The phenomenon of fast marriages is becoming as popular as fast food among wealthy families. The groom’s parents rent the apartment, buy the furniture and pay for the wedding for their son, believing that surrounding him with all creature comforts will bring him happiness in his new life and improve his marriage.
This trend has found its way into a number of societies and has changed their understanding of marriage. It has helped to create marriages based on financial dependence upon parental generosity. The danger of these arrangements is that they can make the couple feel that their marriage is meaningless because it is empty of memories of joint struggles to find a suitable home and acquire every piece of furniture and every electrical appliance in the house. Easy come, as they say, easy go.
A study looking at marriage found that only one-third of young men in most countries have the desire to make and build families by their own efforts. The study also confirmed that young men are lethargic about trying to achieve independence in their lives. Previously an important facet of maleness was manifested in independence and in building their family without parental assistance. But with expenses rising and incomes falling, there may be no stopping the trend.
Poorer families also practice a kind of “cooperative” marriage based on financial aid. The father of the groom, in order to provide his son with a home, resorts to assigning him part of the family apartment. Though the bride and her poor family are forced to accept the arrangement, this kind of marriage often does not last, due to overcrowding, poverty and the conflicts that arise day after day between the bride and her mother-in-law who of course doesn’t want her authority challenged by the intruder.
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ATTEMPTS to improve the image of Arabs and Muslims in Western eyes through talk alone will achieve nothing. We tell them that Islam is a religion of mercy, justice and peace, and they respond, “So where did these terrorists come from? They were brought up in your houses and taught in your schools and they committed acts of violence on your territory.” We respond that they are dissidents, not true Muslims. Their answer is that they are Muslims and so it goes — ad nauseam.
No one can begin to understand Islam except by reading the Qur’an, the Islamic constitution. It must be read in the language it was written — in Arabic, and not in translation — because the greatness of the text lies in its miraculous revelation. No one can understand and feel the glory of the divine text without knowing Arabic.
I have read the Qur’an and its meanings in English and have seen it read on television screens. But with all due respect to the efforts, they cannot possibly capture the real message and spirit of the Qur’an.
It is a miracle that Islam should reach nations that do not know Arabic. Most converts to Islam have lived with Muslims and experienced their hospitality, warm-heartedness and loyalty, and these are the things which have drawn people to Islam. This is why I feel that action, not words, is the true call to Islam.
Language barriers cannot be broken by words, but action and example are universally comprehensible. The first action Muslims must take is to reject all aspects of extremism, show their commitment to democracy and human rights everywhere and to welcome others in spite of differences in ideology or doctrine. In this fashion we can convince the world of the splendor of Islam. Talk by itself is cheap.
Arab News Features 7 February 2003