﷽

There is a hadith that always brings a smile to my lips. Why this is so, I will attempt to explain below in a moment, insha’Allah.

But first, I want to point out when and how I heard it in the first place.

I first heard it during a Qur’an tafsir class in which the concept of shafaáh (intercession) in Islam was being explained. The hadith was definitely not quoted for the reasons for which I am choosing to delve into it today.

The purpose of referring to this hadith was to clarify the difference between advice, a direct command, and intercession, on behalf of someone who is in authority over another, and how the implications for each are different for the intended recipient. That is, it was solely discussed with reference to the concept of shafaáh. This was back in 2000-2001 (18 years ago).

A wife who chose to leave her loving husband

Now, let me actually place the hadith in question before you:

It was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbas that: The husband of Barirah was a slave called Mughith. It is as if I can see him walking behind her weeping, with the tears running down onto his beard. The Prophet ﷺ said to Al-‘Abbas: “O ‘Abbas, are you not amazed by the love of Mughith for Barirah and the hatred of Barirah for Mughith?”
The Messenger of Allah said to her: “Why don’t you take him back, for he is the father of your child?”
She said: “O Messenger of Allah, are you commanding me (to do so)?”
He said: “I am just interceding.”
She said: “I have no need of him.”
[Sunan Al-Nisai]

The grade of authenticity of this hadith is sahih. It has also been quoted (with some variation) in 2 other hadith books, Abu Dawood and Ibn Majah.

First up, a little background. The person being mentioned in the hadith, named Barirah, was a slave girl who was bought and emancipated by the Prophet’s wife, Aishah. Her husband’s name was Mughith, who has been mentioned as a slave in one report, and a free man in others. I am mentioning this background in order to shed some light about the role of the Prophet in interceding to Barirah on behalf of her husband, Mughith. According to one report, Barirah was one of the people the Prophet leaned on during the last hours of his life.

So this indicates that Barirah was someone close to his family, and part of his household.

Now, as for her husband. As is obvious from the above hadith, Barirah wanted to leave her husband i.e. divorce him. She clearly stated that she had “no need” of him, despite 3 open facts:

1. He loved her so much, that tears of sorrow fell from his eyes, on to his cheeks, in public, as he followed her on the streets of Madinah once she had decided to leave him. Crying. Following a wife. On the streets. (Men were real men in those days. They had no care in the world about what others would say about their “manhood”, did they?)
2. She had a small child with him.
3. Prophet Muhammad, as an official judge, leader, her guardian and the husband of her emancipator, interceded in the matter and requested her to go back to Mughith.

Now, I ask you, do you wonder why I smile whenever I come across this hadith?

And do you now understand why I chose the title above for this post?

Do you really think that, today, any imam or khateeb of a masjid would quote this hadith when talking in detail about divorce in Islam?

Not from a legal, technical and jurisprudential point of view, but strictly from a Muslim woman’s rights point of view?

Yeah, yeah. Now go on. Accuse me of being a feminist. A liberal. Accuse me of wanting to break up homes and families. Of sucking up to the so-called “Western”/secular ideals of female empowerment. I will not be surprised if you do.

As for the self-proclaimed feminists smirking as they read this, you can sit back too. I am in no way advocating that wives walk out on their husbands with their baby in tow as soon as a marriage goes sour and bad days come.

Basically, what makes me smile is the emotional, mental and psychological strength displayed by a girl who used to be a slave; who was purchased and emancipated by another Muslim girl, A’ishah bint Abi Bakr (who was herself just a teenager at the time of this incident).

I mean, think about it!

These are young teenaged girls we are talking about!

The words chosen by our Prophet to describe the couple’s emotions

Furthermore, I want to elaborate upon two Arabic words in the hadith, which the Prophet used to describe the feelings of Barirah and her husband, respectively.

The first is حُبِّ, which means love. And the second one is بُغْضِ, which means resentment.

The latter is a word used very often in the Urdu language as well, to denote hatred or grudge against someone that resides in the heart.

Older Muslims (well-intentioned givers of advice) use it a lot, usually whilst holding up their index fingers, when admonishing someone who is being oppressed and rightfully feeling angry at their oppressor, to not harbor any grudges against the latter, and to forgive and overlook even the greatest of injustices unconditionally.

Yes, this word بُغْضِ is dropped around a lot by Muslims, when they discuss the malice in someone’s  heart against another whom they dislike due to their vile actions. They talk about it as if a victim of injustice and oppression should feel nothing but love in their heart towards those who wronged them. As if the laws of our perfect religion do not even include designated capital punishments for legally convicted criminals and evil-doers!

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ used this word — بُغْضِ — to describe what Barirah felt in her heart for her husband Mughith, at the point when she had decided to leave him for good.

