Allaah (swt) knows that some unions must be called off, after all salvage measures have been exhausted. That’s why He made talaq a permissible last resort. But He also commanded us to employ correctness and good manners in whatever we do. Everything must be done according to the divine and prophetic guidelines. This is how we get rewarded even when we’re doing something ordinarily mundane.
The alarming prevalence of divorce is no longer news to us. But what is more interesting than the figures is the aftermath of the breakup itself. This question has been popping up in my head for the past few weeks because of the cases I’ve encountered. “What happens next?” Whether you ask marriage experts or laymen, the answer is almost always monotonous: “drop the emotional baggage and move on”.
But life is not just black and white. How can you drop the emotions without harbouring the oily remnants sticking to the sidewalls of your heart? How can you move on without remembering that important part of you that’s been lost? How much of psychotherapy can undo the broken heart, the shattered dreams and the mental trauma? What should be the relationship between the two parties afterwards? Is it that of avowed enmity, neutral friendship or kinship?
When it comes to remarriage, we still have a long way to go as a society in removing the stigma attached to the divorced. The Prophet of Allaah (saw) married old, menopausal women who have been widowed or divorced multiple times. He took them in essentially, so as to give them social and emotional security (not just to satisfy his desires). That someone is divorced doesn’t mean he’s a bad person.
We cannot continue to trivialise issues such as this, as we all know that healthy families make up healthy nations. Let’s remember that health, as defined by WHO, is not just the absence of physical infirmity, but also a complete state of emotional wellness and social stability.
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