the problem with turning marriage into shirk

what is your purpose?

“the purpose of getting married is to have children,” a girl said to me.

puzzled, i stood blinking at her.

“no it’s not”.

“yes it is”.

“no… it’s not”.

purpose. defined by google as ‘the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists’.

“if the purpose of getting married is to have children,” i said, “then… why is infertility a thing? why would Allah make it so that not everyone can fulfil their purpose?”

we know that our purpose as humans is to worship Allah - “I have not created Jinn and man but that they worship Me” (51:57). this is a clear purpose that Allah has outlined in the Qur’an. and He has made it so possible for us to fulfil our purpose that we do not even have to move our lips to worship Him. it has been made completely and utterly possible for every single human being to worship Allah at any given time:

“those who remember Allah while standing, sitting, and lying on their sides, and ponder over the creation of the heavens and the earth…” (3:192)

some people are even praying in their dreams.

so if the purpose of getting married is to have children - why are some people infertile?

this false purpose attached to marriage a serious issue that i keep seeing over and over again and it’s very dangerous. because when people have this mindset and then later realise in life that they cannot have children, it brings feelings of inadequacy and uselessness. as though people aren’t fulfilling their purpose. that something is wrong with them. that they’re not good enough. that they aren’t living life properly.

some people feel suicidal because they can’t have children. some go as far as to actually taking their own life because of infertility. there is so much societal and cultural shame towards infertility that it has become an ultimate reason—a purpose—for getting married. as a result, the ability and the need to have children to please society and not be shamed becomes a mini idol within the heart. it becomes shirk.

so what actually is the purpose of marriage? again, let me bring the definition of purpose:

“the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists”.

if we look at the Qur’an, we can see what Allah has said about marriage:

“He created for you spouses from among yourselves so that you may find peace in them. And He has placed between you love and tenderness” (30:22).

the Prophet ﷺ said:

“Whoever among you can afford it, let him get married, for it is more effective in lowering the gaze and guarding chastity”. (Sunan an-Nasa'i 3209).

and Allah has also said:

“And those who do not have the means to marry should keep themselves chaste, until Allah grants them means out of His bounty” (24:34).

Allah has clearly said that He created marriage so that we can find peace. that is the purpose of marriage. peace. and before anyone objects (like the girl did when i told her this and she replied with ‘having children is the peace’), it can come in many different forms for different people.

and then, before children even comes into the picture, through the hadith above, we’re told by our Beloved Prophet ﷺ that marriage is beneficial for us to protect us from evil.

what’s the opposite of evil?
righteousness.
and what does righteousness bring?
peace.

the Prophet ﷺ also said:

“When a man marries he has fulfilled half of the religion; so let him fear God regarding the remaining half” (Mishkat al-Masabih 3096).

when i was talking to a married friend, she told me that the reason why marriage is half of your deen is because it’s a way of getting blessings upon blessings. the Prophet ﷺ said that smiling is an act of charity (Tirmidhi 1956) and that “you will be rewarded for whatever you spend for Allah's sake even if it were a morsel which you put in your wife's mouth” (Sahih al-Bukhari 56).

so, simply smiling at your spouse is a blessing. feeding them is a blessing. cooking for them is a blessing. holding the door open for them is a blessing. buying them their favourite chocolate is a blessing. laughing with them is a blessing. watching a movie together is a blessing. anything good, if done for the sake of Allah, is a blessing. and you spend the rest of your life with this person so every single day is a way of getting blessings upon blessings upon blessings that it’s as if you’ve completed half of your religion.

so being a good spouse (without even having children in the picture yet) is a way to get to jannah.

a relationship coach also told me that the reason why marriage is half of your deen is because when you get married, you’re faced with so many trials that you just wouldn’t face when you’re single, that it’s essentially you completing half of your deen — because Allah has told us that He will test us in this life but will give glad tidings to the patient (2:156).

having children is a beautiful addition, a blessing that comes from marriage—from the peace, love and tenderness that Allah created marriage for. but it is not the purpose of marriage.

the question arises, then, of why people say things like ‘the purpose of marriage is to have children’.

society gets into our ears all the time—especially with women—in relation to marriage and children. i’m already asked at the mosque all the time, ‘when are you getting married?’ i’m only twenty-one, so i know it’s going to be a long ride.

but i also know it won’t stop there. whenever i do get married, then it’ll change to ‘when are you having children?’
then it’ll change to ‘don’t you want more children?’
then it’ll change to God knows what—i really don’t want to know.

but by letting society get into our heads, we let fear and shame in. we start saying things like:

