'm teaching a class on zoom and there's no, there's no, like there's no other videos on except for mine. Okay, and it just so happened that this was a course on marriage I was teaching, right? So you've got a bunch of people on there. Guess what happens.
Speaker 1:So, apparently, this is what he told me. He goes that, you know, because we have like a, you know, there's a Zoom, there's like a Telegram group as well where you can post, you know, ask questions to the teacher, resources, et cetera. So, apparently, like you know I don't know which side it was, but you saw, like you know, one of them saw that the other one was quite active in talking about, you know, sending resources. So they're thinking to themselves well, this seems like a person who clearly isn't married, seems like a good person interested in marriage, et cetera, is studying the same course as me, which makes sense, right? You're both there studying a course about marriage, which means that you must be on some kind of similar wavelength. And then apparently they just literally just like asked are you interested in getting married? Got their family involved and then they got married. That way. I was like what from my class? He's like, yeah, he's like you know, you're actually like responsible for us getting married.
Speaker 1:I was like alhamdulillah, that's, that's great wow, yeah, so that's how. That's how things can happen you know what?
Speaker 2:I think that's the third story I've heard, yeah, in that kind of vein where people were attending a course together okay and then not through the course but through, like the telegram or whatever it was they ended up talking and it turns out, they just struck a chord. I think because it's like they already understand that in order to be attending this class, you have to be at a certain level of similarity to me in terms of your knowledge journey and what you hold important to yourself.
Speaker 1:So I think a lot of the work's already done. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I was thinking of any of that, but this might be a bit controversial. We might cut this. Have you ever performed any like second marriages? Are those like common or not?
Speaker 1:that common? No, it's uh, so it's not common. Yeah, um, uh, yeah. So I, I personally wouldn't, wouldn't, like I wouldn't be comfortable with the idea and and let's be, let's be honest, maybe we've done one and we didn't even know yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Who's gonna tell you that this is my second?
Speaker 1:yeah, maybe it's just, it's a nikah to us, right? So, anyway, putting that to a side, um, it's no one's ever mentioned that, we've not come across that before. But can I tell you what is becoming more common? So we spoke about the, the intercultural one, that's common. There's a few other things that are becoming common, which, islamically, there's a red line you can't proceed with this which is a lot of Muslim women wanting to marry a non-Muslim man.
Speaker 2:Really yeah.
Speaker 1:And I can tell you, in the last six months alone we've had plenty of inquiries and we had one issue where we booked a nikah in because you know the bride got in touch, she's muslim and she just she booked a nikah, like you know, but then, when it got to um the stage of like kind of booking the nikah in, then we, we found out that the groom is not even a muslim and we're like oh, but he didn't want to revert.
Speaker 2:No, no, so he wasn't willing to revert anything like that.
Speaker 1:And then we we mentioned oh, by the way, this is not something we can do because Islamically it's like unanimously agreed, it's not even like a difference of opinion, it's unanimously agreed consensus on this issue that a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man. It's not something we can do. And then she actually left us like a one-star review and started exposing us per se. I was like that's fine. I was like that's fine, you can expose this is like mainstream Everybody accepts his opinion, but it's becoming really common.
Speaker 1:And I think there's an underlying issue to this, by the way and again it's controversial to get into this but I think the reason why are let's try and break this down and dissect. Why are even Muslim men, why is it becoming common for them to marry outside of culture or marry a revert? Why are Muslim women looking culture for or marry a revert? Why a muslim woman looking at non-muslim men isn't that? Isn't that telling you something? That there's a problem with muslim woman not wanting to marry a muslim man or you know, a muslim guy not wanting to marry of his own culture? Because they have these perceptions of muslim men and maybe we haven't done ourselves favors, or online or whatever they've seen.
Speaker 1:It's like I don't want to marry that. I want to marry, I want to find an alternative to this. And even guys, they're looking at women within their own culture because of maybe growing up, this whole cultural you know, baggage or whatever they're like. I don't want the cultural baggage, I want to marry a revert because you know they have, they don't have any of this cultural stuff. It'll be straightforward.
Speaker 2:So it's actually if you follow the trend, it's actually really, really interesting as to why people are, even the psychology behind yeah these decisions that are being made I don't know like it rears its head every so often, but like there's this, I don't know. A friend of mine got involved with this on on twitter recently where he was talking about how a lot of south asian women seem to be hating on south asian men and saying that they would never marry there I think it's because of bad experiences. There's definitely bad actors.
Speaker 1:And then the stories get propagated online. You'll always hear the negative stories, the horror stories that's going to be given, it's going to be amplified, whereas the vast majority of marriages are okay, alhamdulillah I'm not going to say a huge success, but they, they're okay. But you'll hear about the small percentage of what divorce is or bad things happening, and then it's just like, especially social media doesn't have twitter is like the, the cesspit of all of this.
