This article was first published in EMEL Magazine.

I remember the day that I first fell in love. I was thirteen, and the film Grease was playing on TV. And there he was. Cool, trendy, good looking and ready to do anything for his girl. He was of course John Travolta, and I had no doubt that he would turn up on my doorstep and ask me to marry him. Things didn’t quite work out like that – he went on to become a scientologist, and I set off on my own quest for love.

The stories and legends we grow up with though, make it tough for reality to live up to those kind of epic romances. I thought back to the fairytales that I had grown up with; these were the stories which shape the ideas of our culture about love. Without even realising it, the innocent tales had whispered into my ears, and those of my peers, were simple words that influence the way that we see the world.

To find true love, I would have to be as beautiful as sleeping beauty, which meant that my prince had to be a strong testosterone fuelled hero who could chop down forests… which seemed a bit, well, neanderthal to me.

Or, to find true love, I’d also have to be as lovely and caring as Cinderella who was nice even to her wicked step sisters, but then I wasn’t sure I wanted to be with a prince who was so fickle that he could only recognise me when I was all dressed up. What! He needed a fancy designer shoe to identify that I was a real beauty inside and out?

And on both counts, I didn’t feel like I needed to be rescued or saved from household drudgery or from a century long snooze. I was – still am – a modern woman, who is quite capable of saving herself. But just because I can, doesn’t mean that I want to.

The thing is, I rather like the idea of having someone around – not from financial or social necessity, but to support, love and encourage each other. Love for completion, love for fulfilment. Love for spiritual wayfaring.

It might be fun to play at princes and princesses, but once you’ve taken away the pretty frocks, glass slippers and big castles, that’s when you know who both of you really are, and what you bring for each other. When you take away the wrapping paper and ribbon, is it still love?

It’s worth remembering as we enter the wedding season:  Love isn’t perfect or airbrushed, it can’t be. In fact, we should be strong enough to assert that love should not be so hideously plastic or saccharine.    It is easy to love in the moments of beauty and happiness.  The challenge for us is to still love when it is difficult,  because I believe that is when love is  at its most rewarding .

It is at that moment that our human essence fulfils its purpose to selflessly serve another. And at that very same time, despite our own imperfections, we are intimately recognised and cherished for our own essence.

Love takes time and perseverance, not just weeks or months, but years – even decades – through those clichéd good times and bad, the proverbial ups and downs. Love starts out as exciting, full of the heady rush of romance, and we must celebrate new couples and help them enjoy the phase of red roses and moonlit walks. Even those who have made it through the journey of life together, can share a moment of exquisite romance and the pure joy that it brings.

Collecting those early experiences in a memory bank can anchor the moments when love becomes hard work. A memory bank is love’s rainy-day-fund. A memory bank brings the rewards of the investment that all those who wish to love, and be loved, need to make. But those investments must be carefully selected, and cultivated with care and attention.  Love is certainly the enjoyment of the rose, but it is also the pleasure of seeing the plant grow. And that, of course, takes time.

In our age of speed and convenience – or as John Travolta would have said – the age of ‘Greased lightening’ -  love is the one thing that continues to beat to its own patient rhythm.

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This was published today on Comment is Free in response to the question they are asking “Should marriage be political’

Marriage, realism and rugs

Marriage is not just a bit of paper, But it needs a clear contract at its foundation and the state should make this easier

Marriage is not just a piece of paper. It’s an agreement that two people will create and build a relationship together. Is that unromantic? Maybe it seems that way because we think of contracts as regulating things like house purchases, business transactions, loans and financial agreements.We like – in fact we demand – strong binding written commitments when it comes to the inanimate things in our lives. So why don’t we take the same approach to the agreement that is probably the most important thing in our life and will have the greatest impact on us – the relationship with our partner?

The “piece of paper” is the written representation of the agreement between the couple based on a level-headed discussion between the two individuals who are coming together. Relationships can easily be derailed without a clear understanding of things like how the couple will approach finances, shared life values, how to deal with in-laws (or simply outlaw them), where in the world the couple wants to live, what working arrangements, who will stay at home to raise children (if anyone) or even if each of the two want children at all.

