RENAISSANCE JANUARY 2022

Queries 40 Monthly Renaissance January 2022 not an evil to take interest in cricket or other sports. As I said life without healthy entertainment can be extremely boring. And boredom can breed both evil and extremism. I am not saying that it is necessary to take interest in sports. All I am saying is that there is no religious requirement that one must give up sports to become religious. We need to strike a healthy balance between religious obligations and the other non- religious healthy activities. Of course, the kind of immoral trends we see amongst the cricket players and cricket fans should be discouraged and good Muslims must never participate in them. In other words, instead of abandoning cricket and other sports, we should try to bring in morality and God-consciousness in them too. I quite agree with you that we must love all humans irrespective of their nationality and religion. I see it as a part of nature as my religious obligation. When we believe in one God Who created all humans how can we discriminate against some of them? It would be silly, immoral, and irreligious to do so. Concept of Love-Marriage in Islam Question: Is there any concept of love marriage in Islam? If we look at Muslim history, I don’t find any stuff like this because our religion does not allow unmarried boys to meet unmarried girls. Please answer my question in detail. Answer: By concept of love-marriage in Islam if you mean that the Qur’ ā n recommends or condemns it directly anywhere, then most certainly that is not the case. However if one were to look at the spirit of the Qur’ ā n and the Sunnah, the following understanding emerges: 1. Both bridegroom and bride have to willingly approve the idea of their marriage. Therefore, there can be no objection to the fact that the spouses-to-be know each other well enough to take that decision. 2. In the process of knowing each other, they can interact within the limits of decency. However, they should not meet each other and remain together for long durations alone. 3. Before getting married, although exchange of messages in the form of emails, sms messages etc is not disallowed, such