Sermon Introduction

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God.

As you guys know, a couple of weeks ago I created this questionnaire or a marriage system. Before I actually go into discussing it, I would like to talk about a topic and sort of get some ideas from the Bible. Not that we rely on the Bible, but I just want to show some examples.

What I want to talk about is that we as submitters—I mean believers—because as a submitter, you can actually believe; you don’t have to be perfect in this issue. But a perfect believer is open and intentional about marriage, yet very flexible at the same time. We don’t believe like the traditional Muslims that marriage is an obligation, or like the Christians who think that not being married is better or is more holy. That’s not the case. The case is in between. So we don’t judge people for not being married; we don’t judge people for being married. At the same time, we are intentional about marriage.

Defining Intentionality

What does it mean to be intentional? I’m going to take an example from the Bible to show what I mean by intentional. Basically, we don’t leave it completely to chance. We try to do something about it.

Let me give you an example of how intentional Abraham was in relation to the marriage of Isaac. So you can see—if some of you can see, because I’m a little bit disappointed actually about it, that’s why I’m talking about this topic. A lot of you actually—that’s why I’m disappointed—a lot of maybe most of you, I don’t know, can actually learn what it means to be intentional about marriage. You have to be intentional. What does it mean to be intentional? You have an intention.

Intentional vs. Non-Intentional (The Car Analogy)

Before I go to the example of Abraham, let me show you what I mean by intentional. Intentional versus let’s call it accidental or non-intentional. Let’s say you want to buy a car, and let me say you know what you want: you want an electric car. Being intentional means you go search online or you go to a dealer and you ask, “Do you guys have electric cars?” That’s intentional. Of course, we don’t have markets like that; unfortunately, we have dating apps, which I don’t think are good for submitters. But that’s being intentional: you go to a specific place to look for something, you know what you want, and you are not ashamed about it. That’s intentional.

Non-intentional is you wait until one of your friends accidentally, one of these days in passing while he or she is talking, tells you, “By the way, I’m selling my car,” and you’re like, “Oh, since you’re selling, I’ll buy it.” That’s non-intentional. It’s kind of like it just happens to be there, so you’re just going to buy it, even though all along you were interested and had no intention to do something about it.

So as you can see, there’s a difference: one of them is intentional, the other one is not. It’s really important as submitters to be intentional about marriage, even though we don’t judge people for not being married or for being married or anything. But we have to be intentional. If we are believers, we have to be intentional.

Now I’m going to show you an example. By the way, people can get discouraged; it’s hard to be intentional when you fail so many times. The world of the disbelievers has beaten us so much, it’s really hard to actually believe that you can get the car. But you have to be intentional about it.

The Example of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 24)

Now let me go to the verse to show you how it happened with Abraham and Isaac, his son. This is in Genesis Chapter 24. I’m just going to read some of it; I’m going to skip part of it because it’s just repetition. The same thing is repeated over and over, so let me actually share the screen.

I hope you guys are seeing it now. It’s Genesis, the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, Chapter 24. It has a subtitle which says “Finding a Bride for Isaac.” So there’s an intention there.

Now Abraham had grown old, was well advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. So Abraham instructed his servant, who was the oldest member of his household—servant meaning pretty much the slave—who was the oldest member of his household and in charge of everything he owned: “Make this solemn oath to me as a promise to the Lord, the God of heaven and the earth, that you won’t acquire a wife for my son from the Canaanite women among whom I’m living.”

By the way, just so people don’t think that Abraham was racist here, he didn’t want a wife from that region because in the past regions were different. Basically, they just didn’t have very good women and men as well. Sodom and Gomorrah were pretty much bad. Of course, it doesn’t make sense for Abraham to go to Sodom and Gomorrah to find a wife for his son, because they are just bad people. So in the past, you had communities which were bad and worse, and communities which were better in qualities, in culture, in whatever. In the past, there were drastic changes, and it was reasonable to look. If you want to go and get a good car, you’re not going to go to some country which produces some cheap car; you go to a country which produces a good car.