This more substantial meaning and agreement that ought to go into building a relationship is absent in today’s popular discussion about marriage – or any long term marriage-type partnership. It may not surprise you to know that I’m an advocate of marriage, but I believe that the same clarity of agreement should apply to all intimate relationships. Many of today’s relationships are all about falling in love and achieving the dizzy heights of romance. And love and romance are great – I wrote a whole book about searching for them called Love in a Headscarf. However, side by side with feeling “that feeling” the wider framework of agreement that I mention above is mostly unclear and un-spelt out in the grammar of the relationship. The piece of paper ought not to be symbolic but rather it should be an important verbalisation and written commitment – a document – of the aspirations and understanding of the relationship.

The Imilchil Marriage Festival takes places in a Moroccan village in the Atlas mountains every autumn, where bachelors from the surrounding area will come to see a range of bachelorettes that want to get married. I’m generally ambivalent about the idea of marriage markets, but the way that these women set about engaging in a relationship and empowering themselves in it is pertinent to our discussion here. They will weave a rug in the run up to the event, incorporating various symbols which represent what they are looking for in a marriage. A line of camels represents a taste for travel, a row of mosques might indicate an interest in religion. The rug with its myriad of symbols represents her aspirations for her marriage. As the bachelors are introduced to the bachelorettes, they inspect the rug to see what kind of marriage the woman has in mind, so that the two of them have a shared perspective on life and a common understanding of the relationship. In later years, if the wife feels that her husband is not honouring their commitment, she just points to her rug to remind him of their agreement. I believe that the husband ought really to have his own rug too so there is a shared understanding of the relationship. In essence, the rug here is the ‘bit of paper’ that we dismiss so easily.

The state’s role in the marital contract is the same as with other contracts – to help the parties to manage the contract by offering a context which is conducive to the contract, and to intervene and resolve the breakdown of the contract in the most suitable fashion. Traditionally this was managed by the support structures of families or religious institutions, both of which were there to help the couple build and manage their relationship. But the influence of both of those has now diminished.

However, Cameron’s approach is wrong because it treats marriage as an arrangement which is about children. What we need from politicians is not tax breaks, but better institutions to bolster relationships. Why not have guidance available from relationship centres. We don’t have innate relationship skills – we have to learn them. We have “family planning” for our sex lives; what about relationship planning for our emotional and personal lives?

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This article was published at Faith Central at the Times Online

Bess Twiston-Davies writes: Melanie Reid, our columnist, is merely one of many commentators who has asked why Britain’s soldiers are apparently fighting for the right of Afghan men to mistreat their wives, in the wake of the new so -called “Marital Rape” Law (although the original clause permitting men to withold food from wives who refuse sex was eventually removed). Here Faith’s Central’s Muslim guest blogger, Shelina Janmohamed, author of Love in a Headscarf and the blog Spirit21 looks at the disturbing, related issue of the lack of legal protection for many Muslim women who marry in Britain

Shelina writes: One of the reasons Britain gives for its military intervention in Afghanistan is the liberation of Muslim woman from oppression.

But what if anything has really changed for them in the 8 years in which the UK and US have been present in the country? In fact, with laws like the recent legislation dubbed the “marital rape law” where a husband can supposedly starve his wife if she does not have sex with him, it’s hard to see that Muslim women are indeed being ’saved’.

Let’s look at the example of veiling where women are forced to wear the Afghan-style burqa. This is utterly wrong as it is a woman’s choice as to how she should dress. Some in Afghanistan, however, who would argue that it is a more traditional society, where women being uncovered is ‘alien’ to the ‘culture’. This really is about culture not religion because this is absent in the majority of Muslim countries bar a few exceptions.

