i think death would be easier than a
divorce
[Music]
what's wrong with that this is a
business the more you charge the more
people are willing to pay
they didn't give me a lawyer pay those
eleven thousand dollars
or go to jail after two hours we will
have spent more than most people in this
courthouse make in a year
your home your your valuables are all
going to be sold
to pay the lawyers and people like me he
still made a decision to
take my son away from me his birthday
was last week and i didn't get to see
him
and the lawyers are throwing gasoline on
that fire the system is designed to
create conflict
jeff's suicide murder
how you been how's everything over there
in cali things are good alhamdulillah
things are things are going actually
really well
i heard you guys went in reverse now
with the phases that they have in
different
cities is it uh reopening or what's
going on with the hokova thing
down there we were reopening until
recently but
last week the governor issued a
turnaround on that so
all restaurants indoors have to be
closed in fact he actually issued that
all masjids
inside all churches all religious
organizations cannot hold in-person
services
indoors so everyone's doing it outdoors
now
everyone so the masjids are back they
were open now they're back to being shut
down
they're back to being shut down
officially i cannot even go into my
budget legally
because we're not allowed to so we just
do it outside in the parking lot so we
had to eat
last week and i did like four footballs
outside in our parking lot which is
totally legal so basically like
restaurants
denny's and all those restaurants
they're actually having tents in their
parking lot
and people are going and eating in the
tent because they can't go inside the
restaurant to eat
i'm just curious uh before we get into
what we what
we intended to talk about i'm just
curious like i've heard
many christians they've actually fought
this they said it's unconstitutional and
they had a
they actually fought this for their uh
religious freedoms and whatnot have you
heard anything about this
yeah i've been following that a lot of
christian groups actually reached out to
us as well and said hey you know you
want to join us in the fight against
this
this was quite a while back about a
month ago uh so we looked into it and
the way that it works in america is that
uh there's states and then there's the
federal government so when there's a
conflict between the two
the state gets immediate precedence and
then there's going to be a lawsuit
between the two
and then the federal government can uh
you know override
after going through court but the local
state will always take precedence
by default so what happened was even if
we did that and we
tried to like fight it in any way it
would just be a long process we wouldn't
be able to override the state's
authority
until the lawsuit completes and that's
going to take a very long time so the
churches wouldn't open anyways
and the masjids wouldn't open anyways
yeah you know
the islamophobes are always looking for
something to nitpick about you know
they can't affect the theology of islam
the pure monotheism
it's really something that brings a lot
of people to islam it's straightforward
worship the one and only creator the
heavens and earth not his creation
simple but there's some things that need
a little bit more explanation and now
where there's ambiguity somewhere they
try to capitalize on that
one of the things out of the many and
usually if someone's
not being disingenuous they're they're
really sincere looking for the truth i'm
sure you've experienced so many times
when you sit with an individual and you
explain things in context maybe you can
give some examples on one of those
true stories people are like oh that
makes sense
uh here is one example is where have you
ever heard
where people criticize also the divorce
system in islam
so this is what i wanted to get into i
want to share this clip with you
and then we can kind of compare it
contrast it with the islamic solution
and then we can go from there how's that
let's do it
i think death would be easier than a
divorce
it's very frustrating to have gone for
help
and then come out with your family
destroyed
we have serious problems in our family
law court system
getting divorced is far from easy
litigation lasted for over a year i was
married only four months
and my divorce has lasted over six and a
half years
close to eight years eight years why is
divorce
so difficult people can get as much
justice as they can afford
most people cannot afford any justice at
all
what's wrong with that this is a
business the more you charge the more
people are willing to pay
they didn't give me a lawyer paid us 11
000
or go to jail it really got to the end
of the line for me
i said to the litigants i want you to
know after two hours
we will have spent more than most people
in this courthouse make in a year
your home your your valuables are all
going to be sold
to pay the lawyers and people like me
even though i was acquitted he still
made a decision to take my son away from
me
his birthday was last week and i didn't
get to see him what you have is a
tinderbox
and the lawyers are throwing gasoline on
that fire the system is designed to
create conflict
i received a phone call for another 25
000 he'd
be able to give us what we wanted
extortion
family court results in more violence
than any other area of law
jeff's suicide murder
no jury just the one biased judge the
judge says
even if you win you have to pay
the whole thing is just insane follow
the money
okay so that's that's the actually the
trailer from
a documentary called divorce court it's
interesting that
you had i think in today's day and age
when we try to promote morality and you
bring up marriage to someone
someone be besides the people who try to
attack islam on the different variant
things
but you've probably that position where
you talk about marriage and the person
who's maybe gone through it or heard the
horror stories
at the end of the trailer he talks about
you got more death suicide
and all these other things that are
happening just because someone's
divorced with all the trauma that goes
with it someone's like why would i want
to do that again
why would i want to go through that
nightmare again so this could actually
be a form of
of dawah when you're talking to people
you know uh giving the islamic solution
what do you think about that when you
hear this have you seen this documentary
yeah i've seen the documentary i watched
it more than once um
very eye opening i'm i
just watched it in the last year i wish
i had watched it earlier it came out in
2014
but yeah i mean this uh this highlights
a
major problem in our society and
islam is such a beautiful religion if
only people would understand
uh what the reality is that they're
living in and they realize what islam
really taught
about marriage about divorce about all
these things they would
begin to appreciate the teachings of
islam and
i've you know i've had this conversation
with many people
muslims and non-muslims and
the moment they realize what islam
actually teaches about both marriage and
divorce the value of marriage
and also the possibility of divorce as
well as the
simplicity of divorce and marriage uh
they're they're amazed they're shocked
and they're like well why don't we
practice this
in our society you know this would be
better for for families in general
a hundred percent and i'll tell you why
um
i've been telling a lot of my friends a
lot of my imam friends
uh that they need to watch this because
what happens and i've been guilty of
this myself
right um you have a couple come in
uh they're they're married you know by
the state
and they're considering divorce and
there's some
they don't seem to be working out what
they how they want to go about getting
divorced
so the imam is like look i don't have
time to deal with these things in detail
i can't you know be your arbitrator
or you know your negotiator you usually
