Surviving the First Year of Marriage

By Nyla Mahreen | Last updated: Dec 6, 2013 - 5:12:29 AM

Marriage is such a beautiful union between two people when it is centered in Allah (God). Also, as Student Minister Ava Muhammad has stated, “Marriage is the most difficult thing anyone could ever undergo.”

This is because it is a continuous learning experience for the rest of our lives!

Let us be honest, every lesson is not exactly glamorous. Smile.

However, (in my one year and three months of marriage), I have learned that when you love Allah, you love your spouse, and you desire in your heart for your marriage to be successful, then you embrace the process.

More and more I notice younger couples marrying, particularly in the Nation of Islam. My husband and I being one of these couples—him two months shy of 23 and me a month into 24—when we married in August of 2012, it really warms our hearts to see our peers and our younger sisters and brothers choosing the straight path. We are choosing the straight path despite society’s new norm of children being born out of wedlock and without any serious commitment to God, family, or to each other. Rejoice! We have chosen “LIFE”!

The marriage experience “grows us up” and makes us better people, if we allow it. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) declared: “When the servant of Allah marries, he has fulfilled half the faith: so let him be God conscious with respect to the other half.”

Essentially, most things are what you make it, but some things were already made when you and I got here and there is nothing we can do about it except understand it. For instance, the “nature” of man and woman. This is where the hump comes in until we learn each other well enough to work together in a harmonious manner. I am going to paraphrase, but I do remember the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan mentioning, “Everything worth having has trouble in its infancy.” Marriage, especially in its beginning stages, is a prime example of the said statement. Thank Allah for all of the marriage literature, DVDs and material that we have access to through The Final Call, Our 7 Units in Our MGT Class, all of the marriage seminars, telephone conferences, and last but definitely not least, our brothers and sisters with more “mature” marriages that we can utilize when needed. They have helped my husband and I as “beginners.” It is certainly a blessing.

Many of us sacrificed much to even be married, whether you were born in the Nation or were guided solely by Allah to accept this mission. You can look at your life from now up until you said, “I do” and things are so different. Maybe your parents had someone else in mind for you, or maybe they thought that your joining the Nation was a phase and you would get past it. Instead, you married someone who thinks along the same lines as you do. One thing stands true and will never change and that is the fact that Allah is God. As Minister Farrakhan has stated numerous times, “Allah is the ONLY reality” and “Hard trials are necessary to establish truth.” The truth is, whether it be your first year of marriage or your 30th, we can endure and we will survive.

(Nyla Mahreen attends the Nation of Islam Study Group in Tulsa, Okla.)

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