Back in Britain, some Muslim women do face pressure to veil, but on the whole veiled Muslim women are exercising their own freedom of choice. This can be seen from the fact they tend to be younger, well-educated, British-born women, often decked out in the latest fashions. These women are exercising the same freedom of choice that Britain says it is fighting to give Afghan women.

Now let’s look at marriage. Married Afghan women have little protection from mistreatment and abuse. The scale of magnitude in Afghanistan is clearly different to the UK, but British Muslim women can suffer from lack of protection by the law in Britain too. If we care about Muslim women’s rights in Afghanistan, we must demonstrate clearly that we care about them here as well.

I’m referring to the ‘nikah’, the Islamic wedding ceremony, which is not recognised under British law as a legal marriage. For this, the bride and groom must undertake a further civil marriage ceremony. A Church of England marriage by comparison is automatically registered as a legally recognised marriage. For Muslims, as with many of other religions, it is the religious ceremony that is paramount, and once this is conducted the couple are considered married. Rightly or wrongly, the civil marriage is often not carried out.

If the marriage doesn’t work out, or the husband leaves the wife, the wife is still married but has no legal protection under British law. Further, if the husband proves unscrupulous, he can marry another wife legally under British law without committing bigamy. Recognising the nikah as a valid British marriage with all the parameters of the civil marriage is the first step to solving this problem. Some mosques do insist that the civil marriage certificate is proffered before they will conduct the nikah, but these are too few. Tying the nikah into civil marriage has nothing to do with ‘Islamifying’ Britain, but is rather a small development which will offer much needed British legal protection to Muslim women in marriage.

Of course the Muslim community – mosques and Imams – who have conducted the marriage ceremony should be held responsible should a marriage break down, but this doesn’t always happen. Ensuring that mosques and Imams are abiding by procedures which give both bride and groom their full rights is the next step, and for that we need to talk about those so called ’shariah courts.’ In fact, a better description would be ‘Islamic advisory panel’. At the moment they consist of volunteers with various levels of Islamic training, probably few social or counselling skills and even less legal training under British law. This is hardly surprising, since they state quite openly that their remit is to offer Islamic advice. Often faced with marital disputes Muslim women prefer to go to these panels because their faith is important to them and they want an Islamic resolution to their problems. Also, they live as part of a family and community, and any resolution agreed with such a panel is more likely to stick with the people amongst which they live.

By recognising the nikah as legally valid, these subsequent links in the chain will be forced to deal with such issues with higher standards and in line with legal norms, thereby respecting the religious wishes of the Muslim woman, and at the same time affording her full protection in the law. A standard of behaviour and guidance amongst mosques and Imams becomes normalised over time, and the woman becomes automatically protected.

If we are busy fighting in Afghanistan for legal protections to be put in place for Muslim women, then we need to do the same for Muslim women here. The issues are different in magnitude but are still about both choice and protection. Not only will implementing such laws and protection in Britain squash accusations that ’saving’ Muslim women is just a pretext for war, not only will it actually protect Muslim women, but more importantly it will also demonstrate that in word as well as in practice we are genuine in our intentions and actions.

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This article has just been published at the Times Online.

Politics.co.uk carries this report on Jim Fitzpatrick, the Minister for Food, Farming and Environment, who walked out of a Muslim marriage ceremony in his constituency, apparently in a state of shock that men and women would be segregated and sit apart.

Our guest blogger, Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, author of Love in a Headscarf, argues, with justification, that Fitzpatrick was extremely rude to the couple in question. What do you think?

Shelina writes: Fitzpatrick’s constituency, Poplar and Canning Town, includes Tower Hamlets which has a 35 per cent Bangladeshi Muslim population. He claims, rather surprisingly, that he was unaware of the custom of segregation at Muslim weddings. It worries me that the representative of a ward where a large minority are Muslim is completely ignorant of this tradition. I’m even more shocked that he is proud to profess his ignorance. Whether he likes or dislikes the custom is a different matter: surely he ought to be aware of how a significant chunk of his community conduct a central event in their personal lives. What else is he ignorant of?