end up telling the guy or the girl you
know you should just you should hire a
lawyer
that is like the worst thing that that's
the worst advice that any imam can give
except in like the most extreme
circumstances right
because what you're doing is you're
basically putting people into the
divorce corp not divorce court
right divorce it's a corporation that's
what the documentary is about so you
basically like
you've ruined the person's life by
giving that one
statement of advice saying you know what
you should just you should go to a
lawyer or you should go through the
court rather than
trying to settle it the islamic way out
of court by going through mediation or
something like that
so i've done that and i know many imams
who do that because they're like well
this that's outside of our jurisdiction
like we just offer advice
but that one piece of advice can like
destroy somebody's life for
a year five years ten years destroy
families down the line
so we need to be very careful of what
we're saying and one imam actually told
me about the documentary and then
he's like you need to watch this so when
i finally watch it on my mind we need to
tell
everyone every imam to watch it in
particular
inshallah we can get this out to every
imam every scholar out there because i
think it's very important
some highlights of it i remember them
talking about how
the couple they'll come in and they'll
try to have a amicable
divorce they'll try to go in and just
peacefully resolve things
but then what happens the lawyers have
them fill out the paperwork they see how
much they're worth
pretty much they see how much they can
milk them for and then they start
pumping them up they start it's already
a tinderbox as they say it's already
fragile
and now they start you know what they
start to go ahead
the shaytan starts working through these
lawyers they pump them up
and it's a full out war yep that's what
happened they put a lien on the house to
put a lien on your car
and they know they're gonna get paid at
the end of the day because that's the
way the system works
and then you also the another highlight
is there
and then what they have is they have the
lawyers
who are again putting fire uh a gas
on the fire and then they they end up
there's one part i remember they had
someone to come in
a psychologist to go ahead and see
like what's the status of the children
do you remember that part
i remember that part very sad man
mentioned mentioned mention what
that what that guy did yeah that guy
that person was someone who was
uh some the most uh morally degenerate
person
and he had all these like scandalous uh
photos of himself doing some crazy like
uh
what's that like i think it's where they
do like that they the person
uh yes that the leather strap and
beating himself
what's that there's a name for it it's
like i forgot
huh you mean bdsm is that what
what does that stand for again uh it's
like
bondage yes something like that so now
that person is evaluating
you you uh you're standing with your
family he's going to give you advice can
you imagine the courts bring that that
type of person in
exactly yeah exactly yeah that was
horrible
another thing i really loved about the
documentary it was designed
uh it's designed for skeptical people
and i like that sometimes in documents
sometimes people are always skeptical
and they're like i don't know about this
maybe there's no alternative
the thing that i really loved about them
is that it's coming from a western
perspective right it's coming from an
american perspective and what they say
is they say well this is a huge problem
in america in particular because we've
it's all become about money but he goes
if you it's not about like gender
it's not it's not about gender
inequality or that's not the issue
so they give an example of scandinavia
and they say scandinavia
is one of the most like egalitarian uh
regions
uh in terms of like you know feminist uh
movement
influence all that stuff and they're
like in the world and they don't have
this problem
they don't have these issues because
they didn't make it into a business
and i i think that's a great example
that resonates with a lot of people who
are either skeptical or people who are
non-muslim
we're not trying to like we're not
trying to tell people to go back to some
kind of you know
male dominated society or something this
this
appeals to every single person when they
understand
that when you put so much emphasis on
money and
trying to cause conflict that's where
everything goes bad we need to we need
to ditch that we need a better solution
uh and then it talks about it being a
business producing revenues of over 50
was it billion dollars a year
not a million billion billion billion
dollars and uh
the actual attorneys being in cahoots
pretty much all tied in with the judges
and everybody's pretty much working
together
the judges too the judges are you know
they become politicians they end up
running for political offices
so they're working with the lawyers they
have campaigns you know
so it's some shady stuff because
sometimes a lot of times we go away from
the divine system and we think there's
something more just so we do injustice
to ourselves do you see that happening
yeah i definitely see that happening
yeah so uh now
i think like you said everybody should
watch it it's something that should
actually it just
because the haters out there they try to
put doubt
in you to what allah has revealed to you
and now when you see like the simplicity
and someone out there who i mentioned
someone who because i think that's
another thing of the fitra the natural
way for people to
to want to have a family and if you
don't have a family if you're just out
there you know
following your lusts and desires and
whatnot and then you get exposed to
these things
and you have a nightmare of exp of a a
situation that happens
then then it kind of blocks you you know
it hinders you
in life but now when you come talk to
someone i know
when when this has been explained the
simplicity of someone can actually get
married
and they can do it something in such a a
wholesome beautiful way
uh you talk about this in your classes
which it actually lasts for like
uh the islamic marriage can literally
last you say like a minute
yeah if you want the fast version i've
done the contract in like 30 seconds
30 seconds 30 seconds yeah
so this is amazing but now before you
even get to that
we were talking before about uh
there's another institution muslim
therapy
you know a lot of times imams will
outsource they'll outsource
to when people couple couples come to
them and they want
marriage therapy they want some
counseling and now we find out i found
this out actually a long time ago from
one of my guests laura doyle
who is the best-selling new york times
bestseller from the book
empowered wife and she talks about how
she would try to save her marriage
and she ended up going to to traditional
marriage
therapy and she spent almost like around
10
000 plus dollars and she said it was a
waste it's broken it doesn't
doesn't work you're coming across the
same information is that right
absolutely yeah 100 percent exactly now
you didn't say like 95
you said 100 100 why would you say that
i'm seeing so many cases of this in our
community now i mean maybe some will say
oh those are the cases you're getting
but i get a lot of cases
and uh that's exactly what's happening
to a lot of people they come
in and they're like you know we've been
trying you know couples therapy we've
been going for counseling we've been
going for this
and uh it's just not working and you
know i used to
not investigate uh sometimes but
sometimes i make an exception
uh for people who are kind of close to
me or if if i'm
in a season where i don't have too much
work i say well you know let's let's sit
down
and give me like give me an hour give me
two hours give me give me give me a
chance to
see if i can make a difference and then
i'm seeing in case after case
some basic things that i bring up
they're like well the counselor never