Yet, and here is the clincher: the Prophet ﷺ was not mentioning this hatred that she felt, in a negative light. He did not admonish Barirah harshly to free her heart from this malice, to repent to Allah for being a rebellious wife, and to go back to her husband without question.

And to make him a nice cup of tea. The way our elders do. 🙂

No. He did not do any of that.

Instead, even though he was the official judge in their matter, in addition to her legal guardian whom she had dwelled with, in his home, along with his wife, he mentioned two things to her that were of importance and consequence.

The first was, as was obvious, his amazement at Mughith’s love for her. He mentioned it specifically to his cousin, Al-Abbas (the narrator of this hadith).

The second was that she had a child with Mughith. Of course, this was probably because having a child has major future implications for any couple when their divorce happens.

“Don’t leave him!”

Before we go on to analyze Barirah’s intelligent reply, please focus on one important thing first:

The above two aspects regarding a husband are almost always quoted by bystanders and well-wishers as the main binding reasons why a Muslim wife, who wishes to get a divorce, should remain married to her husband (even if she hates him): i.e. (i) he loves her a lot, and, (ii) they have a child (or children) together.

“Think of your children! What will become of them?”

“Look at how much he loves you! He is crying his eyes out and wallowing in misery. Please go back to him.”

What these people do not realize is that a Muslim wife who truly fears Allah can find it almost impossible to respect a husband whom she hates, or to give him his due rights.

She will just not be able to fulfill the Islamic rights that are due upon her regarding him. Such as obedience in all matters (qunoot), being respectful in tone and demeanor at all times, and providing sexual intercourse to him happily whenever he desires.

Being human, she will loathe the sight of him and react in anger most of the time, raising her voice, perhaps even being physically or verbally abusive, and not obeying him willingly. And this will make her tremble with fear when she thinks about being taken to account by Allah in the Hereafter, for whether or not she fulfilled her dues as a wife.

For such a wife, this hadith provides not just hope, but also welcome relief: knowing that Islam allows her to leave her husband, even if he loves her and they have a child together.

Barirah then asked the Prophet, probably to be absolutely clear about his verdict, whether he was commanding her to go back to Mughith (as her Prophet, judge, and leader), or was he merely interceding and advising her to do so?

When it became clear to her that our sweet, empathetic and sincere Prophet was merely interceding, she announced her final decision immediately.

And that was it.

It was over.

Consider the consequences before jumping the gun, sisters!

Now, before the unhappily married girls (and women!) who are reading this, jump the gun and decide to take off from their abusive/dull/dead marriages (I have been there before, with some of my readers taking some of my rants a little too seriously, and doing something brash without thinking of the consequences, or considering all the aspects of the situation, first), I do wish to give all Muslim wives who are contemplating (i.e. dreaming wishfully of) divorce, some advice:

• Are you ready to live with the consequences of divorce? The good ones, the bad ones, or both? You will be finally free from your toxic husband and happily single again (inshaÁllah), but you will also have added responsibilities, especially if you will have to raise your children alone as a single mother. They will grow up and definitely ask you questions about what happened, for one thing, and you will have to tell them the truth (that is, if the divorce happened when they were too young to comprehend what was going on). And one or more of them might hate/resent you for leaving their father. Keep that in mind.
• Are you willing to accept that your child/children or even your siblings and parents might choose to stay in touch with your ex-husband, even after your divorce? Will you be able to handle that with patience, open-mindedness, big-heartedness, and maturity? Will you allow your children moderated visits with their father/your ex in-laws? After all, joining relations with your ex-husband and his parents/siblings will be obligatory upon your children once they become adults. In addition, it is possible that while your ex-husband might not have been great as a husband, he could be a nice guy otherwise (as a son, brother, father, or friend). Maybe your parents, siblings, cousins, children and even other relatives (or only some of them) might want to continue to meet/communicate with him. Will you be OK with that?
• Re-marriage: do you intend to get married again? If so, please remember that in certain countries, being a divorcee carries certain unavoidable social and cultural implications in the marriage proposal process. Even if you avoid the nosy-and-judgmental aunty brigade (the ones who always blame a woman for divorce), it could still be challenging to adjust to marriage with another man, when you already have (growing) children. He might be much older than you, with an ex-wife (or a dead one!) and children of his own. Remember that this might complicate your second marriage and make it more challenging.
• Supporting yourself financially: it goes without saying that, if a divorced woman is not able to find another husband soon enough, she will have to work in order to support herself financially. So bye-bye to any financially “cushioned”, carefree married life that she once lived (that is, IF her ex-husband was financially sound in the first place). Sadly, most toxic marriages do not have any “cushion” (comfort) factor at all! They are absolute hell-holes of misery that most wives flee from in relief. Just remember, you might have to find work quickly, and keep a job. And this could mean a lot of time spent away from your child(ren). And more physical/mental stress, which could take an eventual toll on your health and upon your positive outlook (especially if you don’t enjoy your new job).
• In the case of those married couples who shared the same group of friends and social contacts, some (or all) of them might choose to side with your ex-husband. This could mean that you would lose out on your past social life as well, after your divorce.
• Resident bitterness: in addition to transitioning from the role of a housewife living a cosy homemaking domestic life to that of a working career woman, and perhaps losing the love of some family members and friends, you will also need to work very hard on getting over your own bitterness and resulting depression. Remember to move on and not look back. Focus on positive thoughts and keeping yourself constructively occupied, intending with deliberate effort to live happily and positively after your divorce. Do not allow Satan to make you wallow in self-pity and regret. Move on and try new things, especially those activities that you could not partake in when you were trapped in that toxic, suffocating marriage. If you will be seen happy and smiling after your divorce, it will make your parents and children happy too!

