Book Review: “Prophetic Guidelines for Protecting the Muslim Family”
The book Prophetic Guidelines for Protecting the Muslim Family stems from the alarming state of family disintegration these days. The family is the foundational unit of society, requiring protection, care, and reinforcement in the face of life’s upheavals and storms.
The author, Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Abdul-Aal, Professor of Hadith and its Sciences at Al-Azhar University, states that the key to success lies within the individual. The righteousness of the Muslim home can only be achieved through the guidance of its founder and the one who laid its first cornerstone; the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
The first chapter of the book, published in 2004, explores how Islam placed great emphasis on family building. It outlines the regulations governing marital relationships and defines the rights and duties of each spouse. The husband is responsible for striving and earning a lawful income, while the wife is tasked with managing the household and caring for the children.
Dr. Abdul-Aal emphasizes the significance of marriage as a source of security and protection for society from moral decay and behavioral deviance. Marriage is a lawful channel to satisfy desires and maintain chastity. He stresses the importance of facilitating marriage and combating excessive dowries, warning that otherwise, we invite corruption and immorality into our societies.
The book discusses a collection of noble prophetic hadiths that lay the foundation for a sound and successful marital relationship, beginning with the hadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: “A woman may be married for four reasons, for her property, her rank, her beauty and her religion; so get the one who is religious and prosper.” (Agreed upon)
The author highlights the importance of prioritizing religion when choosing a spouse — whether husband or wife — while acknowledging that beauty, wealth, and lineage can also be considered as long as they accompany religious commitment. He affirms the consensus among scholars that compatibility in religion is essential: a Muslim woman is not permitted to marry a non-Muslim man, whereas a Muslim man may marry a woman from the People of the Book.
He adds that Islam does not oppose or suppress natural human desires, but sets a proper and balanced path for them — without excess or negligence. He cites the hadith of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: Three people came to the Prophet’s wives and asked how the Prophet conducted his worship. When they were told about it they seemed to consider it little and said, “What a difference there is between us and the Prophet whose former and latter sins have been forgiven him by God!” One of them said, “As for me, I will always pray during the night.” Another said, “I will fast during the daytime and not break my fast.” The other said, “I will have nothing to do with women and will never marry.” Then the Prophet came to them and said, “Are you the people who said such and such? By God, I am the one of you who fears and reverences God most, yet I fast and I break my fast; I pray and I sleep; and I marry women. He who is displeased with my sunna has nothing to do with me.” (Narrated by Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
In the first chapter, the author explains several issues, including looking at the woman one intends to marry, proposing over someone else’s proposal, the necessity of the woman’s consent in marriage, excessive dowries, and the prohibition of temporary marriage (Nikah al-Mut'ah). He stresses the dangerous consequences of high dowries, such as youth refraining from marriage, wasting their years, the spread of immorality and fornication, and the rise of unofficial marriages, such as 'urfi (without official contract), hiba (gifting the woman herself to the man without dowery), and al-Mut'ah — all of which are relatively recent phenomena in modern Muslim societies.
The second chapter of the book is dedicated to the prophetic counsel and advice directed toward the Muslim woman. It also discusses how she should be treated — with compassion, good conduct, and patience — and how to avoid divorce and the causes that lead to it. The author warns women against being ungrateful to their husbands, the dangers of al-hamu (the husband’s male relatives), traveling without a mahram, and the importance of blocking all avenues that may lead to immorality. He also warns against men resembling women, and women resembling men, and against those who alter the creation of Allah — such as those who attach hair extensions or get tattoos — and other legal issues specific to women that influence their behavior in marriage, potentially leading the Muslim household away from the Prophetic model.
The third chapter, within the book's 200 pages, focuses on the issue of raising children in Islam, highlighting the virtues of raising daughters, maintaining justice among children, examples of Islamic fairness in inheritance distribution, the recommendation to promote harmony between siblings, treating children equally even in bequests, honoring one’s parents, the prohibition of disrespecting them, and the virtue of maintaining kinship ties.
In the fourth and final chapter, the author offers a rich and insightful overview of divorce — its rulings and its negative effects on the family and society. He addresses the prohibition against a woman asking for the divorce of another, and the danger of causing separation between a man and his wife by a woman requesting the divorce of her Muslim sister so she may take her place. He also discusses the difference between valid and innovated forms of divorce, and the issue of issuing three divorces in one statement. He emphasizes that divorce was only legislated to prevent harm or to bring benefit, concluding his book with a strong reminder of the need to protect and preserve the Muslim household from disintegration and deviation.
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