Let’s start with the meaning of integration. Fitzpatrick says that separate seating for men and women is stopping integration. Yet here is a family who only knows him through a friend and possibly as their MP, inviting him to their most important day. That to me is reaching out and encouraging integration.

Then we can move onto good manners. Weddings have always been a very personal matter and as with all occasions, there is etiquette which the guests must follow. If there is one thing that the British can truly pride themselves on, it is (or at least used to be) excellent manners. We know how to respond to invitations, use the right cutlery, queue in line. In fact many a book over the centuries has been written on developing the right social graces. The bride and groom are under no obligation as to who they invite to the wedding, and to be invited at all is a great honour. And at a time when budgets are tighter than ever, and weddings are becoming increasingly expensive, it is a real privilege to be invited to someone’s wedding.

I feel very sad for the bride and groom that their special day has been hijacked by a rude ungracious guest who decided that their personal choices for the day were not to his taste.

But here is the rub of Fitzpatrick’s ignorance. Segregated weddings are extremely commonplace and have been so for decades. Only a handful of the many Muslim weddings I have attended in my life have not been segregated. And this is not just the case in Britain but all over the world. Women have their own celebrations, as do the men, and both of these are incredibly joyful vibrant occasions. A half-Iraqi half-English Muslim friend who married a British born Bangladeshi had her marriage celebration for women only, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Her husband is delighted that the women got to “let their hair down” (literally in some cases of hijab-wearers). A wedding I attended in Bahrain of a minor royal was held in a glamorous marquee catering for a thousand people. Nine hundred and ninety nine were women. The groom popped in briefly to give his bride the ring.

If we look closer to home, segregation is still prevalent in other wedding traditions too. Some orthodox Jewish marriages are segregated. And we still hold dear to our separation of the stag night and hen do. Would Fitzpatrick have wanted to take his wife along on a drunken weekend in Prague?

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This just posted on the Guardian website at Comment is Free. Swing by and leave a comment.

The last few weeks have been particularly eventful for Muslim women on Comment is Free. We would have felt extremely exhausted by all the excitement, were it not for the fact that – with the notable exception of Samia Rahman and Reefat Drabu – we were spared the ignominy of having to participate in the debate ourselves.

AC Grayling started us off by equating the headscarf with an iron shackle and stating that Muslim women are complicit in their own oppression. In the process of attacking the abhorrent denial of freedom that Muslim women can wrongly suffer, Grayling (in)advertently takes away the very same freedom of choice to decide to wear the hijab if we choose.

Julie Burchill bigged up Christianity, and in the process scathingly dismissed Islam and Muslim women. The only “Muslim” women she suggested as role models – Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji – were those she claimed had rejected Islam and were no longer Muslim.

Cath Elliott on the other hand says she’s not holding out for women to emerge empowered from religious communities. She asks some good questions, such as why does God always appear to be a “He”? Why are the decision makers in politics and economics still predominantly male? But let’s not be weasely as some pundits are: Muslim men often wriggle out of addressing these difficult questions by deflecting attention away from themselves; and it needs to stop.

Islamic theology has a strong framework for a blueprint of gender equality. I know that this is a deeply unfashionable thing for a Muslim woman to say, but let me explain.

In Islam, God is not gendered, not physically located, nor carnal. There is no original sin – the two genders were “created from a single soul” which is entirely pure and good. God is “like nothing else” we can imagine, and in that sense is neither male nor female. However, in order to know God, there are at least 99 qualities or names, that are characterised as masculine and feminine, and both are equally critical in learning about and approaching the divine.

Both genders have their own free will and have their own minds and must make their own contribution. Qur’anic and Islamic narrative has plenty of examples of such women: Mary’s immaculate conception is a strong vision of a woman raising a child as the head of the family without any men present. Hagar raises her son while her husband is away, Aasiya the wife of Pharaoh stands up to her dictatorial bloodthirsty husband. All of them are celebrated as role models for both men and women.