‘the purpose of getting married is to have children’.
‘the purpose of life is to have a husband’.
‘the purpose of life is to get married’
‘the purpose of life is to provide for your wife’

and even if we’re not saying it out loud, for some people it’s become a subconscious belief deep down inside because of what society has imposed—so much so that some aren’t even aware the belief is there.

but what if you never have romance?
what if you never end up with the career you want?
what if you can’t provide as much as you thought you would be able to?
what if you aren’t as wealthy as you thought you would be?
what if you can’t have children?
what if you never please your father?
what if you never get that grade?
what if what if what if

and this isn’t to be so negative and say that nobody’s going to get what they want in life — if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that i’m a big (huge) advocator for believing in the power of du’a and believing firmly that Allah will make your dreams come true, as He very much has the power to do so — but *if* you don’t get what you want, are you then going to feel inadequate, depressed and ashamed from being unable to meet a (false) purpose?

i never realised that i created a false purpose for myself until i had a session with my coach. she said that when we’re asked ‘what is our purpose’, as muslims, we know that the correct, text-book answer is to say ‘to worship Allah’. but subconsciously, not everyone truly believes this deep inside or truly lives by this purpose.

there’s something we all want, or feel like we need in life. perhaps it comes from fear, perhaps it comes from something we lacked. but sometimes, we can subconsciously turn this desire into a purpose.

as many of you may know, i have a deep desire to have romantic love and be loved because of never having seen a happy marriage before and my parents being divorced. but, when working with my coach, i never would’ve thought in a million years that my purpose in life, that i subconsciously made for myself deep down and was living by, was: ‘to be loved by a man’.

because i feel like i lacked this growing up, because my parents are divorced, because my dad left, moved out, remarried and has a new family, because i used to have a tricky relationship with him growing up (though, alhamdulillah, it has been healing), it’s made me yearn for romantic love, to feel and be wanted, to be chosen.

so, i also used to feel really afraid of not being able to have children when i’m older. it wasn’t because i thought the purpose of my life or marriage was to have children but it, in fact, fell under the subconscious purpose of being loved by a man.

i thought: what if i can’t have kids? my husband will no longer love me. he’ll want to leave me. he’ll want a second wife. i won’t be enough for him anymore. he’ll have a wandering eye and look at other women. i’ll get divorced too. and if we do divorce and he gets remarried, i’ll watch him have kids with another woman and i’ll be useless and alone and never loved and and and and.

it used to keep me up at night and make me feel so afraid. the desire to have what i have lacked and have never seen—to just be loved by a man—turned into a (ridiculous and quite embarrassing) purpose i was living by. working with my coach, she not only helped me realise that this is quite literally not my purpose at all and helped to re-wire my thinking to stop subconsciously believing in this, but in the process, i also realised that it’s shirk to be wanting to serve a man that much to earn his love and validation. my purpose is to serve Allah. the love and validation i crave comes from Allah.

it explained so much of my behaviour throughout my life. being so desperate and in need to fill in the void was dangerous and explains why i’ve had such poor boundaries in the past.

to change this purpose, my coach asked me ‘how can you reframe this purpose of yours to let it live under the true purpose of worshipping Allah?’

sitting down with my notebook, i began thinking. and it was easier than i expected.

my purpose is to be loved by a man → my purpose is to get closer to Allah to feel His love.

and, subhanallah, this shift and actually living by this purpose through stronger prayers, waking up more often for tahajjud, reading more Qur’an, relying on Him more in hardship and trusting in His plan has truly made me feel more loved by Allah and is healing me.

i can’t say that the need for romance and love is completely eradicated - the desire has been here for more than a decade and i’ve only been making this shift for a few months now. but, alhamdulillah, i can already see how it’s making a difference.

i know now that i don’t need to earn anyone’s love. i pray that i will be able to have children and i still really want kids but now i know that if i can’t, i will figure it out. Allah will help me. it won’t mean i’m not good enough. it won’t mean i’m unloveable. it’ll just mean Allah didn’t decree it for me. i’d feel really, really upset but i wouldn’t feel inadequate.

i also pray i’ll have a husband who would be understanding and loving in that situation. but if, God forbid, i don’t have that, i will still figure it out. Allah will help me.

there needs to be a certain detachment in life to truly have our purposes aligning with worshipping Allah. otherwise it can become shirk. we’re made to serve and worship Allah so everything we do or want should have Allah at the centre of it. not society, not the opposite gender, not whoever else we’re keen on pleasing.

if you’re unmarried and/or don’t have children, it’s worth asking yourself: if society didn’t make it into such a big thing to hurry up and get married… would you actually want to get married? if society didn’t shame people who don’t have children, would you be so desperate in wanting them? do you actually want to get married for Allah’s sake to attain righteousness and peace? is Allah part of the desire for marriage/romance/kids at all?

all in all, the reality is that Khadija (ra) married the Beloved Prophet ﷺ at fourty and they had six children together.