Conclusion: a new world

I have a lot of thoughts about the way the occupations, mindsets and roles of women in society are rapidly changing. I think that the generation born before 1970 really has very little idea about what exactly is going on. They are so wrapped up in past social habits, mindsets, and thought-bubbles (perhaps because they hang out with people of the same age?), even if they are tech-savvy and active on social media, that they really cannot truly see just what is coming for the generations ahead.

I had never thought that I would live to see some of the minor signs of the Qiyamah, but I have (bedouins competing in the construction of tall buildings, for one).

The girls today need us older women to guide them about how to navigate the turbulent social trends and changes coming their way. And just one of these, is the increasing financial/economic/political empowerment and independence of women, which is partly fueled by (or perhaps caused by) increasing emasculation among males.

I hope that my male readers will not take offense at my saying this. Truth be told, they are also the victims of unavoidable circumstances here. But it is true, that many young men from the generation that was born after 1990 are finding it increasingly difficult to financially support their wives and children single-handedly, on their own income, without taking any help at all from their parents, in-laws, or wives, for this purpose. And I mean this just for affording the necessities of life; to maintain a very basic standard of living — luxuries and perks completely excluded.

Furthermore, the twin evils of pervasive-technology-fueled porn-and-masturbation addiction have unfortunately caused many young Muslim men to become prematurely emasculated, quite literally, vis-a-vis, they suffer from erectile dysfunction long before they hit age twenty-five, or get married (whichever comes first). And it is common knowledge among psychologists and experienced, senior sages alike, how difficult it can be for a sincere wife to respect a husband who cannot rise to the occasion (pun unintended) when it comes to satisfying her biological needs in the bedroom, or fulfilling her financial needs for basic survival.

There really is no point in casting the blame for these changes that are happening, upon either the women or the men in the current era, because it is like a “chicken-and-egg” situation. Women are becoming increasingly emancipated from financial dependence upon men, and men are finding it increasingly acceptable, if not praiseworthy, for women to become more independent and dominating by nature.

And this trend seems to be here to stay. We now have to make our social and mental adjustments, accordingly.

That is enough on this topic for now. I think I meandered away from the main point for a bit.

Anyhow, so what do you think?

Do you think us Muslims will ever hear an elaborate analysis of the above hadith from the pulpits in our mosques, especially during Friday sermons, when the majority of the audience comprises of men?

*****

Update, 2023: My Personal Brushes With Divorce

At this point of my life, when the world’s general perceptions are so rapidly evolving regarding mental health awareness and women’s empowerment and well-being, I want it to be known that my own marriage has almost dissolved not once, but twice.

But before I go on to narrate my personal story along with details of people, please go through the following fatwa quotes (and their sources):

The scholars stated that it is permissible to ‘backbite’ if there is an apparent benefit, like when being wronged, when asking for a religious ruling, and when warning the Muslims about an evil that might occur, and so on. However, one should be careful not exceed the need in doing so, and be cautious not to do that as a way of revenge and so on.

[Source: Islamweb]

According to Islamic Law, there are certain matters which absolve a person from the sin of gheebah (backbiting), as follows: First, complaining about oppression or injustice: It is lawful for an oppressed or wronged person to mention the evil things committed against him by one who has oppressed or wronged him, in the presence of someone who is supposed to bring him his right back. Second, seeking others’ assistance for changing something wrong, and bringing an oppressor back to the way of righteousness…

[Source: IslamOnline]

The scholars have stated that gheebah is permitted in certain situations: 1- Complaining. It is permissible for the one who has been wronged to complain to the ruler or judge, and others who have the authority or ability to settle the score with the one who wronged him. 2- Seeking help to change evil and bring the sinner back to the right path, so he may say to the one who he hopes is able to do something: “So and so is doing such and such; tell him not to do it.”…

[Source: IslamQA]

Now that I have clarified how Islam allows a victim of chronic and deliberate oppression to complain (to a person of authority, who is non-existent, in my case) and to warn others about the evil of specific people who have intentionally oppressed him or her, especially over a long period of time, I will resume telling my story…

My first brush with divorce (largely initiated by me) was back in 2007, around the time my son was born. The reason was the shock and sense of betrayal that I had then felt upon discovering my husband Irfan Hassan’s mental illness (or disability, or affliction, whichever way you choose to perceive or label it). He had been taking pills for this mental condition since over a decade. What caused this affliction was shrouded in mystery, because of his tightlippedness on the topic.