What I’m saying is that then let’s not take this example for today’s time. That’s why it’s not actually good to rely on the Bible for many things. But what we can learn here is the intentionality. He has an intention: he knows what he wants, and he’s doing something about it. Here he’s actually doing a lot; that’s what I’m trying to get at. He’s asking his servant: “Instead, you are to go to my country…”

By the way, Abraham lives at this time around Israel in that region, and this country is almost in Iraq. How far is that, 800 kilometers? Check ChatGPT, I don’t know exactly, but about that distance. How long did it take in the past to travel 800 kilometers? Two weeks. So Abraham is telling his servant, “Travel for two weeks and go find a wife for my son.” That’s intentional. It’s not like, “Oh, by the way, since you guys came around here, let me have a drink. Oh, by the way, I see this girl or this boy, let’s kind of like chat and see if it works.” No, you are intentional about it; you don’t leave it up to chance.

Balancing Intentionality and Flexibility

Of course, you have also to be flexible. You cannot control the whole situation, and we’ll see that even in this case you see that he doesn’t have full control of the situation. However, he has an intention.

Then the servant says, “What if the woman doesn’t want to come back with me to this land?” Basically, he’s saying, “What if it doesn’t work?” The servant asked, “Shouldn’t I have your son go to the land from which you came, Isaac with him as well, to go and sort of find a bride for him?”

And Abraham says, “Make sure not to take my son there.” Abraham replied—why? We know from the Quran that Abraham left that land of idol worshippers, however he still thought that they have good qualities for women’s behavior, I have no idea. “The Lord God of heaven, who brought me from my father’s land, who spoke to me and promised me ‘I will give this land to your descendants,’ will send His angel ahead of you, and you are to acquire a wife for my son from there. If the woman isn’t willing to follow you, then you’ll be free from this oath to me.”

So he’s also flexible. It’s intentional: this is what I want and this is what I’m doing. You’re free from the obligation; if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Okay? However, you can see the intention.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone should travel two weeks, because the difference is that the failure rate today—because people are picky—is much higher, so people get discouraged. You don’t want to travel for two weeks because the last time you traveled for two weeks, if you did, it didn’t work because the girl or the man was too picky. So now you’re like, “Oh, it doesn’t work these days, whatever.” So I can understand that. But you can see the intentionality, and that’s what I want you guys to understand, that there is an intentionality about it. Being left to just, “Oh, let’s go to a bar and see what happens”—no, you know what you want approximately, but you’re flexible about it. It’s not going to be fulfilled 100%; 50% could be good. Some intentionality even includes losing weight, looking better. “So I’m losing some weight, I want to look better.” Why? There’s an intention. Just an example, but that’s probably not the most important part, it’s not even that important, but that’s also part of the intention.

Identifying Qualities in a Partner

Anyway, so he goes there. The way they decide which woman to choose is that whichever says when the servant asks—I’m not going to read the whole thing—when the servant asks one of the women, “Can you please give me some water?”, if she says, “Let me also bring water for the camels,” that’s how they know she’s a good woman.

Anyway, even to this day, that’s actually a good quality for women, but it’s much more rare, and for men actually. Like that shows empathy; that shows intelligence. “Someone traveled two weeks, of course his camels are going to be thirsty, let me bring water also for their camels.” Maybe the person was shy to ask about water for the camels. So yeah, it shows some sort of awareness, empathy, and empathy is important in marriage.

So yeah, that’s how Abraham chose a wife for his son Isaac. As we can see, he was intentional about it. Let me stop sharing this.

Addressing Past Disappointments with Men

By the way, guys, I love you. I really think you’re good believers; I think you’re really special actually, because no other people could actually sort of go through what you guys and including me are going through, and sort of still stick to the same belief and keep improving and doing better. However, when it comes to this issue, I’ve been disappointed over and over again by so many, unfortunately. I have to say it, I’m just going to be honest, and I hope this doesn’t turn this into some kind of—I’d rather turn it into some kind of rant.

