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Marriage in Islam
Is it Desirable?
The following is an excerpt from Marriage in Islam by Muhammad Abdul-Rauf, Ph.D. Fifth printing 1993, published by Al-Saadawi Publications, P.O. Box 4059, Alexandria, VA, U.S.A. 22303.
Marriage in Islam is strongly recommended on
religious, moral, social, psychological and physiological grounds.

SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION
The Qur'an, which Muslims believe to be the word of God, reads:
And marry those among you who are single . . . If they are needy, God will make them free from want out of His grace. [Qur'an 24:32]
And He it is Who has created man from water; then He has made for him blood relationship and marriage relationship. And thy Lord is ever Powerful. [Qur'an 25:54]
One of His signs is this: that He has created mates for you from yourselves that you might find quiet of mind in them, and He put between you love and compassion. Surely there are signs in this for a people who reflect. [Qur'an 30:21]
In the context of praising the prophet preceding the Prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an reads:
And surely We sent Messengers before thee and appointed for them wives and children. [Qur'an 33:38]
And in praising the habits of good believers, it reads:
And those who say, "Our Lord, grant us in our wives and our offspring the joy of our eyes . . ." [Qur'an 25:74]
There are also many Traditions ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad in which the practice of marriage is emphatically praised. The following are some of these Traditions:
Marriage is my recommended custom. Whosoever turns away from my recommended custom is turning away from me.
Get married so you multiply. I shall indeed be proud of your multitude on the Day of Resurrection.
Get married, and do not divorce; indeed, divorce causes the Throne [of God] to shake!
O you young people, men and women! Whosoever can bear the burden of marriage, let him or her get married. It [marriage] is indeed contentment to the eye and a protection to the modest parts.
When one is married, he secures half of his religion. So let him fear God in the other half.
ADVANTAGES
1. Procreation
This is the paramount advantage of marriage; namely, to contribute through legitimate means to the continuity and preservation of the human race. The sexual urge serves the function of bringing the mates together for the fulfilment of this basic objective.
The procreational objective has four aspects: to fulfil the will of God; to seek the love of the Prophet Muhammad; to benefit from the prayer of the child; and to profit from its intercession on behalf of its parents.
Almighty God, in providing the male with intricate fertilizing organs and the female with a receptive fertile womb, is telling us in the most eloquent but voiceless language of the purpose of these provisions. To let them be idle is to ignore the divine wisdom written on these God-given instruments. Imagine a farmer who, although he is given a piece of fertile land, seeds and farming tools, just lets the land go to waste, the seeds rot and tools rust. This farmer not only is a fool, but is to be condemned for his wasteful and harmful indifference.
Procreation through marriage is also a means of seeking the pleasure of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, who is believed to be alive in his grave and to whom the deeds of the members of his nation are regularly presented. He has called upon his nation: "Marry, so your number increases. The practice of marriage is an answer to his call.
Prayer of a child is believed to be beneficial to his dead parent. The Prophet, peace be upon him says:
When the son of Adam dies, nothing would be of any more benefit to him except three things: a continuous charity, some useful knowledge he has left behind and a child who may pray for him.
Should the child die early and the parents accept its loss as an act of God, without despair, it would be like a ticket to Paradise for them. The Prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, is related to have said:
A child [who dies before reaching puberty] leads the parents to Paradise.
A child will be brought [on the Day of Judgement] and told, "Get into Paradise." But he will stand reluctantly and angrily at its gate and say, "I am not going to enter Paradise without my parents." It will then be said, "let his parents enter Paradise with him."
It is related that an unmarried man of good conduct who lived in the early past shouted when he was rising from sleep one morning. "Help me to get married! Help me to get married. Maybe God will give me a child who will be useful to me on the Day of Judgement." He was asked, "What has happened?" He said, "I dreamt that the Day of Judgement had come, and all mankind was raised and brought together in one place with the burning sun close over their heads. Everyone became very thirsty and I was dying of thirst. Suddenly, children appeared among us, lively and handsome, covered with protective lig

