Question 

Assalaamu alaykum. May Allah reward you! I have been married for five years now and have two kids. My husband lives abroad and never calls me. He has not come for a year now. He only takes care of his family even though he has brothers, and he always ignores me for his family. The conditions are not good where he is staying, and I have asked him to come but he refused. Then I asked him why he married me if he had responsibilities. He got angry and asked me what I wanted; and that he would give me a divorce or a Khul‘ (divorce requested by the wife in return for compensation). Then he told me that his mind is not at its place because of tension. I love my kids, but my husband’s behavior is making me so tensed, and my father has also died recently. I live in my in-laws’ house and see a lot of trouble, and my health is getting worse. My husband loves his family, and I never objected to him doing anything for them and his brothers, but he does not understand that I am his wife and I also have rights. In this way, our relation is getting worse, so please help me.

Answer

May Allah make it easy for you! It is a very difficult situation, but Allah is the Most Merciful, and He will find a way for you by His Will. According to what you said, your husband is being unjust, he needs to seek advice; otherwise, he is subjecting himself to sinful acts. As for you, you are only responsible for your own actions. Facing any challenges in our lives should be done by our hearts, tongues, and physical actions. In your heart, you should realize the favors of Allah upon you; there are many bounties and favors of Allah which are countless. These favors should cause you to always be pleased with Allah, no matter what you face in this life. Looking into your situation, you should witness that Allah is the Most Wise and that everything is by the wisdom of Allah.

There are two folds to the solution: your husband and yourself.

As for your husband, you have no power to change him, but there are means that can be taken:

1- Supplicate Allah that He guides your husband’s heart.

2- Try to find out which scholars your husband likes and respects the most, call them and ask them to advise your husband. This can have a great effect on him.


As for what you do for yourself:

1- Increase your faith by doing good deeds.

2- Repent to Allah from all sins.

3- Realize that this life is a test from Allah and that we are all tested with what we like, and also with what we do not like.

4- Be grateful to Allah that your test is not more severe.

5- Attend circles of knowledge in your locality – if there are any – that would make you busy and change your perspective on things.

You might think that the above steps are irrelevant, but that is not true. There are so many means that are not physical but which we know from the Quran and the Sunnah, so be patient in applying what has been described above, and Allah will make it easy for you.

If nothing changes after all your efforts, then you might have to leave your husband if that is feasible for you where you live. There is no doubt that you are being treated unjustly, so you have the right to ask for a divorce if it would bring something better, and after first applying all of these means.

May Allah make it easy for you and bless your marriage.

Question

My father has never cared about me and never treated me nicely ever since my childhood. I am over 30 years old now, and I have serious problems in my life because of him. He is not responsible, never paid for my education, never helped me to be myself, and always irrationally accuses me and insists on that in order to make me feel bad. He wastes his money on useless stuff but does not help me. He never took me to a hospital and never cared about my health, and I have some health problems now. He is a perfect liar and has even argued about moral things and accused me of insisting to follow inarguable morals just because that hurts me. He has a problem, all he does is annoy me and mentally and physically attack me, many times seriously. I always reach a dead end in any argument with him. He is just on the opposite of everything, while I am not a bad person and have been trying to be a good person ever since my childhood, and everyone who knows me knows that, but my father is just against me and only worries about himself. He has even given me a bad reputation among the people. I cannot accept him anymore. I want to leave him forever and take care of my life and be a good, productive person who benefits society rather than waste the rest of my life with him while he enjoys attacking me. While I think about that, I find myself stuck in the child-parent relationship according to our religion but, again, my heart and mind cannot bear it anymore. How could I be forced to go against my heart and own satisfaction to such limit? I am human, and I have lost my life and now need to recover. I need peace and need to be healthy and well, while my father always insists on attacking me, and that makes me crazy, and now I am really losing my mind. Would I be sinful if I decided to leave him in such situation in order to worry about recovering my own life rather than waste the rest of it in a useless, harmful relationship? I still believe that the religion tells us to ask our own heart, and believe me, my heart cannot do it anymore, and I am losing even more now. Is our religion not merciful enough?

Answer 

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.

Your message shows a lot of anger, regret, and sadness. I understand your feelings, and you did the right thing by asking what the solution is according to what Allah wants from us. Before I give you my sincere advice, I want you to understand certain facts of life:

1- Allah, the Most Wise, created us to worship Him alone, and He sent Messengers and revealed books for people to follow.


2- We were created from nothing, and Allah gave us life, and we shall all return to Him, Exalted be He.


3- Life is a test, and everything in it is to see who is grateful and who patiently applies the orders of Allah.


4- We do not choose our parents, nor do we choose our children and relatives.

Having said that, you need to witness the Wisdom of Allah, you are being tested with your father to see whether you will remain obedient to Allah or not. Many people have suffered a difficult past that affects the future, and their mind is still trapped in the past, which hinders any means of success in their present and future life. Allah is the Most Just, and He is the Most Merciful.

You might ask why I mentioned these facts while they are obvious. The reason is that people often do not build actions on the obvious; they rather build their actions on their desires. If you have certainty in what is mentioned above, you will enjoy your life regardless of what you are facing in it.


If something constitutes difficulty, you will believe that Allah is testing you to see your patience, and He promised the patient ones a great reward. Nothing is wasted when you seek rewards from Allah.

In our beautiful religion, we are ordered to be kind to the parents even if they are not. You seek rewards from Allah by being kind to them regardless of their reactions or what they did in the past. Allah made your parents the means to your existence, and that is a great favor! The verses of the Quran and the hadiths of the Prophet  state that you should be kind to them; they are one of the gates to Paradise, and the one who witnesses his parents when they are old in age and they are not the reason for him to enter Paradise is a loser.

Relieve yourself from stress, forget your past, and do not let it affect you; and be kind to your father, do not expect anything from him, and seek rewards from Allah alone. Focus on what benefits you, and do not busy yourself with blaming others or your father; there is no benefit in that. Rather, it only contains more misery. Guard your prayers, perform thikr (expressions of remembrance of Allah) Allah, pray in the masjid, do good deeds and help others, and focus on what is good for you.

You can have your personal life, family, separate house, etc. and still visit your father and be kind to him. Being kind to him does not hinder you from being a successful person; take the means to be successful, and at the same time take all the means to be kind to your father.

What you think is a bad thing for you might be the best thing ever, and Allah knows best. So be patient and seek rewards from Allah.