Purposeful Man

AN EDUCATED MUSLIM who is actively involved in dawah work got his daughter married to someone who was living in the west. After marriage the girl left for her husband’s home. She lived there for some years, and a son was born to her. But due to some disagreements with her husband, the girl became angry, left her husband and returned to India to her parents. The girl’s complaints about her husband convinced her father and he came to believe that all the blame lay at the door of her husband.

When I met the father, I heard the whole story and then I said: “it is the heart of a father which speaks and not the heart of the dayee in you.” He said that he had made many efforts to make his son-in-law understand, but he found him to be quite adamant. He said: “I won’t change; your daughter has to adjust to me.”

I said all such kinds of differences took place in a married life. Then I said that there were two kinds of differences. One was that the husband had some objectionable habits or addictions, such as drinking, etc. Another kind of difference resulted from a temperamental nature. I said that I did not think that his son-in-law had any such wrong habits.

He should therefore take the matter more seriously, and try to make his daughter understand that she should adjust to her husband. I told him that she should consider her husband to be her boss. This was the only practicable solution. There was no other possible alternative. I said, “You are a dayee. A dayee is a man with a purpose. Nothing other than dawah should be an issue. So you should try to convince your daughter to adjust and live with her husband, otherwise your purposeful life of dawah will come to an end through being entangled in this matter. And you will live only as a father, not as a dayee.