Neither is marriage supposed to be a subjugation for women, but a completion and partnership for both man and woman. Every man that is held up as an example has a woman by his side (or you could argue it is vice versa) who is exemplary in her own right: Adam with Eve, Rachael with Moses, Mohamed with his wife Khadijah.

With such a framework and strong and robust archetypes to inspire Muslims, what went wrong? How did we end up at a place where Muslim women are not fully empowered and find themselves at the unprotected and miserable end of cultural oppression endorsed in the name of Islam? There is no denying that Muslim women do suffer and have not been granted the freedoms, choices and opportunities that are the right all human beings, and guaranteed by Islam. But somewhere between the ideals of faith, and the pleasure of patriarchal power, that respect and those rights were lost.

Which brings me neatly to the latest set of discussions about the proposed Muslim marriage contract. The idea of having a contract between the two parties is embedded in the very notion of Islamic marriage. The goal is to allow both parties to be clear about each other’s expectations of the relationship. It would probably help most couples – Muslim or otherwise to have such an agreement.

The basic rights are guaranteed with or without the written document. These are that neither party can be forced to marry – they must do so of their own free will; that both parties may divorce should they choose, and that neither a woman nor a man can be prevented from marrying the person of their choice. As Reefat Drabu of the Muslim Council of Britain put it, the contract “is not a re-invention of the shariah.”

So why the hoo-ha about the document?

Ed Husain flags up the core of the real problem beautifully by recounting the tale of an imam who refused to conduct a nikah in the absence of the bride’s father’s permission. But he draws the wrong conclusion in thinking that the contract papers would have saved the day. Since the imam’s actions were clearly out of line with the principles of Islamic marriage it is unlikely that the document would have changed his mind.

Instead, what the document champions is the notion that the behaviour of the people who hold authority needs to be questioned, or as Drabu puts it, the need of a “change in behaviours”. No authority should ever be too humble to be challenged. What it also highlights is the extreme need for accessible and easy to understand information.

What is most important about the concept behind the marriage contract should be the reiteration to Muslim women – and to Muslim men – that knowledge is a powerful thing, and that empowerment and questioning are two fundamental components of the Islamic spirit.

Knowledge is about learning and about being brave enough to ask questions, and about getting your voice heard: education and courage. Laying down challenges for the status quo can be a transformative rather than antagonistic activity.

What that means for many commentators is that we may say, believe and do things which don’t fit in with the caricature of a Muslim woman who would be desperate to be “liberated” from Islam if only she knew it.

You may find our voices reverberating with the view that we like being Muslim women, we just want to make our lives better and in line with true Islamic principles. It would be nice if those who debate vociferously about Muslim women would therefore move over and give us the seat at the table that we’re demanding

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Let the tabloids and politicians spend their time foaming at the mouth over words like Shar’iah, we should be spending our time pioneering services and solutions to meet our community needs

Shari’ah is once again big news. The Lord Chief Justice has said that, “There is no reason why Shari’ah principles, or any other religious code, should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution.” His comments follow a speech earlier in the year by the Archbishop of Canterbury who had been discussing the role of faith in the public sphere and had used the issue of Shari’ah courts as an example of where this could be done. The Lord Chief Justice commented about that speech: “It was not very radical to advocate embracing Shari’ah law in the context of family disputes, for example, and our system already goes a long way towards accommodating the Archbishop’s suggestion.

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Muslims are rightly proud of the diverse global ummah, but we should be more willing to embrace the diversity of the British Muslim communities, and channel it to drive forward new ideas

Outside of the period of hajj in Makkah, the UK is home to the most diverse Muslim community in the world. The extraordinary mix of ethnic origins and opinions from across the theological spectrum make it a unique moment in the history of the Muslim world, representing a microcosm of the diversity that Islam has always aspired to.

Islam and Muslims have travelled fluidly through history – across the Arabian Peninsula on horseback, by boat along the Eastern coasts of Africa and across to India and into the South Indian seas. It was often trade, by sea, or across the Silk Road, that flung Muslims eastward to China and Indonesia and west towards Morocco and Spain. In fact, records of the slave trade to the Americas suggested that Muslims had made it across the Atlantic long ago.

