The most important thing to take into consideration in a marriage is to have a profound fear of God and a deep love for God. When a woman loves God very much, when she has an intense fear of God, God gives an irresistible attraction and beauty to her. He gives her an amazing beauty. He bestows upon her both physical beauty and also the beauty of spirit, the beauty of morality and an amazing potency of attraction emanates on her. With fear of God and good morality, an extraordinary power would be formed upon her. Such a faithful beauty evokes the desire of a life savoring that beauty in a man. That is what makes a man want to get married. When a man gets married, he does so to be with her in Heaven as well and to live that passion and profundity eternally.
It is crucial for a man and a woman to realize that marriage is not made to have the laundry done, to have dishes washed and ironing done or merely to have intimacy. Marriage should not be done in such a mentality. The goal of marriage is to experience passion and to live the love of God. In marriage, one choses his or her companion in Heaven, his or her companion for the Hereafter. In the Qur’an, God says that Muslims will be with their spouses in the Hereafter.
Without the love of God, passion would be left undiscovered by the large portion of men and women. It would be left undiscovered even if they get married as they would not be able to find the strength to bring it to the surface.
On a person who lives by the Qur'an and Islam, some metaphysical characteristics start to emerge. For instance, in their face, God creates an extraordinary effect. In their speech God creates an extraordinary effect. A special effect mechanism in their eyes and a special effect in their voice is created. These people thus possess a power that gives contentment to souls. By the leave of God, a faithful devout person would possess an inexplicable power.
Man is a being made up of flesh and bones. If he or she does not have a spiritual profundity, if he or she does not fully abide by the Qur'an and have a profound love and profound fear of God settled in their heart, taking that person’s hand in marriage and being wedded to them would not change anything. For their true functions to surface, for their startling power to surface, their power of feeling profound passion should come into the open. The power of profound passion is the real fascinating feeling; God draws attention to that also in the Hereafter. God says; "There will be dark-eyed maidens with them, with eyes reserved for them alone." He says that they will be "devoted and passionate". God draws attention to their eyes and says "devoted and passionate."
There is a power that we call passion. It is a zest, an intense pleasure in the soul that intense love for God generates. When that unites with sensuality in marriage, it creates a very profound effect and generates a very powerful feeling. When that does not happen, one would be bored by their spouse within a short time. One would look and see that their spouses have two arms and two legs and are almost no different than anyone else they see around. After all, his wife or her husband is a piteous being who eats and drinks; while the man is expecting great things, he looks and sees that there is nothing special, nothing is happening and nothing would happen because God would not give them that power. For that powerful feeling to take effect there should be a profound love for God, a profound admiration for God, so that God would manifest in that person's spouse and create an intense delight in their soul.
In marriages formed without the love and fear for God spouses struggle and strive to love each other. The man says; "I have bought her a present, I have bought her flowers" and acts like a clown just to have himself loved and that makes the woman even more annoyed. Such a person would do awkward things, perhaps make weird jokes or unexpected moves to have himself loved. But a woman would be bored by that; it would annoy her and would have no other effect at all. That is because these are not the things that satisfy the soul.
He says; "Look, what I have bought for you," for instance as he brings a ring and waits in front of her with shining eyes. She sees the ring and throws herself into his arms instantly and together they turn each other around. Actually, this is quite humiliating because his aim there is so obvious. The man presents something material and the woman is not under the influence of morality, or his personality and his spiritual depth, but of the excitement of receiving an expensive commodity and of the interest it presents her. She would simply be feeling excitement towards the man who serves her interests. What does this have to do with love? Love comes with spiritual profundity and spiritual passion. Love is a power God specifically creates. God presents this to God-fearing people.
That is the reason why our Prophet (saas) married his wives; he married his wives because of this high potency of passion. His wives were profoundly impressed by our Prophet (saas) because they admired this power of passion in him. They got married to our Prophet (saas) to live the love of God. Actually, because some bigoted minds assume that marriage is based solely on sexuality, they are embarrassed by his marriages and do not even know how to cover them up. They speak in a manner as if to say, "Our Prophet (saas) had collected all the old and ill women into his house." However our mothers, the wives of our beloved Prophet (saas) were all very beautiful women, most of them were very young. There were some who were older, but in general they were young; for instance, Hz.Aise (r.a) was very young. However she saw that potency of passion in him which profoundly shakes a person's soul, she had seen that potency in her own soul as well and as the result of that irresistible desire she married our Prophet (saas). And she was in love with our Prophet (saas). That is a love which stems from the Manifestations of God. She felt a profound pleasure in being with our Prophet (saas). It doesn't matter if she had been with him only for a month, it doesn't matter if she had been with him only for an hour. Our Prophet (saas) was always out in war, busy preaching religion, he rarely saw them, but despite this, his wives loved him with a profound love and deep passion.
That is why in marriages, saying “Everyone is getting married, let's get married as well”, or “Let's take one lady's hand and take her away”, etc., following such a mindset would cause incidents which end up with vehement fights at the end of the first five or six months because it does not work that way. When a man sees his wife simply as a machine who does his ironing, who washes the dishes and who satisfies him from time to time; the woman would feel neither love nor passion, nor admiration. A secret hatred would be formed in her. His being shapely, his being handsome would change nothing, it would only come to constitute a profound, devastating hatred.
For that reason, one should not approach marriage by saying "Everyone is doing this, so will I" but rather with the profound spirit of the Qur'an, with the deep spirit of Islam. Then people would come to see that God had created a hidden spirit of Heaven in them. They can then realize that they own an unknown and wonderful power. Apart from that, marriage would only be a means for torment, a mechanism of hatred; fighting every day, having a constant battle of words, hurling accusations at each other. Whereas in marriages done for the approval of God, there is a profound compassion, deep mercy, a deep passion and a profound love.