Anyhow, I had discovered bulk packets of the drug Stelazine in a corner kitchen cabinet very soon after my marriage. From then on it was just bits and pieces of facts that I grabbed, with full blown exposure to the severity of his condition hitting me in the face in late 2006. His simple explanation, “I had wanted to get married during the 90’s. I was refused. The shock from this caused me to experience pain in different parts of my body and insomnia that a physician could not find a cure for, so he suggested a psychiatrist. She (the ‘she’ being Dr Shifa Naeem, one of the most prominent psychiatrists of Karachi, now retired from practice) prescribed me this drug. It is a very minimal dose. Hardly anything.”

That was his initial, stunted version. Over the years, more details got revealed in bits and pieces.

Actually, he had always been a very stubborn child. Secondly, he had always wanted to marry early, since he was in his early twenties, even while studying at university. So, as soon as he graduated, he started pestering his mother (Noorun Nehar Ali, formerly “Mrs Naqi”) to find a girl for him, and get him married off.

The reaction from both his parents was very negative: that of absolute shock. He told me that his parents reacted as if he was asking for something forbidden or scandalous. He didn’t have a job yet, they said. His older brother, homewrecker & PAF Group Captain Athar Hasan (formerly “Safwan Hasan”, who is just 1 year older than him) was still unmarried, they said. The classmate that he wanted to marry lived in a hostel in Karachi. “No hostel girls”, they said.

So they flatly refused.

But every year, he kept stubbornly insisting, especially to his mother, since his father, the late Mohammad Naqi Hasan, worked in the Middle East (Musqat, Oman), to get him married off.

Stubborn child, remember? He did not stop pestering her. To his own detriment.

Madam Noor un Nehar is a very poker-faced, mild-mannered, tight-lipped, non-confrontational kind of person. Very deep. Very difficult to figure out what lies under her exterior, uncrackable veneer.

Something happened, as a result of which he stopped drinking the water at his parent’s home, because he suspected that his family members had mixed something in it.

But lo and behold, after this episode with their drinking water, not only did he give up his stubborn and persistent demands upon his mother to get him married, but he also started suffering from severe delusions, inexplicable muscular pains in his body, and chronic insomnia.

Anyhow, even though this shocking discovery did explain to me his sporadic weird and erratic behavior, especially in certain social situations and when he was alone with me, but what really took the cake were his delusions. He harbors (to this day) some staunch beliefs about many things, especially women, which are absolutely baseless and bizarre.

When I started to contemplate divorce back then, however, I had a 2-year-old and a newborn. Both pairs of our parents and Dr Shifa gave me the same advice: be patient, this is your fate. It is not that bad. You have two babies. Think of your children. People will find out. What will they say?

The focus was on hushing it all up, putting on a brave face in front of the world, covering up my husband Irfan Hassan’s mental affliction as if it did not exist, and keeping the home intact for the sake of my children.

So I stayed. I was 28.5 years old, and back then, divorce was a major stigma. Besides, the elders of that generation almost always advised the wife to give up her rights, compromise, keep her mouth shut, and stay put in the marriage, no matter what her husband was guilty of.

Furthermore, these elders used a very effective strategy to ‘reassure’ and convince such young wives (like me) who were contemplating divorce for reasons that are perfectly valid in Islam, to stay in their marriages: viz. giving them the sordid and mortifying graphic details of other wives who had it much worse than them, but who still didn’t leave their husbands.

The underlying implication was clear: look at them. Compare your situation to theirs. They had it so much worse. You are just being unreasonable, selfish, and ungrateful.

Some of my own former friends, including those from my past religious-education circles (Al-Huda alumni), had chosen to stay with husbands who were no longer even Muslim, if the official Islamic fatawa (legal jurisprudential verdicts) were to be followed (instead of the advice of misguided, people-pleasing elders).

For example, the husband of one such former friend of mine, according to what she confided to me herself, had defiantly committed blasphemy (by saying unrepeatable things about Allah and Prophet Muhammad ﷺ) during one of their fights, which — I know now — had put him out of the pale of Islam. He was also an unrepentant “Qur’anist” i.e. someone who rejects all sahih ahadith.