The re-drawing of national boundaries, wars, post-colonialism and the ease of travel and communication which have been the driving forces of the twentieth century, have once again shuffled Muslims around the world. Their movement has been mostly into Europe and North America, and nowhere has this redistribution and melting pot of Muslims been more apparent than in the UK.

In 2001, the British census estimated that there were 1.6 million Muslims in the UK, a number which is now forecast to be close to 2 million. This makes Muslims the second largest faith group in the country, and Muslims make up more than half of the non-Christian faith community. Almost three quarters of Muslims in the UK are from an Asian ethnic background. Those from Pakistan make up 43 per cent, from Bangladesh 16 per cent and Indians and other Asians make up 14 per cent. We probably could have guessed that. But did you know that 17 per cent consider themselves to be from a ‘white’ background, whether that is White British, Turkish, Cypriot, Arab or Eastern European? And did you know that 6 per cent of Muslims are of Black African origin, from North and West Africa, particularly Somalia.

We also know that all these figures are out of date, and show little of those of Middle Eastern origin who have joined us on this green and pleasant land in the last few years. If you haven’t spotted your country on the list, then you make up that great overlooked fact of British Muslims – that they come from all the blessed corners of this God’s great earth.

But so what?

First, it is important to take note of these astounding facts. We live in an historic time and place for Muslims. We have more ideas, cultures and perspectives in a concentrated space than ever before, to inspire, motivate and produce more than ever before. If ever we were to create something overwhelming, tumultuous and inspirational, then the time has never been more ripe. The great age of Muslim learning flowered because minds were open to new ideas, perspectives and cultures. Thinkers would wait eagerly for new books and learnings to travel across the ethnicities and languages of the Muslim world.

Islam is also about appreciating different people and knowing them. The Qur’an is quite clear about this, and Muslims love to quote that Allah created people into “tribes and nations” so that we may “know each other”. We take positive pride in the diversity across the global Ummah. We claim that we love all our brothers and sisters, and that we feel their pain, wherever and whoever they are! Of course, this statement of bravado only lasts as long as we don’t have to go to a mosque that ‘belongs’ to those of a different ethnicity. As long as we don’t have to marry them. As long as we don’t have to have children with them. As long as we don’t have to work in communities together. There are exceptions, but they are relatively few.

We will protest vehemently for the Palestinian cause, and we may deplore the terrible situation in Iraq, but do we know any Palestinians or Iraqis here in the UK? It is easier to care for those thousands of miles away, then to look after those on our doorstep.

Nowhere in the world do we have more opportunity than in the UK, to put into action the ethos that the Prophet taught us – to treat all human beings as equal in worth, and to appreciate our variations and differences. At no time in history have we had the opportunity to infuse so much culture, so many ideas and so much vivacity into the future of Muslims.

History will judge us harshly if we remain enclosed in our ethnic and ideological bunkers. Our future generations will be even less forgiving if we fail to create the magic of cultural fusion and intellectual development that history has shown is in the DNA of the Muslim spirit.

This article was published in The Muslim News
Statistics quoted can be found in greater detail at the National Office of Statistics

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Various Muslim ‘authorities’ round the world have issued declarations that it is prohibited to celebrate Valentine’s Day, including some in our own beloved United Kingdom. The Saudis predictably have gone the whole hog and sent the Vice Police round all the shops to make sure nothing red-coloured is sold for the whole week. They’ve even issued a fatwa against it. (surely this opens the way for a bit of cheeky subversiveness with another colour… how about the Saudi green… ?) Indonesia, Hyderabad and Kashmir amongst others seemed unhappy about the celebration too. The Kuwaitis are not pleased either, but they have captured one of the reasons that the day of luurve has got under their skin – a number of Kuwaiti MPs described Valentine’s Day as a Western tradition that is not compatible with Kuwaiti values.