brought that up i'm like
what do you mean they never brought it
up like this is common sense how could
this not come up
and like literally you know there was a
couple recently they came to me they
said we've been going for counseling for
four years we'll be going to therapists
individual therapists counseling
everything and the wife was basically
out the door and she just said i want to
know how to get islamically divorced i'm
100 finished and the close family like
close friends of mine personally i said
you know what before i tell you
how to do it how to get out of the
marriage just just give me one hour
you know just with both of you and
literally within one hour
you know it's not like to praise myself
or anything but they're dedicated
they're motivated themselves within one
hour the entire marriage turned around
and what they said was they said what
you just told us in this one hour
for four years not a single person no
counselor no therapist would would tell
us
the way in which you told us and what
you told us like where the issue was and
what needs to be worked on
this is extremely concerning the reason
why it's concerning
is i was taking a counseling course
recently
and they said something very profound
not profound but interesting
they said counseling is not advice
that that just shocked me it's like when
you're counseling someone you're not
giving them advice
this is weird right something something
seems off about that because
everyone who comes to the masjid right
they come to an imam and they're like we
got problems we've got problems in our
marriage we've got problems in our
relationships in our family whatever it
is
why are they coming to you they're
coming to you for advice
so what do you do you you if you forward
them to someone
is not allowed to give them advice by
definition
what just happened right so people don't
understand the nuance behind that people
understand what's going on behind the
scenes and i think we really need to
explore that in more detail
i mean that's d because the first thing
that comes to my mind is where
god almighty the creator allah he he
talks about reminder benefits to
believer
reminder is pretty much synonymous with
advice no
absolutely yeah uh i mean the prophet
saws
is talking about uh the deed is advice
so we're constantly trying to
better each other by advising each other
we slip out we make mistakes the
the muslim is the mirror of another
muslim right
exactly and that's the the mistakes you
can't see in yourself
that's why you need a mirror to like be
able to see some of your blemishes
you can't just figure it out on your own
so when people can't figure it out on
their own
who's going to tell them right they need
someone to point it out to them
and if you go to someone who's who you
think is going to point it out to you
but they're not because they're overly
sensitive they're overly cautious they
want to establish rapport with you
they need at least 10 to 20 sessions
which probably cost you know like three
thousand dollars
uh before you can even get to the level
where we're going to tell you
yeah this is kind of the issue that you
got this is what you need to work on
uh that mod is not to dismiss all
counseling but that kind of model or
that kind of approach
is pretty problematic for especially for
our community a foreign
for the entire society as a whole so let
me let me understand this correctly that
is is this something are we talking
about these are licensed
thera marriage therapists that
complete a certain uh curriculum
that get a certain license that they're
within their laws are etiquettes
of therapy guidelines there's something
stipulated that
you can't what
it's along the lines of you're not
really supposed you're not supposed to
be giving your opinion
and you're not supposed to be giving
advice on what you think the situation
is
it's more along the lines of we're just
going to explore your thoughts
you know kind of get you to figure out
the issue on your own
which is which is nice you know it's
nice when someone tries to you kind of
lead them into figuring
things out on their own but if they
can't
you don't tell them directly what it is
so you just kind of kind of leave them
hanging and what ends up happening is a
lot of people they're not going to make
it through
five sessions or ten sessions of therapy
either because they can't afford it
or because they don't think it's going
anywhere right so
people do they do need a quicker process
and they need us something they need to
feel like they're making some progress
as well and i think that's not happening
for a lot of people and there's a lack
of trust
uh in the in the process itself even
though
you know it's important to have third
parties involved always whenever there's
a conflict
so paint paint a more of a vivid picture
for us so we can better understand are
you saying like
this couple they went to what's the
specific name of the type of
therapy it's just marriage counseling is
this by they went
they went to many this couple's a good
example they went for
they had individual family issues they
went to therapists
that are uh assessing what problems they
had in their childhood with their own
parents
their parents used to yell and scream so
they used this you know psychodynamic
approach of you know what
it's like the um the the glacier you
know that
underneath the water there's like
something deep you had a
bad upbringing you're reenacting
the relationship that your parents had
with each other and
you know into your own marriage so you
go deep it takes you know years to talk
about you know open up all the family
issues that you had
you know all the problems that you had
in your household and everything and
then
get there and then relate that now back
into how
you are copying the same bad patterns
that you know your parents had
which is which is nice so they did that
so they did all that for
years and then they also so they're
going to one therapist for that trauma
then they're going to another therapist
for the family issues the marital issues
between
them and then they're going to other
therapists for different things right so
total four years of therapy i mean maybe
100 sessions or more
right so they're going through all of
that and it's not resolving any of their
issues
and they're absolutely done they're like
non-stop they're fighting in the therapy
sessions
and you know the counselors are like you
know it's good to get your feelings out
it's good to get your emotions out
they're cussing each other out back and
forth right so
i'm like you know what so they came to
me and they said it's it's over it's
it's finished
one hour i just talked to both of them
not even in person just you know
on the screen on the face like face time
and
things completely changed around right
and i'll tell you why they changed it
around there's two main things people
need to understand
number one one of the most effective
ways of counseling
or advising is that you have
the person who's you're getting advice
from you have to trust them
right there's some studies that show
that 90
of the success of any counseling is
whether you trust the person that you're
going to so muslims in particular
what do they trust when they hear a
verse from the quran this is what the
quran tells you this is how you're
supposed to behave
this is what the prophet muhammad peace
be upon him said you're supposed to
behave like this
when they hear that and they're
practicing muslims and they care about
that
now they're trusting in the advice
that's being given right so that's
number one why it worked because they're
coming to me
and i'm in imam i'm i'm giving them
verses i'm saying this is what islam
teaches this is the way
you know you're both practicing muslim
mashala they pray five times a day
they're good people in general this is
what islam tells you to do
they trust that the advice because it's
coming from a divine source number one
number two the other issue was
none of those people were openly saying