First of all, I was disappointed with men. This is years ago, from years ago it has been going on, and I was trying to fix it. Sorry for fixing it a little bit too late for some. I was disappointed by men who, while having women submitters available who would actually say yes because I know them, they went and married non-submitters in plain view. That was an insult to all the women submitters. It’s different if she doesn’t want to, if she doesn’t like—what was the intention? Abraham was intentional about it. If you think that she would say no, what about it? What did you go out to find out if it’s a no or if it’s a yes? Nothing. So there was no intentionality about it. Fine, maybe you just prefer the non-submitter. Okay, that’s already disappointing. So I was already disappointed about that part.

Low Participation from Women in the Marriage Questionnaire

Then, I don’t know, there’s a line of disappointments, but maybe I’m just going to mention two here. Now that we have a marriage app, I’m actually disappointed from the women’s side, and this is the situation. You guys had two weeks. You guys had two weeks, girls and women, whatever, two weeks to fill a simple questionnaire to show intentionality, basically to make yourself available.

By the way, if you were embarrassed—and this is because some people might have sort of been embarrassed, or maybe they thought, “Oh, I don’t want to be…” Because to be fair, in the Bible, Abraham is looking for a bride for his son, so it’s the father, the parent who is doing it, so it kind of makes more sense. When you do it yourself, it looks a little bit more like begging. So some people might hesitate. However, if you understand the issue correctly, you will not hesitate. The reason is that you don’t think about, “Oh, what do I get from this marriage, or what do I need?” If you’re embarrassed from that, think the other way: there’s lonely men out there, there’s lonely women out there. What can I do to help them? You can solve it the other way, now you’re not embarrassed anymore. Think of it as charity: there’s a lonely man, what can I do to help them? Maybe I could be their wife, or vice versa—not me, I’m a boy, but anyway, you get the point, I’m trying to think as a woman.

So yeah, if you think like that, then you’re not embarrassed anymore. But if you think, “Oh, what can I get from a man, how it would be,” things like that, then you’re embarrassed, of course.

Going back to the intentionality, this is the situation, the disappointing situation unfortunately. Before I go there actually, let’s repent.

Part 2 of the Sermon

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God.

Okay, so here’s the situation: you had two weeks to fill a questionnaire. Five men filled it, which is already too low, because I know there’s more men who are not married. And then only one woman—from I’m quite sure there’s many, many more, manyfold more women who are actually not married.

Anyone can find a reason, a justification. Maybe you had good intentions; maybe you don’t think you look good, you don’t want to disappoint the man. All of them don’t make sense, because the Quran says even… So what I’m saying is, the devil could trick you the other way around as well. Maybe you think you are too good for these men, which is bad already, but maybe you think you are not, you don’t deserve these men. Maybe you think these men are better than me. If that’s the case, you should actually believe the Quran, which tells the men: God knows that you men will like the women. So basically, if you think that men will not like you—I mean, there’s levels of liking—but if you’re convinced that they will not like you, if that’s what you believe and you are absolutely convinced about it, the problem is that you’re not agreeing with God. God is saying otherwise; God is saying they like you, you’re saying, “No, they don’t like me.”

Unfortunately, you might have been convinced based on circumstances: you are not married yet, you might be a certain age, or that’s different issues, I don’t want to go into that. However, not filling the questionnaire because you thought that is a disagreement with God.

Now, so what I’m saying is whatever reason you had, any of you—except for those who clearly knew that they didn’t want to get married—is not good enough, because you have to show intentionality. Just fill the questionnaire. And here’s the thing: filling the questionnaire would actually help others. Even if you never get married, it would help others to sort of rank each other better, because now you help with the ranking. God willing, you’ll see how that works. Sorry guys for these noises, there’s messages.