Whilst the neo-con-we-have-Islam-it’s-medaeival-brigade may be reading the above and shouting “see! see! we told you!”, it seems that there are two things at play here.

The Kuwaiti statement captures the first of these – what is the need to pick up celebrations from round the world, particularly the post-colonial-west, particularly when even the countries of origin recognise the shallow commercial nature of that celebration? Whilst in the UK we may smile at the day, most people actually make a concerted effort NOT to make a big deal about it.

If these countries want to reject the day on the count that it is consumerist, shallow, reductive of love to a one-off day, lacking in merit or just simply tacky, or reminding them of imperialist days gone by, then who are we to tut-tut? The western reportage seems to be taking the line that the rejection of this day is an affront to civiliation. But what business is it of ours whether other countries like or dislike our idiosyncratic cultural celebrations?

The second thread that seems to be running through some of the ‘Islamic’ edicts, I find much more perplexing, and that is the idea that Valentine’s Day is ‘unIslamic’ and perhaps even ‘haram’ to celebrate it.

IslamOnline’s Q and A says that the day is bid’ah, an innovation, and since it emanates from pagan sources, we should not participate. There are warnings that celebrating the day can lead to various kinds of immodest behaviour (!). Surely the correct and much more sensible approach is to advise people on the boundaries of modesty (dress and behaviour), rather than focusing on one specific event?

What I find perplexing is that the day now is simply an excuse to remember love. My husband surprised me with a rose at work (despite the fact that he calls it a hallmark holiday), I left him a surprise chocolate heart. I sent my female friends declarations of my love and friendship. Everyone felt a bit happier, no? What could be wrong with that?

As part of the information I received about why I shouldn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, I found these quotes: “Love is a psychological sickness”, and “If a man is in love with a woman… his heart remains enslaved to her, and she can control him as she wishes… In that case, she will control him like a harsh and oppressive master controls his abject slave”

I worry about this – that love is considered a negative and corrosive thing by the ‘authorities’. It seems to be a ‘top-down’ thing. Popular discourse – including in Saudi – uses as much more common-sense approach as this cartoon from Saudi Arabia shows.

Now, I’m no scholar, but this negativity is not my understanding of love in Islam. It just doesn’t seem to make sense at all with the basic foundations of Islam. A good example of love being rooted at the very birth of Islam is illuminated in the story of Muhammed and his wife Khadija, described as a true love story, a relationship built on mutual respect, trust and truth through adversity. The Qur’an also talks about how a married couple are blessed with love, as part of their marriage. Love, is a blessing for human beings, a wonderful thing to give and be given.

What could be better than love? Islam is, after all, the state of loving the Creator and loving Creation…

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In the US, couples are sleeping in separate rooms. But apparently it’s not to do with relationships falling apart, but about keeping them together. Three-quarters of Americans say they often wake up during the night or snore, and lack of sleep makes one or both partners grumpy.

It’s becoming less shameful to have separate bedrooms, report a number of news sites, including for example ABC News who quote: “Builders say buyers often ask for separate his-and-her bedrooms. In fact, in a National Association of Home Builders survey, builders predicted 60 percent of custom homes would be built with two master bedrooms by 2015.

“He works late…She e-mails. … Whatever the reason, people really just want their privacy and their alone time,” said Carol Wall, president of Mitchell Wall Architects. “It’s just a new lifestyle choice.” “

They won’t be called Master suites anymore (too masculine) but rather flex suites or owners’ suites.

However, in a survey commissioned by Travelodge in the UK, they found that nearly three in five people felt lonely sleeping without their partner, while 16% found it difficult to get to sleep and 9% felt scared. Eight per cent of women said they spray their pillow or nightclothes with their partner’s aftershave when away from home on their own. But only 3% of men resorted to using their partner’s perfume to offset loneliness.

Much more interesting though was the discovery that more men than women take teddy bears to bed when sleeping alone. Some 20% of men admitted to cuddling a teddy, compared to 15% of women, reports Sky News.

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