THE IDEAL MUSLIMAH

Life with our spouse is a voyage and can be eternally blissful depending on our attitude to each other. We sometimes have a dispute or encounter a "small" problem in our marriage and easily forget the thousands of pleasurable and blissful moments before that event.

A student was shown by his teacher a beautiful huge white silk cloth with a tiny black spot on it. His teacher asked him what he observed and he promptly replied that there is a black spot on the cloth. His teacher replied with a loving smile; "actually, son, this is a beautiful white silk cloth and oh yes, if you look closely you will see a tiny black spot!"

As human beings we often tend to look at the weakness or fault instead of concentrating on the beauty which in most cases surpasses the defect. This is so pertinent when we look at our marital relationship.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is reported to have said: "A believing man must not dislike a believing woman (wife) if he dislikes one of her traits, he should remember that there are other traits that he likes." (Hadith-Muslim) 

The wife should remember that the husband has put up with all her frivolities thousands of times, what is there if he is hard with me just this once?  The husband on the other hand should also ponder over the thousands of times his wife had served him with love and diligently.

A Muslim is always tolerant and forgiving, overlooking any errors on his or her partner and does not bear a grudge for such errors or remind him or her about them every so often. There is no quality that will endear them to each other like the quality of tolerance and forgiveness, and there is nothing that will turn them against each other like resentment, counting faults and reminding about mistakes.

Allah Ta'ala admonishes us: {Let them forgive and overlook, do you not wish that Allah should forgive you? . . .} (Qur'an 24:22) 

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is reported to have said: "A believer is not a fault-finder and is not abusive, obscene, or course." (Hadith- Bukhari)

May Allah give us the strength and courage to overlook the faults of each other, show tolerance and respect for our spouses, parents and children….Aameen.