There are many other Muslim women, who choose to stay with husbands who do not pray salah at all; husbands who do not believe in the Hereafter (including the establishment of the Hour on the Day of Judgment), or who reject other aspects of Islam, such as the fact that Prophet Eesa (عَلَيْهِ ٱلسَّلَام) is still alive.

These wives stay for the sake of their children, after their parents and other family elders also advise them to ‘compromise and be patient’. My former friend even made herself physically available to, and gave birth to even more children of, the said husband who had  unapologetically insulted Allah and the Prophet ﷺ in her face.

This was called compromise.
Sabr (patience).
Rida bil qadr (pleasure with Divine decree).
Being ‘the good wife’.

It is the women and their patience that keeps families together, beti. Not the men.

Older women (including some with whom I had studied and worked at Al-Huda) would launch into stories about the ‘virtuous’ wives from the previous generations, who had stood by their husbands through terrible storms and travails, such as flings and love affairs (he went around womanizing, even having children outside wedlock, but they were so praiseworthily ‘patient’, they turned a blind eye, and pretended that everything was good for the sake of their children, and the honor of their in-laws). Business bankruptcy. Years of unemployment. Injustice from in-laws. Being homeless and on the street.

The list of injustices and hardships that these spineless ‘heroic’ women bore at the hands of their husbands and in-laws was endless.

During one such monologue, an older lady (a close relative) looked pointedly at me and said how ‘lucky’ I was that my trial was so ‘trivial’ in comparison. All my husband was doing, she said, was taking some pills and behaving strangely sometimes. So what? At least he was religious and holding down a job.

That was enough. Was it not? She said.

So I stayed.

And then better days did come. When life gave me lemons, I decided to make lemonade. I agreed to live in a tiny, shoebox-like apartment in a trashy neighborhood (Zamzama commercial area) that my father had bought me (yes, I was the legal owner of that apartment, — yet another fact that I kept hidden, in order to maintain my husband’s respect in society), and I turned to writing and homeschooling in that ‘shoebox’. I also agreed to hush up my husband Irfan Hassan’s mental disability, according to the wishes of our immediate family elders.

By the way, soon after I decided to stay, I discovered an amulet tied to my husband’s upper arm, which had been put on him by his mother (again), in the presence of his father, and they both had strictly ordered him not to inform me about it.

But I discovered it under his sleeve when I touched his upper arm.

First, the water. Then, the amulet.

Get the drift?

Do you understand what was going on?

Sigh. Pakistani women and their penchant for going to haram sources for quick-fix solutions for their domestic problems.

For example, check out this official ‘fatwa’ from the Hanafi fiqh, which is actually allowing the dubious activities described in the question by the questioner, in the name of ‘roohani ilaj’ (spiritual healing).

Prophet Muhammad and his companions never performed such actions – viz. those involving illegible scribblings of numbers and text on paper slips, mixing these in water, burning candles, and crossing pots – during their lives.

And Allah knows best.

With ‘fatawa’ like these, what else can be expected from the common masses, except for them to go astray, swerving away from the right path of the authentic sunnah?

I had him take the amulet off and told him to get rid of it in a manner that is approved of by our Shari’ah. However, to this day, I regret not taking a picture of it to see what was written inside it.

When confronted, my parents-in-law defended their action by saying that they had done it to restore the domestic happiness in the house of their son. His mother also claimed that they went and got the amulet from Binoria (a madrassa and fatwa-issuing body in Karachi that is considered authentic).

Allah knows best what the truth of the matter was. Please be informed that his mother is a compulsive liar.

Like I said, all this happened back in 2007. I ended up staying: covering up my husband’s mental illness and the apathy of my in-laws towards me, by focusing on the positives (which were, by and large, my children) and ignoring the glaring negatives.

Life did get better for a while, as his career stabilized.

My second, much more major personal brush with divorce just happened earlier this year, i.e. in 2023.

It was initiated because of a (failed) transition in his career. Or rather, because of a combination of a few factors: such as his self-limiting beliefs about how money is earned and spent (remember his bizarre delusions?), my older 2 children coming of age and the youngest outgrowing the ‘little baby’ phase, and the toll that his strenuous, dead-end job (as the Board Secretary at AlBaraka Bank Pakistan) had begun to take on his mental and physical health and work-life balance.

You see, my husband Irfan Hassan, apparently had another penchant deep down inside him that I had hitherto been completely unaware of. The negative change in his treatment of his wife and children (using mild words here) was confusing to me, at first, but it was based on the fact that little children brought out the soft side in him.

Now that those little children were no longer little, his soft side began to disappear, and the dark side emerged.

This was the side that did not like spending money on young adults at all. Because they could not be controlled, duped, physically restrained, gaslit, or dominated, the way little children could be.