The Bucket Rider (1921) by Franz Kafka

COAL all spent; the bucket empty; the shovel useless; the stove breathing out cold; the room freezing; the trees outside the window rigid, covered with rime; the sky a silver shield against anyone who looks for help from it. I must haveJ coal; I cannot freeze to death; behind me is the pitiless stove, before me the pitiless sky, so I must ride out between them and on my journey seek aid from the coaldealer. But he has already grown deaf to ordinary appeals; I must prove irrefutably to him that I have not a single grain of coal left, and that he means to me the very sun in the firmament. I must approach like a beggar, who, with the death rattle already in his throat, insists on dying on the doorstep, and to whom the cook accordingly decides to give the dregs of the coffeepot; just so must the coaldealer, filled with rage, but acknowledging the command "Thou shalt not kill," fling a shovelful of coal into my bucket.

My mode of arrival must decide the matter; so I ride off on the bucket. Seated on the bucket, my hands on the handle, the simplest kind of bridle, I propel myself with difficulty down the stairs; but once downstairs my bucket ascends, superbly, superbly; camels humbly squatting on the ground do not rise with more dignity, shaking themselves under the sticks of their drivers. Through the hard-frozen streets we go at a regular canter; often I am upraised as high as the first storey of a house; never do I sink as low as the house doors. And at last I float at an extraordinary height above the vaulted cellar of the dealer, whom I see far below crouching over his table, where he is writing; he has opened the door to let out the excessive heat.

"Coaldealer!" I cry in a voice burned hollow by the frost and muffled in the cloud made by my breath, "please, coaldealer, give me a little coal. My bucket is so light that I can ride on it. Be kind. When I can I'll pay you."

The dealer puts his hand to his ear. "Do I hear right?" he throws the question over his shoulder to his wife. "Do I hear right? A customer."

"I hear nothing," says his wife, breathing in and out peacefully while she knits on, her back pleasantly warmed by the heat.

"Oh yes, you must hear," I cry. "It's me; an old customer; faithful and true; only without means at the moment."

"Wife," says the dealer, "it's someone, it must be; my ears can't have deceived me so much as that; it must be and old, a very old customer, that can move me so deeply."

"What ails you, man?" says his wife, ceasing from her work for a moment and pressing her knitting to her bosom. "It's nobody, the street is empty, all our customers are provided for; we could close down the shop for several days and take a rest."

"But I am sitting up here on the bucket," I cry, and numb, frozen tears dim my eyes, "please look up here, just once; you'll see me directly; I beg you, just a shovelful; and if you give me more it'll make me so happy that I wont know what to do." All the other customers are provided for. Oh, if I could only hear the coal clattering into the bucket!

"I'm coming," says the coaldealer, and on his short legs he makes to climb the steps of the cellar, but his wife is already beside him, holds him back by the arm and says: "You stay here; seeing you persist in your fancies I'll go myself. Think of the bad fit of coughing you had during the night. But for a piece of business, even if it's one you've only fancied in your head, you're prepared to forget your wife and child and sacrifice your lungs. I'll go."

"Then be sure to tell him all the kinds of coal we have in stock! I'll shout out the prices after you."

"Right," says the wife, climbing up to the street. Naturally she sees me at once. "Frau Coaldealer" I cry, "my humblest greetings; just one shovelful of coal; here in my bucket; I'll carry it home myself. One shovelful of the worst you have. I'll pay you in full for it, of course, but not just now, not just now." What a knell-like sound the words "not just now" have, and how bewilderingly they mingle with the evening chimes that fall from the church steeple nearby!

"Well, what does he want?" shouts the dealer. "Nothing," his wife shouts back, "there's nothing here; I see nothing, I hear nothing; only six striking, and now we must shut up the shop. The cold is terrible; tomorrow we'll likely have lots to do again."

She sees nothing and hears nothing; but all the same she loosens her apron strings and waves her apron to waft me away. She succeeds, unluckily. My bucket has all the virtues of a good steed except powers of resistance, which it has not; it is too light; a woman's apron can make it fly through the air.

"You bad woman!" I shout back, while she, turning int