KHITBAH, NIKAH

 A decent man came to ask for a proper hand in marriage from my friend. Well, not essentially a proposal. But rather an invitation and a request to get to know each other better (with marriage in mind). He went to speak about it to his mom, and it was her mom who asked for someone we know to deliver it to my friend.

She was so shocked; she didn’t quite process what was going on at that time. So many things were in her mind starting from ‘how did the guy even know my existence?’ until as big as ‘I don’t deserve to be part of his family'. It feels surreal to believe and realize that we are at that age of thinking and deciding big things in our life.

A lot of the time I feel like this life is for me to work hard chasing my academic goals, digging my potential and soft skills, be competent in whatever I am at, seeking and learning for knowledge of the deen. Everything feels so predictable, except one part – being in a relationship. We were not so focused on that, in fact when having a conversation on this, me and my friend agreed that at some point thinking about the relationship is a waste of time.

And yes, it is true. Being in a relationship is unpredictable. Or to be precise – marriage is unpredictable.

On that day my dear friend told me about a guy requesting to get to know her, I gave it a lot of thinking. As if it was, I’m the person who needs to decide. This guy she’s talking about, I knew him. Even though I’ never had a decent chance to communicate properly with this person, but I knew his family, did some business with his father and I’m willing to say he is from a family respected by many.        The fact his mother was the one to deliver this request showed how much his mother trusted him to - somewhat start - finding his significant other himself.

That indirectly reflects that this guy is responsible and has a good relationship with his mother (which indicates how well he will treat his wife in the future). And I told (read: insist) my friend to give it a thought. That’s how our conversation ended.

Before I end this entry some thoughts I’d like to share…

We must have thought being single would make a lot of our life affairs easier. But we never know how long we can stand firmly, alone (without a partner). Marriage is a shari'a (an Islamic rule) for a reason. And for whatever reason, we can never go against the idea of marriage.

Cepat atau lambat tiada dalam kamus jodoh. Yang ada cuma ‘masa yang tepat’.

Semoga Allah pandu kita kejalan yang diredhaiNya ketika kita masih bersendiri (bujang) dan apabila sudah berdua (berumahtangga) kelak.

Aameen.