Well, as it happens, masha’Allah my children are extremely perceptive because they have had the entire Qur’an recited to them by their mother in her own voice whilst they were still in her womb, but even more so largely because they have been unschooled and have had a screen-free childhood.

Hence, they were not trapped, with the signature ‘tunnel-vision’, inside the many self-imposed ‘bubbles’ that most other children their age are stuck knee-deep in (viz. schoolwork, friends, movies, useless addictive apps such as TikTok, and time-wasting social outings with like-minded peers, to name a few).

In short, they grew up very quickly, a fact that Dr Bilal Philips (who has also homeschooled his children) had categorically mentioned in one of his lectures that I attended. He had said that by age 16, your homeschooled Muslim child will be fully mature like an adult and ready for marriage.

Remember the lemonade that I had been making all those years? When the aunties and uncles told me to be patient and accept my fate?

Well, now Allah decreed that it was time for me to drink it myself.

My older 2 children greatly helped me understand what was going on with their degenerating father. The cause-and-effect relationship between his unpredictable mood swings and his bipolar behavior; the connection between what he said and what he actually meant; and the glaring disparity between his words and his actions.

They even had a chat with his current psychiatrist (Dr Hanif Mesiya, AKUH) in one of our family sessions, and — may Allah reward them with al-Firdaus — they helped me open my eyes to reality, and saved me from being repeatedly duped and gaslit by their mentally challenged, bipolar father.

By the way, after only a couple of meetings with me back in 2005-2006, Dr Shifa Naeem had referred my husband to another (male) psychiatrist, who eventually left the country, but not before shifting him to the pill Aripiprazole from Stelazine.

Maybe some of the hard questions that I had asked Dr Shifa had something to do with her suddenly dropping a patient who had been consulting her for his illness since 1994?

For many years, after the year 2008, once his career stabilized, as is the attitude of many Pakistani’s towards mental illness, my husband Irfan Hassan refused to see any doctor at all for his condition, being very indifferent towards and dismissive about it. The same was the attitude of his parents.

Trivializing its effects, gaslighting its primary victim (me); acting as if it was not at all a matter of any concern, or even mention. The focus was on hiding it (as I will explain further below).

What was the need, right? If he was taking pills and functioning ‘normally’ (outwardly), especially at work (which is apparently what truly matters, for an adult man — his career), then why even visit the doctor?

So the years passed. And like I said, as our older 2 children passed puberty, and the youngest outgrew the baby phase, my husband changed greatly in his attitude and behavior towards all of us, his family. Apparently, the children being young — and hence, easily domitable — had a lot to do with keeping his innate aggression at bay.

Furthermore, the fact that they are — unlike him and his immediate biological family — truth-speakers, upholders of integrity and justice, and not people-pleasers, they had started to openly and honestly call him out for his chronic and compulsive lies and two-facedness.

This exacerbated his aggression and bipolar symptoms towards the 4 of us.

It was a downward spiral from then onward, as the children kept growing older. His job stress also kept increasing. Apparently, when you are younger, being on a high rank in an organization i.e. being part of its senior management looks all rosy and glamorous from the outside. Once you actually reach this high rank, however, the dark side becomes apparent to you very quickly. This dark side is the heavy and increasing workload and responsibilities, which can detrimentally affect your health and family life.

Which it did, in the case of my husband, Irfan Hassan. His mental health started deteriorating. Work-life balance was totally out.

However, although all of these factors contributed to the circumstances that led to my second brush with divorce, they were not the main reason.

The main reasons were me forcing him to resign from his job at AlBaraka Bank in order to set aright the deteriorating situation at home, including the negative impact of his job upon his health; a couple of break-ins by vandals and robbers at our home that left me traumatized but opened my eyes about how the so-called ‘leader’ of our family (the supposed ‘head of the household’, Mr Irfan Hassan) couldn’t care less about our security; and last but not least, his mother Noor un Nehar and 4 siblings uniting in pressurizing him to divorce me (this happened in June this year, 2023, just before Eid al-Adha), because I had ‘blown the whistle’ to his extended family members about the shady circumstances that had led to his father’s death.

My father-in-law (Mohammad Naqi Hasan) died of covid-19 under mysterious circumstances in January 2021. Without delving into the morbid details, suffice to say this much: my husband and his immediate biological family members have an attitude towards healthcare that is based on the staunch (self-limiting) belief that it should be free.

Remember what I said about his self-limiting beliefs regarding how money should be earned and spent?

They are extremely averse to spending any money for availing paid healthcare (e.g. in private hospitals). The exception to this unspoken but strictly-adhered-to rule in their family is when the one who is paying for any non-free, better-quality, private-hospital healthcare is earning in foreign exchange (i.e. they are gainfully employed in another country), or if this paid healthcare can be reimbursed by an employer, or if a third person is willing to donate the money required to finance the medical procedure.

