Muslims Not "Taught" How To Handle Relationships | Unrealistic Expectations | Mufti Abu Layth

because relationships are very difficult within um i think that the kind of muslim setting because people and there's a lot of factors for that that we can't really unwrap them all but there's there's a lot of uh socio-cultural factors or psychosocial cultural factors um so people one they don't know what they want two they don't know how to behave and i don't mean this in a way like in a like i'm trying to say oh you don't know how to behave but they legitimately don't know the roles that they are to adopt

because they don't have any practice so you see people don't know how to handle relationships because nobody teaches you how to handle a relationship like if you just think about it who taught you how to handle a relationship think about it your appearance let's be honest most people have um you know that's not very giving in that department let's just say speaking from like the general muslim kind of migrant communities the parents are not usually role models for relationships and i'm not faulting them

but they've had their own struggles but but they're from a different paradigm they've come from a different part of the world with different socio psychosocial cultural narratives expectations and you know just dynamics so okay so for example the world today and and the world is evolving simultaneously so today relationships is heavily centered on romance now this is a problem as well because you know it's not let's be honest it's

sure it's wonderful but it's not you know it's it's an emotion and how stable are they you know because let's you see so okay you take humanity people used to let's say um in a lifelong relationship okay but then they weren't so then they were in kind of like monogamous relationships although muslims also have polygamous

relationships but okay so it's one person but then it just becomes okay one person at a time okay so it's not i'm not just involved with let's say this is the the ethical way in in the west so to speak it's not about just seeing one person it's about just seeing one person at any given time okay so right now i'm in a relationship with this one person so this is the western ideal so it's not about being with just one person it'll be like okay so when this person's season is over i'll be with a different person sure

so now it's about well okay now it's it's so centric romance-centric everything is about love and do i have to find my perfect soulmate and and sure look people i do feel that people do find people like this but at the same time i don't feel it's necessary that everybody will find somebody like this and i don't feel it's necessary everybody must find somebody like this it's but it's become this kind of old ideal that if we're not

chasing after it's as if something's lacking so let's say a person has got a high flying career let's say they've got i don't know they're you know some kind of amazing i don't know they could be a doctor a lawyer a teacher an accountant a therapist they could be anyone a business man or a business woman but they don't have a love life so to speak they feel because of the way society is now determined especially western society that they are missing something and that to something which ought to

give their entire life meaning so yes so you can imagine that the handicap kind of situation this produces because let's say now they're in pursuit of this this this wonder lust or this idea of like i want to this i need to be in cloud nine so okay let's say they find it okay so that's amazing and wonderful and now they feel amazing and they feel giddy and they feel you know flowers are blossoming and you know the wind is moving slower and

they're moving in slow motion and the sh you know the dilluwale honey shahrukh khan music is coming on in the background and okay but but then like any emotion it will just subside and then they'll be like well um i don't know am i still in love with this person have i fallen out and then society will have that pressure that oh now that you no longer are in love you are living a lie it's better to end this and find that token of love again somewhere else so and

so it's this kind of drug and don't get me i'm not trying to knock love or this romance i think it's amazing it's you know and definitely is something that one should at least experience at least once in their lives but that said i'm just saying the whole the way the western framework has been kind of styled and structured it's it's kind of you know eating its tail on it because what is it supposed to do and so things fall apart okay so that's the western thing and the muslim thing is kind of trapped in between that and

the eastern ideal of pragmatic relationships arranged marriages you know you just get arranged and with zero experience of how to handle a relationship so okay so you have the western sense and in the western sense okay you have girlfriend boyfriends growing up you fall in love you have the teenage love you are heartbroken you go through being on a downer for a few months you pick up the pieces you get on with it you have some experience in the western sense let's say now in the eastern sense okay that okay so that's not something that's

um permitted i'm not trying to say you need to permit that i'm just giving a description of events so okay so here muslims do it as well but they have to keep a secret secret we're not allowed to talk okay we've got a girlfriend boyfriend but it's also secret so it's kind of like this weird dirty secret that's hidden so they don't get to live an open relationship now the problem with that is that they okay so it's this secret they've got that they're doing all these things with these added pressures and they're going through some weird heartbreak but it's not and they think well you know if i had i need to have a proper relationship and the only time they can do that is when they get married

and then they get married and what happens is parents the disappearance would say well okay um you need to live here with us so we're going to have this joint extended living status that okay so the parents are here the siblings are here this person this couple are living here as well as though this is some village in india pakistan it's like so how's this gonna work so okay now they're gonna say well you know you let's go by the eastern ideals what

used to happen in in in the desi motherland but what used to happen there is our masala the the the you know the daughter-in-law she would cook for everyone and clean and she would be this uh respectful dignified glorified maid so she's gonna cook and clean and let's say there's five six other people living in this house while she's gonna clean all their clothes and she's gonna okay they've got a washing machine but she's it's her duty and she's gonna cook all the food and she's gonna serve all the food and she's but she's also but then there's the western ideal

because the guy will be like i don't want a typical woman she's got to be modern so the modern woman's going to be modern she's going to be like working and having her own life and now she's coming home and trying to face this pressure and how does that work and then what's going to happen is that there's going to be a crossover of territory so as naturally it happens in animals you think it's not going to happen in humans you think you're going to put a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law in the same there's not going to be a territorial kind of like so now she's going to complain to the husband and she's going to complain to the

son and the son has got zero experience on how to handle this so he's going to think well how should i handle this well oh i need to be a man okay what does that mean well uh let me resort to the eastern ideals how did they used to handle how did my ancestors in pakistan and india you know chowdhury saab used to handle this well they would just say know your place woman [Laughter] so okay let me try you see the whole thing is a mess they don't know how to handle it nobody

knows how to handle any of it and and then there's another added component to the equation and that is that muslim males are massively immature uh in the western world massively like i think compared to non-muslim counterparts and even compared to muslim females muslim females may also be kind of immature as well but i think the males massively so because they just live at home uh they live with the appearance everything gets done parents don't usually keep a good grip of what's going on they're not you see greater discussions don't take place

and they've not lived in solitude you need to as a man i think more so i think this applies to women as well but i think as a man you have to live in solitude for a certain period of your life you have to kind of face your inner shadow until you don't i think you don't emerge as a true man and you don't um this is another problem so they've never done that so they still have this kind of childishness to them as well and i think they probably mature about near 35 onwards so bloody good luck with that because by that time they've had a bunch of kids

and now the whole family has kind of fallen to pieces and then what happened