Garments

Recently a friend asked me for advice regarding a girl he wanted to marry. I was asked to listen to the dialogue as he proposed. So here was a Western-educated wealthy businessman proposing to a very poor Pushtoon village girl who had never gone to school. For the sake of this narration, let us call him Amjad and the girl Marium.

Here were a couple of snags: Marium was a widow with three children and Amjad was already married with five kids! Even before the conversation started, I had made up my mind to advise Amjad against this adventure. My years of travels and experience in life coaching were dictating that this equation may precede disaster. Surprisingly, that conversation of less than an hour not only changed my advice completely for Amjad but forever changed the way I would ever look at unschooled Pushtoon village girls forever on both sides of the Durand line.

So here is the summary of the phone conversation:

Amjad: Assalamualaikum.

Marium: Walaikum assalam.

Amjad: I had proposed to you through my friend. I wanted to have a talk with you before your decision whether to accept or reject my proposal. I would like that we exchange questions in order to understand each other better.

Marium: Aao jee (I was told that it was a respectful way of saying yes in Pushto).

Amjad: So let me start: why would you like to get married.

Marium: Allah (SWT) says in the Quran [At this instance Marium recited the following verse in Arabic]:

هُنَّ لِبَاسٌ لَّكُمْ وَأَنتُمْ لِبَاسٌ لَّهُنَّ

They are a garment (i.e. vestment, mutual protection) for you, and you are a garment for them (Dr. Ghali) (Al Baqra: 187).

And then she said simply: “I also want a garment.” Period. A simple and short answer.

By using the words of Allah (SWT), her answer had unfathomable depth. Later I had to spend considerable amount of time going through different Tafaseer (explanations of the Quran) to try to understand what she meant.

Subhanallah. I found that Allah (SWT) has used this analogy and the scholars have said that it means that husbands and wives are a source of protection for each other; they are a cover, a resort and they beautify each other and that their relationship is the closest that can be between two humans like how a dress is close to a person’s body.

So Marium wanted a garment. Not the regular garment but the garment that Allah (SWT) described. She wanted a man who would protect her, beautify her, be her source of solace, peace and happiness; she wanted a confidant and a companion. She felt it was her right because Allah (SWT) said so in the Quran as this is how Allah (SWT) wants spouses to be.

Amjad continued: “I want three qualities in my wife. First, I want her to be an obedient wife. Would you be obedient?”

Marium: Aao Jee

Amjad: I want my wife to have Taqwa (mindfulness of Allah (SWT)). Do you have Taqwa?

Marium: Aao Jee

Amjad: How can you say that you have Taqwa?

Marium: My father has raised me well. If I didn’t have Taqwa, I would be like many other women without Purdah and not observing Purdah, which I am currently doing.

Amjad: I would not be able to reconcile with someone who is ill-mannered. Do you have Akhlaq (good manners and morals)?

Marium: I have already answered that question for you.

Amjad: How is that?

Marium: How can a woman have Taqwa and not have Akhlaq?