what the issue was they're just kind of
going all around tiptoeing around the
issue and not addressing it directly
in this case specifically you know i
listen to the guy
i listen to the girl i asked both of
them to give me clear-cut examples
not just your feeling you tell me how
you feel but you have to tell me what
incident really happened so i can have
an understanding of
what the reality is almost like
functioning like a judge like give me
your story give me your story i need
details
you have any witnesses and then i can
wait and i can understand and
give you my general advice that's
exactly what i did and i said well in
this case in particular
i told one of them which was the husband
i said you know what
ninety percent of the issue is with you
because of this this this is this and i
laid it out for him
and i'm like do you understand and this
is what islam says islam says
you should be like this this this this
and he got it and the woman when she
heard that she broke down crying
she literally broke down crying and she
says we've been going for four years
and nobody could tell him
what you just said you know it doesn't
matter whether you say it in a nice way
or you say in the mean way or you say in
a direct way or
you use verses or hadiths or whatever no
one would do something like that
for whatever reason and i'm like this is
this is a problem
why are people not directly addressing
the issue because it almost feels like
you're taking a side
right and and this is one of the issues
in counseling that uh
we had discussed this before this guy
named terry real he's got a pretty good
website terryriel.com
he has one article about you know
joining through the truth says sometimes
a counselor needs to take a side when
they see someone is clearly wrong
otherwise you're just building up credit
by validating
a person's feelings but you never you
never cash in that credit
so sometimes you gotta take sides and
say someone's got bad behavior
someone is you know talking if a woman
is you know yelling
and cursing her husband out she needs to
be told that this is not acceptable
if a guy is doing the same thing to his
wife he needs to be told this is not
acceptable you need to work on it
so people are not being direct and when
it comes to this type of counsel you
need to be wise
you need to understand where people are
coming from but you need to tell them at
the end of the day look
here is the problem here's the solution
almost like a prescription and this is
kind of what i do in some sessions
i write a prescription for them this is
what you need to do do it and you're
going to see a change
in in things and whoever does it it
means that they're putting in the effort
whoever doesn't do
the prescription something is not right
but
isn't this the way of the prophet saw
some isn't it this is the way that he
would he would do things that the the
one who was sent as a
as a guidance and a uh director
towards the truth and how we need to
handle every situation exactly this is
the way the prophet saws
used to do things and it's also common
sense i mean if you
if anyone thinks about it when some
comes to you for advice
if you beat around the bush the whole
time and you never tell them what the
problem is
can you imagine someone's got a speaking
problem they're trying to learn public
speaking and they keep making mistakes
and you're like i want to be very
sensitive i don't want to tell them that
they keep on saying
um or uh or making mistakes or they're
stuttering or something
at some point you should tell them what
the issue is so that they can actually
start working on it otherwise they're
not going to be able to
work on it now were these muslim
therapists that they were going to
um they had both so they had
mostly non-muslim therapists and some of
them were muslim therapists as well
did you have also some muslim therapists
like
do imams take a certain course then
are there certain elective courses or
how does it work how much training do
you have to get to get is it a license
that you get
in this area for imams no yeah
for someone to complete a certain
marriage therapy course what is it that
makes them a registered therapist
and have some have some muslims that
have completed this requirement that
have this license
they're copying this way they've seen
the flaws here have they shared some of
their experiences and their concerns
with you
uh yes they have uh a few so so here's
the reality of the situation and i i
hate to put it this way but
uh like i said we got to be direct and
we got to be open about these things
is that you know most muslims who go
into this field they have to complete
like a three year
at least a three year with you know
whatever thousand
hours 3 thousand hours of practice uh
in the field they need to complete that
course that course is being taught by
secular universities
right which has a very secular uh
framework it has a
a very materialistic world view of a
framework
so there's some good in all of that but
it's a rigorous course it's it's
definitely a rigorous course but it has
uh
secular underpinnings right so it has
there's undertones are there there's a
world view
and that world view sometimes is in line
with islamic worldview
and oftentimes can be in conflict with
the islamic worldview so when they
when they complete that course and they
do all of that
most muslim councillors are exactly that
they're muslim counselors they're
muslims
and their and their secular counselors
combined they're not islamic counselors
right so even if they're practicing they
pray five times a day they come to the
masjid
that doesn't automatically take their
entire training that they've had
and islamize it and like you know bring
in all the principles from the quran and
sunnah and like
make it according to you know the
teachings of islam
and oftentimes if they're not
knowledgeable about islam they don't
understand
where there's a conflict between the the
two that they're practicing
right and this is a huge problem and
i've seen it in our community
on a massive level there's a few
a few muslim counselors who've been
through the system
have a very good knowledge of islam good
understanding of
of islamic law and theology and all of
those things
and they're looking at it and they're
saying man this is horrible like the
stuff
the stuff that we're being told to do
something is really wrong with this this
is diametrically opposed to
the teachings of islam and if we apply
this in our own community on you know
muslim couples or even just regular
couples
this is definitely not not only is it
not ideal
it can actually be potentially harmful
so
they've written this there's been some
writings about it
but the problem is the more you critique
that
openly the more you're in danger of
losing your license potentially i mean
this is their livelihood this is their
their career so if you're stuck in that
field and this is your career then
critiquing your career is
is a dangerous thing and people don't
really want to do it
except the few people who are willing to
take the risk so there there is critique
and i i have
heard from quite a few people i'll drop
some names
um omar hussein in texas
uh he's a great example of someone who's
completed a counseling program
he's finishing his phd in psychology now
he has some really good
uh critiques on the program that he's
been in
uh he's another one who's finishing his
mft marriage family therapy license
he has very good critiques as well and
non-muslims are even critiquing it as
well like you said laura doyle is one
example
she's not the only one uh jenny seacrest
she has a book called marriages of
business she's critiquing it um
holtzman has a book secrets of happily
married men he's critiquing the process
so muslims and non-muslims are both
critiquing
a lot of issues that are going on here
but it's still
it's still a minority right and the
bigger problem is that imams
uh you know whether
you know whether they're excused for
this or not they're so busy they're
outsourcing
all of the issues family issues that
