.بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I… have romanticised marriage before, in my mind. I can’t lie. Have you, too?

I mean, I don’t blame myself. My first mother, Hawa, had been forged from our father’s very rib. So very close to his heart; so separate, and yet tied.

They had been that close, as companions. Roaming the Earth: a garment for one another.

I know that it is indeed a valuable thing: individuals cannot function very well alone. We form pairs, and then marital bonds go on to form families, which in turn, on the macro level, inform communities.

I know that I can’t force or rush anything, concerning this. Need to not let myself be fooled by ‘extremes’: neither of idealisation, nor of unfair denigration. In street terms, [my cousins say that if I ever went ‘on road’ and started talking my version of ‘street’, I’d be suspected of being a fed right away. But: who’s to say that a roadgirl can’t use the words ‘blud’ and… ‘exquisite’ in the same sentence? Who?!] marriage: it is what it is.

It is that you will, In Shaa Allah, share the closest bond you will have, with another human being. So make sure they’re a good one (and that you are a good one for them, too!)

It is that mankind has not been created in such a way that he is comfortable, typically, with spending his life ‘alone’. For man: woman. For woman: man. Garments to one another. Clothes: warmth, and comfort, and beauty, and cover. Telling other people whom they are; reinforcing whom they are, through the means of one another. And clothes: see everything. Practically all parts of you.

What you hide, and what you show. What is beautiful about you; what is… not really so. It’s a significant thing, isn’t it?

When it arrives, In Shaa Allah, it will not be ‘perfect’ (because humans are not…) and it will not be ‘terrible’, but I hope that it will be somewhere… quite beautifully in-between.

Until then, however: the purpose of my life is not… some currently abstract figure. I cannot… mourn the absence of somebody I am yet to meet, In Shaa Allah.

I have a self to work on, and the people who are currently in my life. And, the way of life that I have chosen for myself: should I not seek to embody the characteristics that I love, and find attractive and admirable, in others, myself?

If you are not yet married:

What sorts of characteristics are you seeking, in a life partner?

To what extent are you embodying these qualities yourself?

Do you trust that your Lord will not let you down; will provide for you the exact right things, at the exact right times?