So yeah, what was I talking about? Yeah, the important thing is to be intentional about it, to make yourself available, to basically go in the market. You don’t find a car if you’re not going to go in the market. Go in the market! You don’t have to buy anything, no one is forcing you. Just check around, see what’s going on. But no, just one woman.

Feedback on Submitted Questionnaire Profiles

By the way, even that woman—and by the way, whoever filled it, you know who you are, you did a great job, I congratulate you. You could improve a little bit: one of the photos had makeup, so unfortunately even that is not going to be useful, because if I tolerate that… One photo was perfect, very good photo in the sense that it filled all the criteria; the other one had makeup. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can send that to men, because then it’s a slippery slope. Maybe the other women didn’t actually fill the questionnaire because they thought they would look better with makeup, and I’m not allowing makeup. So it’s kind of like an unfair game, I don’t want to allow unfair games. Now, if I change my mind in the future, I’m going to change this for all, not just for one. But for now, those were the rules of the market. The market can set the rules, and you didn’t fully follow them. Pretty much everything was perfect except for that photo which had makeup.

So please, can you actually… By the way, for people who hesitated to fill it, I already thought about it: I made it so that people can change them. So you can go change it, remove that photo, put another one, and it’s perfect. That’s the situation of the woman who filled it.

Now on the men’s side, pretty much four of them filled it correctly. One of them, the problem is he took a photo in the bathroom. I don’t think that should be acceptable. Plus, the criteria clearly stated show your face and your shoulders, kind of like me, maybe like this. But he showed pretty much his body all the way to maybe below his waist, which is not a big problem. However, it’s a slippery slope again, because the next day if that’s allowed, then the next day the other guy is going to wear a tight shirt because he knows he can show the body. Then the next day the other guy is going to show his abs, and then it turns into a thirst trap. Now we are evaluating who has a better body. There’s already a question in the questionnaire what your body type is; just say athletic. By the way, a lot of the men who filled it are young, and sometimes they said, “I have a normal body.” I think of them as having athletic bodies. Don’t be too modest about it, because you should compare yourself with all ages, not just with your age group. You definitely have a probably better body than me at my age. If I just got a little bit better, I’d say I’m athletic, I’m joking! But you get the point, it’s okay, don’t be modest about it. If you have a good body, you have a good body. However, those were not the rules, and the idea was not to show your body. I mean, you cannot avoid the shoulders, but…

So yeah, basically all we’re left with is four people, basically, and all of them are men, because those other two have to fix it, so they are not fully available right now. Please go fix those two photos for the man, and for the woman fix those two photos. You can change them, it’s possible. Just go back to the questionnaire and you can change it, and then it’s perfect for both of you.

Pledging Support for Poly-Marriage

The other four of you who did a very good job, I want to sort of encourage you by actually supporting you into something which I think you guys deserved. I think the reason why this happened—I was so disappointed, but at the same time I think the reason why this happened is because God wanted to distinguish you in this issue. You put yourself out there, available for the women, and what did the women tell you? “You’re not good enough,” or “We’re not even going to bother,” or “We can do better,” whatever they wanted to say implicitly, not directly.

So basically, you guys were vulnerable. You said, “Okay, well, we’re going to trust this system. We’re going to put our photos there to the embarrassment of me seeing them, and we’re going to do our job, we are going to be intentional about it,” which is what Abraham did in the Bible. Women didn’t even show up. They embarrassed you, they basically implicitly insulted you. According to them, they are not even going to bother, despite the fact that they were not only going to get marriage of probably one of the best men, plus money, but they still didn’t bother. I don’t know why. I kind of know why for each individual case, however I don’t care, there shouldn’t be a why here.

So what I think happened: I want to congratulate you guys, because I think you just earned my support, my full support for the rest of your life. I’m going to support you to have two wives. I’m going to support you. So if you get married, let me say for five or 10 years—five if you’re not a very good man, maybe 10 years if you’re really polite about that—when the time comes, you don’t need a reason, just get back to me, God willing. And then I’ll try to support you in the sense that together with you, we can talk to the first wife and we’ll be like, “You know, this guy is a good man. This guy deserves another wife. This guy, when he was there, nobody was there for him. When he showed up, no one showed up. He basically did more then, and he deserves more now.”

