A Match Made In Jannah

Chapter 30

HUSNA'S POV

Now that Maariah and I had reconciled, I was happy with marrying Nabeel. Maariah, Layyah and I spent hours discussing what scared us most about marriage. We were sitting together around the fire when Layyah, being the pessimist that she is, decided that marriage was much too difficult.

"Look, I know that marriage is part of Islam and everything, but I don't think I'd do justice to it. I feel like I would mess it up really badly and end up divorced. Also I don't think that I can like someone for so long. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with one person. I'll get bored and want to divorce him, but then Islamically a lady can't divorce her husband."

"Layyah, you know that you would eventually want to get married to that guyyyyy. When he comes, all your worries will vanish and you'll be like Beauty, head over heels in lurve," Maariah said.

"Look, I know that this is odd coming from someone like me who was infatuated with Zaid for so long, and then ended up marrying someone else, but whoever you're destined to marry will come along some day. When he does arrive, Allah will fill your heart with so much of love for him that whatever pre-marital infatuation you had will vanish and be replaced with pure attraction towards the man of your dreams. Again, as Layyah was saying, we may just get bored with each other, but Apa always says that when you get married you form a bond in the name of Allah and of course that is a solid, unbreakable bond. When you're in a haraam relationship, you'll end up looking for something better and always be flitting your gaze to other men, but when it's halal, you become loyal.  Apa also said that the reason why women can't divorce is because they tend to get a lot more hyped up and dramatic, so they act irrationally. If women could divorce, there would literally be no one married at the moment. Like, imagine if you husband did something relatively annoying. You'd just blurt out random insults because being a lady, you're overdramatic. Remember that marriage is half of Deen and Allah wouldn't make something so important if it wasn't beneficial. Just loving someone to satisfy YOURSELF is an Ibadat. I find that so beautiful..." I trailed off.

My cousins clapped their hands in a slow, sarcastic rhythm, and I rolled my eyes.

"Masha Allah. Such a nice, long bayaan. Are you done now? I bet Apa will be proud of her student; being all pious and everything," Maariah said.

With that we continued to play around on the laptop as we searched for marriage tips, lingerie stores and ways to make your husband stay interested.

I was the one getting married, but I turned away from the laptop, a little uncomfortable with the content online. Maariah looked at me awkwardly and then spoke to Layyah. "Layyah, I know that this is basically a bachelorette sleepover, but the content online is a little haraam. Apa keeps warning us about Internet content, so maybe we should listen to an actual Kitaab or read one?"

"Yeah sure, Maariah. It's okay, I'll get you some nice, enticing outfits Husna," Layyah said winking.

I sighed. It was hard to get through to Layyah sometimes.

MAARIAH'S POV

I spent the night laughing with my cousins, when in fact I was dying inside. I hated smiling when I was sad. I hated pretending that I was happy with Husna marrying Nabeel, when I was deeply in love with him. I hated the facade that I was putting up. I just couldn't fathom why Husna couldn't leave Nabeel alone. She didn't love him. I knew she didn't. You fall in love, not force it. Nabeel and I were in love and she practically stole him from me. I hated her, yet being my best friend, or so I thought, I had to show some value to our friendship.

Only one question haunted my mind...

Why her?