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Quran 32:33 – Who Are "those Who Find Not An Opportunity For Marriage"?
[Similarly, it is also essential that] you should arrange to wed those among you who are single and also those among your slave-men and slave-women who are able to. If they are poor,God will make them rich out of His grace. God has great capacity and has knowledge of everything. And let those who find not an opportunity for marriage restrain themselves until God gives them means out of His grace. (An-Nur: 32,33)
On the basis of this very principle, in the husband-wife relationship also] men are made in charge of women because God has given one superiority over the other, and because they have spent their wealth. (An-Nisa, 34)
Let’s say a person is a part time salesman (and also his brother, alternately) at his father’s shop. He does not own the shop. The earning produced by means of the shop is sufficient for his family consisting of his father, mother, a sister, and a younger brother. The younger brother is in university. The sister teaches at a college. The earning from the shop would not be enough – if he got married – for the couple. Even if it was barely enough, it would mean that other members of the family would have to cut down on their expanses, especially parents and the younger brother. Under these circumstances, would his father be right to protest that he should not marry unless he has an independent source of earning? Will this person be among those “who find not an opportunity for marriage” (from the ayah of An-Nur)? Also, men have been called “qawwam” and that is “because they have spent their wealth”. So according to this ayah, men need to be in a position to be “qawwam” to marry and this requires their own money, not their fathers, especially when they are not under the position to spend it at their own will.
Questions:
(1) Is the father right to protest?
(2) Is he under the category of those “who find not an opportunity for marriage”?
(3) Would it be right for him to oppose his father’s protests when he found himself susceptible to sin?
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