Peace, love, friendship...

And equality. According to the Koran, these are the necessary
elements for a couple,

Five years ago, I delivered a talk with the title, Are Muslim Women’s Tears Blue? What makes a family truly happy? Can being born or raised in a certain area, country or culture change the essence of the desire for happiness in a couple?  The traditional family in Islam consists of a man, a woman and their desire to be open to welcome a child.

Harmony, respect, love and friendship are essential and universal values and therefore a Muslim family also experiences and seeks them. The tears and smiles of the Muslim family have the same taste and color as those of a Christian, Jewish, or Hindu family. Gender equality is consistently expressed in the sacred text of Islam. This we can appreciate from reading the first verse of the long chapter entitled Women, Surat Al nisa’ in which it does not speak of Adam as the first person to appear but of nafs (person), from which male and female diversity were born, and from them “many men and women”. A first person in which the masculine and feminine are enclosed and which are divided only in a second “moment” of creation. We also encounter this mode of evolution in nature; there are plants with a single leaf that, as it grows, opens to become two. An important literary element in this same verse is the word Arham, from the common root rahem, the maternal womb. The Koran here presents the uniqueness and unity of the human family born from the same womb, children of the same “mother” and recommends its custody (4, 1)

Without love, the family is not a family, not true, not at peace, not at home. The Koran uses the word rahma to denote a necessary element between two people who create a couple. “He puts love and friendship between them”: rahma and mawadda, together, these are the two words used to describe family. A love that is not implemented in friendship and in the concreteness of facts is pure fantasy and fruitless. Peace is a goal, a quest, an essential need and according to the Koranic text is realized in this encounter, described as a sign of God.

Life is a mystery, an infinite gift and everything is a sign. In this ocean of grace the family and the love between two people is indicated as a great Sign too. We read: “Praise God in the evening and in the morning. From the dead He brings forth the living and from the living He brings forth the dead and He revives the earth after it is dead... And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought. (Koran 30, 21).

by Shahrzad Houshmand Zadeh