Only then are they willing to avail better-quality, private-hospital healthcare.

Otherwise, off to a low-quality government hospital it is for anyone in their family who is unfortunate enough to fall sick, or get injured.

Something similar happened to my father-in-law.

Furthermore, yet another deeply-entrenched belief and fixed attitude about illnesses and ailments, accidents and injuries, in my husband’s immediate biological family, is that these should be proactively concealed and kept secret (which, as I have already mentioned, they did with his mental affliction).

Whereas I come from a family in which, if someone falls sick or suffers an accident, there are no qualms about sharing their pain and suffering with others… which I think is (and should be) the norm. But at my in-laws, the focus is all on being extremely hush-hush about a sickness or injury, and acting as if everything is fine and nothing is amiss.

So when my father-in-law was afflicted with covid and, when his condition started to deteriorate because of the care (or lack thereof) that he was being given at home, and he was rushed off to a government hospital, all of this was kept deliberately hidden from his extended family members.

Anyhow, long story short, because I blew the whistle, his mother and siblings demanded that my husband divorce me immediately, when he went to them for monetary help after depleting all of his savings after resigning from his job.

At this point I would like to add that another rather sad aspect of our marriage, one that I have never revealed to anyone up till now, is how my husband is unable to save any money, no matter how much he might be earning. This was not the case before he got married. When he was single, he had managed to save money. But after marriage, sadly, everything changed. I do all the budgeting and saving (despite not having a stingy hand at all). He just spends the money until it is gone. His bank accounts quickly become empty.

Ironic, is it not? Usually, it is supposed to be the other way around: i.e. it is the wives who spend money and find it challenging to save any, whereas husbands earn, scrimp and strive to save for rainy days (how I wish that was our case!).

Anyhow, once his mother and all 4 siblings believed his sob story and presumed (because of the sly way he presented the situation to them…. remember the acting? The pretending?) that he had abandoned me and our 3 children for good, they started piling the pressure upon him to divorce me.

Two of his brothers were on the phone (the youngest, Arsalan Hasan, being a divorcée himself), and one brother (‘Dr’ Arshad Hasan, a smooth-talking dentist who is a professor at Dow Dental College, Karachi, who also practices his dentistry at a clinic in DHA phase 8, … 👈🏼 tap on the link to see its exact location) and his sister, Vajeeha Inam née Hasan, were present in person.

Tap or click here to see how these people looked back in 2004, at my nikah reception.

Please bear in mind that my deceased father-in-law had had a major part to play in bringing about our marriage, and he was no longer in the picture. So they decided to turn the tables.

Their ‘hammering’ upon him to divorce me, according to him, continued for several days. His sister Vajeeha Inam/Hasan’s arrival on her yearly visit to her parents’ home acted as a catalyst to the situation and an increase in the pressure.

But he did not relent.

I wonder why. He had gone to them himself with the sob story of how I made him resign from his job and ate up all his money (in actuality, he had owed hefty debts to me that had piled up over the years, amounting to hundreds of thousands of rupees; money that I had contributed to the household, but with the clear, explicitly-stated mutual understanding that it would be eventually reimbursed to me by him. So technically, the money that he gave me, was already mine).

He told them about how allegedly abusive I was, and how disobedient as a wife. He had also consulted a mufti who used to work at his bank in the past (AlBaraka Bank Pakistan Ltd. or ABPL), providing him with the same private details about me, and the latter had also advised him to divorce me.

So his mother and all 4 siblings promptly took the bait, and pounced on him to divorce me too.

You must be wondering then, why he did not do it?

I too, am wondering why. He had a change of heart, he says, when Allah showed me to him in a dream during those days in which his immediate biological family members were piling on the pressure to break us up, in which I was standing at a gate, inside which were huge, leafy trees that were reciting Arabic nasheeds. I was calling him to that gate.

According to his own interpretation (self-conjectured) of this dream, I was a woman who was destined for Paradise, and would lead him to it too.

So he decided not to let me go.

Sigh.

Remember his delusions? Allah knows best what that dream meant.

Even if it meant what he believes it to mean, now here is the thing: I don’t want him back anymore. Dream or no dream.

I feel betrayed and backstabbed, after all that I have done for him, for his children, for his career, and for his mental health.

Please note that his mental disability is a lifelong condition, as far as the diagnosis goes. This means that, without taking his daily pill, his brain cannot function normally. Even with the pill dose, he has sporadic relapses into bizarre and aggressive behavior. This has been a constant challenge in my marriage; one that I did not sign up for, because it was deliberately hidden from me and my family by him and his parents before we got married — all 3 of them were in cahoots about it at the time that the marriage proposal was finalized.