come to them they're going to outsource
it
to people who they think are experts in
the field right
but what happens is it's like
experts in the field because they've
studied a lot but
to what extent has that secular
mentality permeated
their thoughts and the way in which they
deal with things that's the problem like
same thing if you recommend if you tell
someone you just go to your doctor and
you're going to solve all your health
problems
your doctor may just throw medicine at
you right drug companies have
convinced them to just prescribe you
medicine for any pain they're not going
to give you any holistic health meetings
not going to tell you to change your
diet or anything just
just take this pop this painkiller and
everything's going to be fine well you
know
the doctor is an expert in his field but
maybe that's not the best approach
we need to be a little bit more critical
on the approach especially as muslims
who have a better understanding of
what we're supposed to be doing in life
i mean this is extremely important this
is a topic
i think everybody needs to watch this
everybody that
wants to have a family is in a family
every mom every
scholar just every everybody needs to
watch this i mean
marriage is half your deen and if we're
at a such a high rate of divorce
and this is a broken system uh you
mentioned the book
and many people talk therapists talk
about this that marriage is a bit
a business i mean divorce is a business
so like you go down one of these rabbit
holes you look into it you're like hold
on the system is broke
but what would you what would you say is
the solution now if for for the people
who are outsourcing
and now they're coming across this
information how did they
balance this out do they throw the baby
out with the bathwater if they went
through
this how did they uh put it in
perspective
so i mean they're long-term solutions
and they're short-term solutions i think
in the short term
we need to really vet very well we need
to vet
people who we're referring out to so we
know what before we say
oh you know um you know sister muryam
she's a she has a counseling degree she
did the whole program she did the five
year program and she was
she got straight a's and she won the
award for excellence in her university
and you're like well well because she's
a muslim and she prays five times a day
she must be the person that we gotta
outsource everyone to like that's the
solution for us
that that's uh that's a horrible
approach that's not the approach to we
should vet people and look and say well
you know maybe interview them talk to
them what's your approach to counseling
what
uh what you know what uh uh
how are you uh different from just the
average non-muslim counselor
uh just besides being muslim so that's a
short-term solution we should be careful
about who we
send people to number one and i think
again many people can't afford
counselors right or
you know it's a lot of money for them we
need to
bring back kind of the old system of
wise elders in the community who can
just give it
guidance and advice uh to people you
know
one we need to revive the willingness of
younger people to
look at mentors and get advice from them
this is a problem in our society
you know that willingness to like
respect
uh the wise people and have like this
idea of mentorship where everyone's not
just equal across the board
and we need to bring those people who
have wisdom who have life experience
and give them a venue to be able to
offer advice to people say hey listen
you know it may not be your own
you know your own parents maybe they
have a broken relationship maybe they're
not the best people to be offering
advice but
there are people in the community who
provide that who could provide that play
that role
and that's really the way it's always
worked i mean prior to counseling and
stuff there's always been wise elders in
the community that like kind of sit
people down give them good advice
about life in general and how to you
know work through things
and that's very beneficial so that's
something that we should be able to
revive and then if we go into the
the counseling field in particular we
should be vetting that's a short-term
solution
the long-term solution is um people who
are in the field people who are going
and getting these degrees
they need to go in with the right
mentality it's almost like it's like
it's like walking into an islamic
studies department
at harvard or yale or princeton or
stanford or whatever
i mean most people they're like well i'm
studying islam okay
you go in that department you're not
studying islam you're you're studying
kuffar i mean you're studying disbelief
and you're probably going to be
brainwashed if you don't if you're not
really number one very intelligent
and number two have an alternative
knowledge source
so the same way people who are going to
go in this field they should have a
very strong knowledge of islam coming in
and they should also have their critical
thinking cap on
and they should look and say well which
aspects of this
are aligned with islamic values okay
we're gonna
we're gonna take that and we're gonna
say this is good which aspects are
problematic
which approach is problematic and is
resulting in uh
you know not very good results or it's
it's against the
teachings of islam we need to critique
that we need to be open enough to either
write some blog posts about it
we need to go and tell people hey this
is a problem and we need to offer
alternative solutions so alternative
counseling or
what i like to i just started calling
this uncounseling basically it's like
you know we need an alternative way of
doing the counseling
process but without being bound by
principles like you're not supposed to
give advice you're not supposed to give
your own opinion or you're not supposed
to do things like that
and just to repeat that that is uh
pretty much in the system now
that you're not supposed to give your
own opinion you're not supposed to give
advice
uh this this is uh the contention that
uh
you have and scholars have because the
dean is advice and
you mentioned something about laura
doyle that no i i thought about laura
doyle this and i really recommend her
book empowered
wife she mentions exactly what she said
that how she saved her marriage was she
started to go to people
after this failed this system of
the common marriage counseling
after she wasted so much of her time and
money with her husband and stood in work
then she went to people who had been
married for 20 30 40 years
people have been veterans in the area
why people who had uh more knowledge
experience and she started to ask them
like
how did you make it work she started to
do like the elders in her community like
you're talking about
and and this is how she actually came
across many gems
wisdom that helped to save her marriage
yeah
and uh i was thinking about a lot of
times you go into these we think
this is like the gold standard this is
like almost like divine like we don't
question this is like they have
all the data all the science and you
know this is it if it doesn't work here
and many of these people when you look
uh they're a lot of them
are divorced themselves they are unhappy
many of them are are also in shambles
their life is upside down
and many of them don't have god in their
lives and
our atheists and what do you
i mean you you might get some few good
pieces of it
something that you could benefit but
overall i mean does that raise a concern
yeah i know it definitely raises a
concern because if people you know
one of the biggest things for especially
for muslims if we're talking about the
muslim community
one of the things that resonates with
them is you know this is what god
wants you to do having good behavior
is something that god is going to be
pleased with that's a big motivating
factor
and if you're if you're behaving badly
you have bad o'clock or bad character
bad manners
the way in which you're speaking the way
in which you're doing things the way in
which you're