So I’m going to—for four of you… By the way, one of you is partly an exception, but for four of you I’m going to support you with two wives. Let me tell you about the exception first. For one of you, before we did the system, a few years ago I did actually offer to help with marriage, and there were cultural limitations on his mind, and he didn’t go with it, unfortunately. I think it was a mistake by him, but okay. Unfortunately, because of his cultural limitations, he didn’t take the chance. So now it’s just equalizing, meaning that I think he lost the chance for two wives. Basically, he was already in the negative, so now he’s at least in positive, which now I can use against him and say, “You know what, it’s not in your culture, it doesn’t really fit your culture.”

Am I still live? I guess I’m live. Yeah, okay.

So what I’m saying is for the three of you—so now it’s down to three—three of you, you know who you are. You guys are between, I think, in your 20s or whatever, I’m not sure exactly. You know who the three of you are. I’m going to support you to have two wives, God willing, in the future. And we will try—I will try to give a very good explanation, sort of a recommendation, why you guys should have two wives. You did your job right. Women have told you, “We can find better, we are not even going to bother.” So when you get married, I would understand if you say to those women eventually—not immediately, eventually—”You know what? We also think we can find better.”

Historical Perspectives on Marriage

And I’m going to bring the case of Muhammad in this issue. A lot of people actually judge Muhammad for having many wives. They judge him because they don’t understand what he went through. Where were those same people who judged him for having too many wives? Where were they when he married a woman who was old, who according to hadith again didn’t have her teeth? He married a woman without teeth and wrinkles. According to hadith, she had lots of wrinkles. Basically, in today’s society, that would be considered a 60, 70-year-old woman. Now, where were those people when he went through that?

Basically, what society told him: “You’re an orphan”—implicitly, not probably explicitly—”You’re an orphan, you cannot do better. Just stick with this, it’s fine. It’s fine for you, you can handle it.” And basically what society told him is, “This is how much you can handle.” Now, if that’s the criteria, then later on if Muhammad can handle more, then maybe he should get more if that’s the criteria.

So nobody felt sorry for him. Nobody felt, “Oh, wait a minute, I feel sorry for this guy. Let’s find a slightly better wife for him.” Nobody said that. Then later on, he would feel sorry for his wife, he’d be like, “You know what, I feel sorry, I’m just going to marry one, maybe two, I feel sorry for her.” Then the rules are the same: sorry for sorry, or ability for ability.

So these three men, boys or men, whatever they are, I’m going to support you to have a second wife, God willing, in the future, and without reason—meaning you already have a reason. The reason is women humiliated you, and when you get the chance, when you get powerful, when you get rich, I’m going to be on your side, God willing.

Final Remarks and Closing

So that’s all I have to say. Is there any questions?

By the way, there’s still time. You guys can still fill the questionnaire, whoever wants to, but that doesn’t mean this round is over. It was going to be in rounds, let me say in cycles. Now for the rest, don’t think that marrying two women—I’m going to support you, you have to sort of deserve it. You have to earn it. What battle did you win? Which life did you save? Where were you insulted? What good opportunity to make saber did you use? So it depends. But for most cases, almost all cases, one wife is the perfect way, the best way. But in this case, I think these guys have been insulted. You women have insulted them.

Okay, so any questions? If there’s no questions, it’s okay. And again, I’m not mad at anyone, it’s probably nobody’s fault. It could be just how you brought got brought up; it could be the parents’ mistake. I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter, be intentional about it. And being intentional about it, unfortunately in today’s world because we don’t have markets, dealerships like for cars, for marriage, pretty much this is all we have. That means you kind of have to use this.

Okay, that’s it. For those who have to do the contact prayer, let’s do the contact prayer. For the rest of you, peace be upon you.

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director