No way, had my parents and I known about his mental disability beforehand, would we have agreed to the marriage proposal. But I have kept quiet about it publicly for almost 2 decades now, all the while trying to put on a brave face for the world, in order to maintain the fortress of our household.

Nevertheless, despite my efforts to maintain normalcy, since the past decade or so, I have become increasingly isolated from my extended family and friends. I have suffered illnesses and injuries, the details of which I have refused to share with anyone, not even my parents.

I did all of this to protect my children from those who harass them (and me!); to keep my home functioning smoothly; to cover up the truth about my husband’s mental disability; to maintain my respect and dignity in society, and to spare my parents social embarrassment.

But now I think, I did all of that …. for what?

For a man who betrayed me just because his money ran out? Just because I made him resign from a job that was already damaging his health and the happiness of our household?

As for my in-laws, I have been willfully estranged from all of them since 2015, — the year in which my complains to my father-in-law about my husband’s mental affliction reached a boiling point, and he united with his wife in saying that if their son is mentally ill, then something must be wrong with me too.

It was obvious that his parents wanted my husband’s mental disability permanently hushed up by me (remember the focus on hiding illnesses?), or else, they would start spreading rumors about me being mentally ill too (obviously in retaliation).

After that, I could not bring myself to meet or talk to any of them again. Especially once I realized that many of them were being used as ‘agents’ by his mother to glean private information from me.

As I go through my second, current, and much more serious, brush with divorce, I am much calmer this time. My children’s and parents’ support has been pivotal for me.

I feel I can no longer endure living with a man who suffers from delusional disorder and, to a lesser extent, bipolar disorder.

Though he has never been violent with me, he has been physically abusive towards my son. And I will not allow any harm to come to any of my children.

As for his (oh-so-sincere-and-caring) mother and 4 siblings, all of whom refuse to ever live with him, or to let him live with them in their homes (for barely more than one week), — I wonder why he did not just do as they were forcing him to do?

What I find surprising (using a mild world here) is that, except for the youngest (divorced) brother, all of my husband’s siblings have at least one daughter each.

I mean, when they were piling on the pressure on their mentally-challenged son/brother to go ahead and dump his wife and children, doing this day in and day out for a few days at a stretch (and that too, during the first 9 days of Dhul Hijjah, … this was before they threw him out of the house), did they all not pause and think for even one second, what they were doing?

Trying to break up a home, a family, which is being raised upon Islam? Whilst having young child(ren) in their own homes?

I mean, didn’t they get the memo about what ‘karma’ is?

That what goes around, comes around?

Just because I blew the whistle about the death of my father-in-law?

Going on to make threats about what they will do to me; that I am not safe any more?

👏🏻 Kudos.

Seriously, someone should just go and ask his mother and his blood-brothers, why – if his mental disability is such a non-issue – none of them ever allows him to live with them in their homes?

So much so that, they had his youngest (divorced) brother, who is based in California USA, finance his stay at a rented room in a guest house in P.E.C.H.S Karachi, at a time in his life when he needed a roof over his head. Why wasn’t he allowed to go on living in one of the vacant bedrooms at his parents’ house (i.e. A-234, Long Life Houses, Block 17, Gulistan-e-Johar, Karachi ← tap on this link to see the exact location of this house), especially since his married sister Vajeeha and niece (who were visiting from Dubai in July-August 2023) were also being lodged there (in the master bedroom)?

Are they not a very united, close-knit and loving family? Aren’t mothers supposed to love all of their offspring unconditionally?

Why would they throw out their own biological son and blood-brother, just because he refused to divorce his wife, Sadaf Farooqi?

Do you not agree that he (and I) should just throw in the towel now, and go ahead and do as they wish (and also as that mufti advised), and just get divorced?

Would that not make his biological family members happy, once and for all?

I think his sister is 100% right when she said to him that there are many other ‘girls’ (🤭 lol) out there that he can find.

Like the ‘girl’ whom she found for her youngest brother Arsalan Hasan, who ran off in only 2 months. It seems that these ‘girls’ nowadays are much wiser than us old-fashioned fuddy-duddies.

I mean, here I am, blowing the whistle on my own marriage, but after a whole, whopping 19 years! For almost 2 decades, I chose to keep quiet and suffer every injustice in silence, doing just as my elders (including my husband) wanted me to do.

But now? I do not have the stamina anymore.

I mean, is it not true that, according to our Deen Islam, a married Muslim man should always keep his mother above his wife?

And that he should readily obey her when she commands something?

Just how much more pressure and attacks from the armies of the Shaitan will the fortress of our home and family be able to further withstand ……. ?

I do wonder (shrug). 🤷🏼‍♀️

Only time will tell.

For now, I have blown yet another whistle, and left the consequences up to Allah.

At this point, I am just thoroughly exhausted!