being so selfish and only caring about
yourself and not so much you know either
your spouse or the rest of the family or
something
that plays a big role in keeping our
behavior or our
nufs our ego in check now you remove
that from the equation and we're like no
we have to secularize the entire process
we're never going to bring up god we're
never going to bring up religious
teachings we're never going to bring up
you just took a massive
force that's going to motivate people to
be better and you just threw it out the
window
that's a huge problem right so that's
what's going to happen uh when you're
forced into
a secular environment where god is
removed from the equation
completely and that's that's sad that's
automatically going to result in
uh much less positive results
than if you have equation for people who
care because if you don't have god
almighty allah
in your life you don't have this taqwa
like you go to someone like i said they
you might have been divorced two three
times but you gained so much experience
you're right back in there
right because this is something allah
loves that people that you're half of
your deen but you go to someone
who maybe had that horrible experience
and now they're actually maybe pushing
you to why you need to be married you
know what i mean it's just going to be
uh then they they start to sway you away
from that because they don't have
that whole holistic approach and like
you said god in the equation
yeah i mean nowadays in society i mean
huffington post
is a fairly liberal newspaper online uh
our paper
ezine what are ezine um they had an
article about
four years ago top 10 reasons why people
don't need to get married like they were
basically convincing there it was like
it was like an article that's what i'm
talking about exactly yeah
the need to get married why would you
want to why would you bother with even
getting married in the first place
you don't need committed relationships
too much of a burden too much of a
hassle
right i mean that's the mentality that
that's it's coming from what do you
think the mentality of the marriage
within the marriage is going to be the
mentality of how to get divorced or when
to get divorced is going to be
you there's something wrong with the
framework right something is wrong with
the foundation
as a whole you can expect amazing
results no matter how
well fine-tuned and researched
the little solutions that they come up
with if the foundation is
rotten there's usually going to be a
problem with that so we need we have a
foundation in islam
we should we should build something on a
solid foundation
i mean you do have people i've listened
to uh someone like for instance
tony robbins let's just throw him out
for example i think he'd be someone also
that would agree that this traditional
approach
he's more of a direct person if you've
ever watched some of his stuff yeah
he comes at it also direct he tells you
okay this is the issue you need to
change this
have you ever watched some of his work i
have and that's why he's so wildly
popular because
people realize that that's the approach
that they need in their life it actually
works for a lot of people it may not
work for everyone but it works for a lot
of people
and when you throw that out you've just
eliminated a great technique that could
have changed people's lives for the
better
yeah uh there was uh do you feel that
we've had some people also going through
the marriage counseling going to some uh
some imam scholars who've also taken
some of this uh knowledge and
implemented it
but they felt they weren't getting this
like what you did
uh like the imam or the scholar they
were like
kind of tippy-toeing you know around and
not giving like if the man was wrong
tell him give him the nasir from the
quran and the sunnah
and same thing on the other side if the
woman if she was doing something that
was not
right that he would tell her he would
quote some hadith but they were having
sessions and sessions and no quran not
much quran not sunnah but philosophy and
books
recommended that you know have are just
you know
same thing something that's not like
really getting to the bottom like this
so do you feel like this has been that
some
have fallen into this also and that are
they they've taken this
uh you know way that is not as co
as direct because uh you might get
pushback confrontation and now this is
more like you're saying just the
mellow easy like don't confront and just
uh this
they follow many people have fallen into
this also yeah no definitely
i see that trend among many people even
among imams
and there's a number of reasons for it
you know the first reason
is because you know people nowadays they
are more sensitive than they used to be
that's just like
we we've raised a generation of ultra
sensitive people
who who want to be handled with like
silk gloves
you know and that's a problem so imam's
realized that like we got to be very
careful because if we say something
wrong
then they're going to be like oh i'm
never coming to the masjid again you
know but
at the end of the day maybe like in your
first session or second session you
could be a little bit you know careful
about how you deal with someone
but eventually if you don't tell them
then
you've done them in injustice so i think
uh imams are afraid
many imams are afraid of alienating
people away from
the masjid or from the religion of islam
by saying something
but if you become so afraid of doing
that
uh where do you speak the truth like at
the end of the day where is like
you know uh telling the enjoining the
good and forbidding the evil like you've
you've missed that completely so i think
that's one mistake that a lot of
a lot of imams end up making uh so they
have a good intention but the result is
is not a good result
the second thing is that they'll they're
just really busy so what they'll do is
they'll be like well you know this is
not really my field i'm not like this
i'm not that well versed in it and let
me just give you like here here's a book
for both of you both of you just like go
read this book on
on marriage or or on uh whether or not
you should get divorced
and they've not even read the book
themselves right or they just hand them
a book
and that's not gonna that's not a good
approach either because
you know usually there's one one of the
uh partners
you know one of the husband or wife is
going to read the book because they're a
reader
and the other one may not be a reader so
it's like well you know you didn't read
you read the book you didn't read the
book why don't you just sit straight up
like get to the bottom of the issues
and sometimes the book is not even
addressing the issues that they have
it's just talking about
like in general you know try to you know
be nice and try to be this but you're
not addressing the
the problem itself i think that's
another another concern another issue
um and there's the third thing um is
that
a lot of imams are afraid to take a
stance
uh just like anyone else when if you
give advice to someone and say you know
what
like this is the problem or if you tell
someone you know what
your situation is so bad i would advise
you to get out of this marriage
you're gonna have to live with that
decision maybe they're gonna come back
to you six months later
and say you know how how could you say
that to me you know i say well based
upon everything that i saw
you know this was what my advice was
people are afraid of giving advice or
vice versa
you know what it's it's really not that
bad you could work this out
you know you can forgive and forget and
everything's gonna be fine you should
stay in the marriage
and then all of a sudden like that
marriage becomes even worse
and then they come back to you six
months later and say you know well i
came to you
and you told me to stick it up in this
marriage and look what happened look how
bad it was
so it's like when you when you give
advice you have to own that advice
right and there's consequences of giving
that advice that's where there's a
