One of the thing the Qur'an focuses on is guarding one's privates. That is obviously a very vast topic, but I'm just here just writing about guarding one's shame 'within the marriage'.

Before young men or women get married in our times, now a days, you know they've watched a few movies here and there, or sometimes had relationships with other Muslims that was not lawful before they made taubah and became religious. And they have this idea of what love is and what marriage is and you know brothers come up to me all the time and they're like, "Bro, man I gotta get married man!" As though, in their head they have this concept that once they get married all their temptations are just going to: Phooff! (disappear immediately) And life is going to be bliss and we're going to read the Qur'an together and its going to be this spiritual experience, right? And there is this fantastic view of what marriage really inside their mind. Those of you that are married are probably not even laughing right now :p because your'e wondering: "What is he talking about?? which bliss?" 😀 right? Because you don't even remember the feeling that way, right?

Many a times you do run into a brick wall. You know why? This is what I want to focus on: What is shown to us about marriage, our idea of marriage, specially the modern mind (whether they are Muslim or otherwise) the modern idea of love and companionship and a man and a women together.. the idea of it is basically the same as dating. And dating means you have all the fun and when things get difficult you walk away. That's what dating is. So we actually when we think of marriage, brothers and sisters even, when they think of marriage, they are thinking of the aspects of marriage that are like dating. But you know there is a lot more to marriage than dating. There are bills, chores, and the fact that you have to learn to live with another person (which is very difficult) because you do things your way, she does things her way. There is a towel hanging the wrong way, or the toothbrush is in a different place, or the sugar in your tea or milk is lesser, or salt is not enough in your food.

Little things start adding up and in the beginning we're like: "I love her too much, I'm not gonna say anything, I can handle these things." But a year later it starts piling up and you're like "again with the salt?" -- "how many times did I tell you to put more surge in my coffee?" -- you know? it starts adding up..

Now this doesn't happen in the movies and in the dating because you're tired of this girl, you move on to the next one? Simple. Or she is tired of you and like: "I think I don't wanna deal with your smell any more I'm out." So in dating and in the T.V and in movies, they can just walk away from it.

But marriage is a serious commitment. And the terminology used in the Qur'an is very strong. "Al-Muhsanaat" and "Al-Muhseneen" --  In Arabic, its the word used for putting someone inside a fort. Like a military camp. The idea is that there are enemies outside and once you're inside this fort you're safe. So women are described as a female who has been put inside the fort, a protection. And who's protecting them? The husband is. From everything. From sadness, from difficultly, from shamelessness in terms of ignorance. He's protecting them, encouraging them. He's protecting them in every single way. And the one who wants to get married, Allah describes him as:

مُّحْصِنِينَ غَيْرَ مُسَافِحِينَAn-Nisa [4:24]

.. meaning they are men who have the intention of bringing women into this fort, into their protection. They start families. Not just to get their desires out. "غَيْرَ مُسَافِحِينَ" "Musafeh" is someone who has hormones over taking him and he just wants to get his lust out of his system and that's why he wants to get married. That's it. You see?

So basically Allah is changing our mindset about marriage. But if you marry for the right reasons then you'll have a healthy relationship with your wife. If you marry for the wrong reasons.. and the wrong reason is: "I just have hormonal problems therefore I wanna get married." and that's it. You know what? you're going to have a miserable marriage and you'll never be satisfied. And probably some of us have learnt this the hard way already. Because the intention was all messed up. The intention has to be to start a family, to please Allah (subhanahu wa ta'aala) and specially to increase the good in society.

And another principal we have to remember and if we don't remember it, a lot of times husbands and wives are very dissatisfied, and they are more prone to this 'fitnah' of shamelessness and fahash stuff. There are new statistics out there, that are very disturbing.. They were released last year, the statistics globally on pornography were  shocking because majority of them come from Muslim countries. And there is a reason for that. Because there is a serious problem in the Muslim countries. Its a horrible thing. And its not just young people, its married people too. We have to change the way we take care of our families so we can address these problems. And if we don't address them, then we're not going to be able to guard our privates neither our eyes nor hands and the things go worst beyond that.