Speaker 1:It's just really, really bad. You'll hear all of the horror stuff on there and then people will be like you know what, actually I don't want to get married, or if I do, I'd rather choose like an alternative outside of this and like thinking that that's going to solve all the solutions. Um, so it's very interesting, but I think you know ending on a positive, if we're talking about those who are married, if you're thinking about marriage, if there's one piece of advice that I think you know, one word even that we can all inculcate into our marriages for me it's in Arabic, the word is taghaful, which means just overlooking. For me, that's actually one of the best piece of advice that I heard, which is overlooking is like the best piece of advice, because that's what marriage is all about. It's literally, like you know, like some say, it's like picking your fight. If you wanted, you could pick a fight every single day, multiple times a day, because you're living with a person. They annoy you, they irritate you, they do things right, they say something, they didn't say something. There's loads of things you can pick on, but marriage is literally just all about just overlooking. Not to say that if a person is that there's a genuine issue, that you overlook everything I'm saying, pick your fights.
Speaker 1:So there's going to be times where you need to communicate. Um, you need to. Sometimes there needs an argument like I don't think all arguments are bad by way. Sometimes you just need to thrash it out, just air it out, it's okay. It's when the arguments become toxic. Obviously, if you're using bad language, you're abusing it. That's not right, okay, but you can just argue and just air things out. You can communicate an issue, but the majority of the time there's going to be small things. You just need Move forward, like Allah says in the Quran Wal ya'fu, wal yasfahu, wal ya'fu forgive pardon, wal yasfahu the word comes from the word safha, which means a page. It means turn the page. Marriage is just about turning pages, just starting afresh, okay, and just moving on. And then, every so often, you'll have a major issue that may arise. Okay, address that, but most of the time, think about it.
Speaker 1:Marriage is just like small, small things. You know, I call it sore spots. You know sometimes you get a little spot or a pimple. Right, it's not the end of the world, like, in fact, the more that you think about it and the more that you're like pressing it, trying to get the thing out, it leaves even more of a mark on your face or whatever it is, whereas you know, sometimes you right and you just overlook. Whereas, yeah, if you've got like a massive cut or wound, you're not going to ignore that. You need to address that. You need to. You know. I think that's what marriage is like. You're gonna have little sore, sore spots over time. You can just ignore it, you know, overlook, and then every now and again you're gonna get like a major wound or something, a cut, and that you need to address. I think that's the the kind of the positive and, honestly, like we talk about all the negatives and stuff, but marriage is handle, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:It brings something like after I got married, the baraka. You know, when I was in malaysia a few last year, a brother asked me while we were driving back from an event and that I spoke at. He asked me a really good question that I never really thought of. He said so he was looking to get married and he said so, like can you give me an example of how marriage brings Barakah? Everyone says marriage brings Barakah. Yeah, how does it bring Barakah? How did it bring Barakah into your married life? And I was like that's a really good question actually, like.
Speaker 1:And then I'm thinking and I'm like actually it's one that I did, and like, because Barakah is not always tangible, like it's also the way you feel, the way, like you know, people want to hear the amazing stories of, like I became a million after I've got married. Like allah just sent me a lot of money, right, but I, I gave an example. I was like, especially after I had my daughter, before, uh, even before I got married, like I didn't travel much. And then, after I got married, we did some traveling, but again, not much. And then, but subhanallah, after I had my daughter, uh, like my daughter mashallah, she is um now she's at the time of recording she's past age of three. Um, but before she turned three, I think she had been to um like 15, 16 countries, wow, um, like in the space of two and a bit years, um included.
Speaker 2:Like umrah, she's been to hamdul, I think, five or six times in that time the age of three before the age of three right for me that's like, that's the tangible barakah.
Speaker 1:For me. We're like, you know, the the traveling. Like Allah gave me so much opportunities which, if you think about the psychology, you think the opposite. You think when you have, when you get married and have kids, you're restricted yeah and you travel less.
Speaker 1:So, while you're free and independent, before you get married, do everything you can, which um which part is partly true. Do like remember I spoke about those golden years? Do as much as you can. You can't do as much, then, but don't restrict yourself like it's a mindset thing. Don't say, oh, when I, when I get married, that's it, I can't, I don't have a social life, I can't venture, I can't do projects yeah, I mean something.
Speaker 2:I spoke about this, I think, once a long time ago, but, um, when I, when I got married, it was at like a really critical juncture within my business within Kestrel. Um, and we were was at like a really critical juncture within my business within Kestrel and we were going through like a really down point, like we didn't know how we were going to make money. We were running out of funding. We had about like three months of money left in the bank to pay everyone. So it was really bad. And I just got married and I just found out that my wife was pregnant. So it was like, know, you say there's golden years.
Speaker 2:We didn't really stick to that so it was like in the first couple of months, um, that that happened and it just was like a really, really dark time. And then, alhamdulillah, just out of nowhere, this massive opportunity came our way, where you know, a major islamic bank, the biggest islamic bank in malaysia, reached out and said can you white label your technology and provide it to us? And that was like a revenue line we'd never even considered before, which is b2b software as a service, and alhamdulillah that single-handedly saved the company and you know, we haven't looked back since.
Speaker 2:That was three years ago amazing so and I really really put that down and my son coming. So you know. There's another example for you.
Speaker 1:If people were looking for A lot of barakah in marriage. Alhamdulillah, it's an amazing journey, alhamdulillah.
Speaker 2:For sure, and what a beautiful way to end this. So, imam Shabir, thank you so much for your time, exactly, As-salamu alaykum Wa-alaykum as-salam. Thank you for listening to this. Give us a like and share it with someone who you think might be interested. It really really helps us out. Thank you, as-salamu alaykum, and see you next time.