danger
and people are afraid of the liability
right not only like legal liability like
the counselors have you know it can come
back to you know haunt them
but just the moral liability that
someone's going to come back and blame
you
but the reality is if you're good you
know what you're doing you're judging
you have you have a you're pretty wise
you're you know you understand how to do
these things you have good islamic
knowledge
you offering some clear-cut advice when
you give that advice and
it's good based on experience and
knowledge you own it
and you you know you're going to get
critiqued i mean that's i think
a lot of imams will also fall into the
whole you know
popularity cult uh of
if i say this then i'm gonna lose my
popularity or i'm gonna be
degraded or shamed and then the
justification in the back of their mind
is
i won't be able to do as much good as
i'm doing so they don't have like
a bad intention but it ends up
preventing them from doing what they
should be doing and that's a struggle
that i think
any public figure goes through like you
know if i say this this way or if i do
this
there's a lot of people who are not
going to like it they're going to
critique me for it they're going to
criticize me for it
but again as long as you're doing it
with wisdom if you don't speak
every single time you're supposed to
speak or you should speak because you're
afraid of
the consequences then you know who's
going to say that
who's who make that statement so it's
the same thing when it comes to
you know giving advice to people if
you're afraid that the advice is going
to come back to
haunt you because someone's going to
hold it against you
that fear should not be a paralyzing
fear which prevents you from speaking
the truth
what do you think has happened also uh i
i believe uh one of your courses you
talk about this where you'll have
so many hadith on a particular
topic and the one who really does
justice to it he
they that person takes everything in
context a holistic approach
right somebody can just take and i think
you give this example
uh let's say how the prophet saws some
uh dressed for instance
and you would think that's all he came
for it's just you know to teach people
how to dress
uh but then you have all these other
hadith you're missing about on good ah
good character right uh so then also
with marriage i mean it's nice
obviously i mean how would the prophet
saw when you would come i mean
you have a hadith where the prophet saws
and this is one of those where
uh a person doesn't shy away from
speaking
uh there's no hesitancy where he'll say
you know
that the prophet saws said whoever
treats his uh the best of you are those
who treat their wives kindly
right and uh he talks about listen
treat women kindly he talks you know
being patient with your wife and there's
uh this is this we hear a lot of but
then
you don't hear much what when the
prophet saw someone would give advice
keep it balanced so we need to be kind
with our wise
patient uh to provide maintain protect
et cetera et cetera
but then a woman will come to him and do
you think it's because of the context
of the times we live in people are like
scared to come out where
he would say look uh evaluate yourself
concerning your husband because he's
your janna or johannam
right you'd hear these things he would
say uh directly you know
that you would uh obey your husband
respect him and you can enter any of
these doors
from from jannah allah even says in the
quran the the righteous women are those
who are devoutly
obedient oh nowadays if you say
something like that it's like the whole
feminist push
and it's a shame that you will even have
some muslims this would be like hold on
they'll
they'll rebel back but this is actually
rebelling against the quran so have we
lost that balanced approach
yeah i think we've definitely lost the
balance approach and that's because of
what's happening in our society um in
the other book
i think it was in the secrets of happily
married men they had a very interesting
uh
study that they shared they said um they
said
75 percent of women initiate
divorces in america so they
gave that statistic to a group of
university students in america and they
said
75 of women initiate divorces in america
who do you think is at fault and they
said yeah it's obviously the men that
that's why the women are initiating the
divorces
right because because the men are at
fault so then they
it was a psychological experiment so
they went to another class same
university
and they changed this to statistic and
they
they falsified it and they said actually
75
of men initiate divorces in america
which is not true but they were testing
right
so who do you think is that fault and
they said it's the men
so basically even if you give the wrong
statistic
right if the men are initiating it the
men are at fault if the women are
initiating it
the men are still at fault so what's
happening is that there is an anti-male
bias um in our society when it comes to
you know marital issues and these things
and that's partly because uh people are
trying to overcompensate for
some of the wrongs that were done in the
in the past and many of the wrongs that
are still taking place
but over compensating gets us away from
the balance that you were mentioning
right
we have to remain balanced and uh
i think that's the trend in our society
right now
and a lot of muslims they automatically
jump on
the bandwagons of trends and that's
as well right so people are afraid right
it's very
it's super popular so if i go on my
social media
you know and i make a little video about
you know
listen guys you know you need to treat
your wives properly
you know you need to take care of them
you need to you need to love them you
need to give them gifts you need to have
mercy with them
i'm gonna get like a thousand likes or
something now if i flip that post around
and i go listen sisters
you know you need to show respect to
your husband don't like talk back to him
don't disrespect him
this is gonna improve your marriage uh
you know give up your opinion sometimes
and show proper you know do you know
diligent like
dutifulness to your husband uh yeah it's
not going to get it's going to get like
a thousand you know negative comments
basically blasting me
you know how dare you talk you know to
talk about women like that and
you're not even a woman you don't
understand women's experience you're a
male chauvinist you're this you're that
so that's a sad reality of our culture
we're
uh we're prevented from having that
balance and even
if you put both in the exact same video
it might
it might uh dampen some of the harm but
it'll still happen basically and and and
that's that's a problem because
that shows you the trend in our society
and people when they go
against the trend if they're going to be
attacked they're afraid
so just like you said you know you quote
hadith about guys being good to
women and being good to their wives
you're going to get
non-stop applauses and thumbs ups and
everything
you try and do the opposite you're going
to get blasted
and if we're operating in that type of
environment of pressure
what's going to happen you can't give
balanced
and just advice to both sides we're
going to definitely have family conflict
we're going to have family breakdowns no
matter how wise you say it you're going
to get blasted
it's a problem so you know these are
some of the challenges
that exist due to the culture in which
we live in
and this is just uh give it away to
shaytan then i mean this is uh because
if we
end up seeing a a male man
a man a brother whatever who's getting
out of line
then we'll call him out we have to call
him out right
and help put him in his plate but then
same thing and the other side
we can't have this happening because
oppression could go from both sides and
then just be quiet
not say anything and it was an
interesting true story the brother was
telling me he
also was asking the sisters one imam he
was asking one sheikh was asking the
sisters
