January 12, 2022

The High Life in the West - Part 1

I have been requested to elaborate on a recent post I did regarding Muslims living in Muslim societies who aspire to immigrate to North America or Europe.

I will begin Part 1 with this generic real-life scenario.

Husband and wife with four or so children come to the West. Traditional family, yet not very educated in Islām, let alone practicing it properly.

Husband is a little tight on money, meaning, he is very careful because he is worried about the uncertainties in this new world. He works a minimum wage job and is trying to ensure he has enough to maintain his family. Wife is more into the lavishness and wants a more luxurious lifestyle. A bigger house should be rented instead of an apartment, or worse, she wants her husband to get into a mortgage with a bank to buy a house on debt that is based on Ribā.

Due to this difference between the husband and the wife, and due to the liberal society in Canada, the woman feels that she can force the husband to give her that higher level of material life she was always wanting in the home country, but which she could not really dictate due to the culture and the norms.

Long story short, fights, disputes, and ultimately divorce takes place because of money issues. The man is pushed to the corner and becomes abusive due to the wrong buttons being pushed, and the wife gets the police involved. The marriage is ruined with a point of no return.

Lesson: one potential way you can ruin your marriage is by migrating to the West.

While Islām does not allow husbands to physically abuse their wives, and in fact, regulates and restricts the type of discipline that a man can use as the caretaker and maintainer of his household, this in no way means that domestic issues are automatically taken up to the Western legal system that does not recognize the Qur’ān and Sunnah as the rule of law for Muslims.

Long story short, fights, disputes, and ultimately divorce takes place because of money issues. The man is pushed to the corner and becomes abusive due to the wrong buttons being pushed, and the wife gets the police involved. The marriage is ruined with a point of no return.

The West is about individualism, it is not about maintaining the society, let alone the family unit.

Many Muslims who migrate to the West are doing it for the sake of the Dunyā, not that this is always wrong as some are forced and don't have much choice. However, one must seriously think about the society to which he is migrating. Is his family prepared for the culture shock? Is it prepared for the unrestricted freedom that is devoid of responsibility?

Add to this the scenario in which the man brings his family to the West, and leaves them there so he can go back and work in the home country, only to visit the family twice a year for a month or so at a time. How will he keep matters under control such that his wife and children are not influenced the wrong way?

There is more, next post, إن شاء الله