Aisha (ra), the youngest of his ﷺ wives—so young that non-muslims make all sorts of ridiculous accusations about it—didn’t have any children. but she is the one who narrated so many of the ahadith of the Prophet ﷺ (and is still getting blessings for that to this day) and was known for an incredible memory. perhaps it was for this reason that children wasn’t written for her. either way, it was Allah’s decree.

some muslim scholars never married but so much of their islamic research is still being studied today and they are getting blessings hundreds of years later, despite not even being alive anymore.

some things are written for you, some things are not. it’s completely natural, normal and okay to feel sad if you don’t get what you want. but it’s a whole other thing when you make it the very purpose of your life. that’s when you enter a very dangerous territory and turn something that is beautiful and blessed into shirk. that’s when you start saying things like ‘the purpose of getting married is to have children’.

under that false statement is an insecurity and fear that is being projected onto the world, is taken in by those who have similar fears, and then continues the cycle across society and generations.

something that is meant to bring peace, love and tenderness is bringing people stress, fear and restlessness because of what culture and society has imposed on us by shaming those who don’t have children and repeatedly pressuring or asking people when they’re going to get married.

we have to make the conscious choice to detach from the need to please society and renew our intention to only please Allah. and serving Allah also means making peace with whatever He has decreed for us, whether the things we have in store for us is what culture and society will approve of. we simply cannot carry this pressure on our backs and then feel completely inadequate and insecure if a specific rizq does not come our way. especially not to the point of wanting to take our lives. that is not what islam teaches. islam teaches acceptance, surrendering to Allah’s decree and having the open-mindedness to see the good that comes from something not coming your way.

that being said, never underestimate the power of du’a. du’a can change any circumstance. subhanallah, Allah put a baby inside Maryam (as) who was a virgin (!!!!!!). Allah gave children (who ended up becoming prophets) to Ibrahim (as) after both he and his wife were very old and were unable to have children:

“His wife came forward crying and clasped her forehead and said, ‘A baby from a barren old woman!” (51:30).

Allah can do anything He wills. it’s just about whether or not He wills it. so if you don’t end up having children, if you don’t end up having romance, if you don’t end up getting married, if you don’t end up having a really good job, if you don’t end up being someone who can provide easily without stress, if you don’t get what you really want — you will figure it out. Allah has got you.

make peace right now with the fact that if you don’t get what you want—because the reality is that we don’t even know if we truly will get it, we can only pray and put our trust in Allah—that it will be okay and Allah has something else in store for you which ultimately will be better. you just have to be open-minded, willing and detached enough to see it.

“and your Lord will soon give you and you will be well pleased” (93:6).

so, what have you made into your purpose? and how can you re-frame that to make it live under the true purpose of worshipping Allah?

asking yourself this will save you from a very low-self esteem in the future if, God forbid, things don’t go the way you wanted them to.

and for the love of God, i say this for the people like me-from-three-years-ago who would’ve believed it, don’t project your fears onto other people and make them believe things like ‘the purpose of marriage is to have children’.

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attribute of the month: Al-Muhsee, the Counter:

an extract from this month’s reflection:

“it’s definitely easy to fall into the mindset of ‘i’ll pray later, i have to study’ or ‘i can’t spend that much time reading Qur’an because i’ll fall behind on xyz’. for some, it makes them not pray at all. but after this experience during ramadan, i know that Al-Muhsee is always counting the deeds that we do and will reward us—especially if we’re prioritising Him during times, like exam seasons, where we really want to prioritise the dunya.

“this world is like a shadow. if you try to catch it, you will never be able to do so. if you turn your back towards it, it has no choice but to follow you!” - Ibn al-Qayyim”

read more here:

january '25 - attribute of the month

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grab a blessing:

• la ilaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu minaz-zalimin (21:88)
  (There is no God but You, Holy art Thou. I have indeed been of the wrongdoers).

• Rabbi la tad’arnee fardaw wa anta khayrul waaritheen (3:39)
  (My Lord, leave me not childless, and Thou art the Best of inheritors).

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jazakallah for reading! whew… i’m nervous to be sending this out. i’m expecting backlash because this is coming from someone who’s not even married. but i’m breaking the cycle of generational trauma, i refuse to take part in this and allow culture and society to hold so much weight over my self-esteem when my validation comes from Allah, alone.

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thank you for your time and presence here. sending so much love, as always,

— SabrGirl ♡.