why don't they you know speak up when
they see some of these things they
they said uh because usually the voices
of this small
minority of women it just is so loud you
know what i mean that
they push back so much this this uh
and they get a lot of heat so they stay
quiet but i do you think this is also
a duty of of women to play a big
part yeah recent examples of that too
the women are afraid of the woman
to speak up and say hey you know uh you
know maybe
you should behave differently with your
own husband or you know you should
you know maybe the issue is with you
like they'll they'll if they say it
they get blasted by the women as well so
if you're a minority it's it's hard to
fight a vocal majority
you know so i have many sisters that i
told many sisters i'm like why don't you
be more vocal about it you understand
why don't you just tell them it's like
when we do we get blasted completely
we can't do it and that's that's really
sad that's it easy i think that's a cop
out there because that's that's your
jihad your struggle to
do your part also inviting to good
forbidding evil absolutely
so you can't you can't just you know
because what if
if we said the same thing back right so
we we have to call it out on both sides
equally if we're talking about being
fair
to play everyone's got to do their job
and in the
the capacity and with the blessings that
allah has given them
so i guess in the sense being a female
to being able to point out
issues within female that's a blessing
in and of itself because oftentimes
males will be dismissed especially in
this culture saying you know you can't
come
you can't talk about women's issues
because you're a man automatically by
default i mean that's a huge problem in
and of itself
uh never existed you know in in history
in islamic history at least
but that's that's the narrative that's
the the culture in which we live in
today
tell us about this uh is he a therapist
this uh terry reel
terry real yeah yeah he's a therapist
himself and he's critiquing
uh like traditional approaches or
contemporary approaches to to counseling
and he's saying this
this doesn't work uh we need to make an
adjustment
uh on some of these things so one of the
articles that i was mentioning before he
has an article called joining through
the truth
and he basically says that you know
we're taught in our school
in our training that you should never
take sides you should just listen and
no matter what happens just doesn't
matter in your mind if you're like hey
this
this person is the problem in the
marriage you don't just be open about it
and you just try and you know keep
validating their concerns and you're
listening to them
and the goal is to kind of build up
enough credit with them enough
trust with them uh that eventually
you're gonna be able to get through to
them
but what happens he he gives a scenario
he goes like there was you know
one woman uh she was complaining there
were some issues and
the guy kept building up trust with with
the husband
but the way she put it she's like but he
never cashed in on all of that credit
that he had built up so
you never come and say hey this is the
problem right so that's what happens is
sometimes you're listening you're like
validating you're making them feel good
you're making the trust between the two
of you but how long are you going to do
that for you just keep building trust
keep building trust after what like one
year you can be like
okay now is the enough trust built up
that i that i can tell you
what your problem is or or you know no
you can't
the believer can't be the mirror of
another believer until like you know
five years into
developing all this trust that's not
gonna work so he's critiquing that
and he's saying this is the wrong
approach and you need to be wise about
it
but sometimes sometimes you do need to
take a side
and you need to call things out as they
are this is bad behavior you need to
stop doing this
and that's and this is a non-muslim who
is in the field
who's been doing this for decades
realizes that there's a problem with
this approach and he's calling it out
is he kind of like john gary
you know he's the one who calls out
talks about the uh broken schooling
system
and is he also kind of that in this area
in this field
exactly like john taylor john taylor
yeah someone who
calls out the education system and say
hey you know these schools and stuff
there's
a lot of problematic stuff going on here
yeah exactly similar to that
so wrapping up now so what can we take
home from all of this we we started off
with the
film that a your homework is you
recommend every imam scholar
muslim should watch this divorce corp
yeah you recommend that right
100 not 99 watch the trailer that we
started off with
uh we talked about also we touched upon
the simplicity also in the divine system
that saves people from all these
nightmares and at the end
they talk about how much this actually
increases murder suicide death
due to this business the 50 billion
dollar business in this divorce corp
uh the islamic solutions to it we talk
about the broken system
of the current model with marriage
therapy
and how can we wrap all this up and what
final closing advice
would you give for the imams scholars
and just the the people in general
yeah so uh the two points i'll
re-emphasize them and that is that
number one people need to uh
well before wrapping this up we have a
problem
in the muslim community that people are
afraid
of getting a third party involved when
they have a problem
and we need to get over this we can't
keep our issues to ourselves we can't
uh be afraid of airing our dirty laundry
to other people when there's a conflict
in the first signs of conflict we should
we can't resolve it between ourselves
we need to get a third party involved
that's number one and muslims need to
get over that
people need to get over that there's
nothing embarrassing about getting
somebody else involved
number two the people that you choose to
get
involved you better make sure that they
have a good islamic worldview and
understanding if they're going to come
with a purely secular approach
a god divorced you know divorced from
god approach
god is not part of the equation at all
then
don't expect the most amazing results
through that process because the process
is not built on a strong foundation
and number three the two issues with the
approach is not only that god is removed
from the process
but two issues number one you have to
trust your counselor and if you're
practicing muslim
you trust your religion to come up with
these solutions
if you go to someone who can tell you
what islam really says
you're more likely that the counseling
is more likely to be effective
than the secular and number two
number two uh when you go
people need to tell you openly and
directly
what the issue is and if they don't tell
you what the issue is and you
keep spending tens of thousands of
dollars on things and they're not being
direct with you
after a session or two in a wise way
you're beating around the bush and we
need to stop
beating around the bush and tiptoeing
around issues because they're not going
to get addressed
if you don't tell them directly what the
issue is stop beating around the bush
tell us what allah wants us to hear and
the last the final message sent to
mankind because
here we have a divine system we have all
the solutions
stop beating around the bush how's that
perfect perfect uh people can get in
touch with you at the
cali islamic university if they want to
take some courses and
sign up with you and hook up with you
where can they reach you
yeah calisthenic.com or they can go to
my personal website mustafar.com
and we got a new project called
askthescholars.com
askthedollars.com thank you very much
sheikh thank you very much for uh
sharing this with us and sherlock this
can be of great benefit
and if you like this episode of the d
show like this video
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thank you for tuning in peace be with
you assalamu alaikum