marriage-relationship” (25:54). Ḥadīth also lays stress upon living in a married state. The Holy Prophet is reported to have said to certain people who talked of fasting in the day-time and keeping awake during the night, praying to God and keeping away from marriage: “I keep a fast and I break it, and I pray and I sleep, and I am married, so whoever inclines to any other way than my Sunnah, he is not of me.” (Bu. 67:1). Another saying of the Holy Prophet laying stress upon marriage is worded thus: “O assembly of young people! Whoever of you has the means to support a wife (al-bā’ah), he should get married, for this (i.e., marriage) is the best means of keeping the looks cast down and guarding the chastity; and he who has not the means, let him keep fast, for this will act as castration” (Bu. 67:2). Celibacy (tubattul) was expressly forbidden by the Holy Prophet (Bu. 67 :8). According to one ḥadīth, “the man who marries perfects half his religion” (MM. 13:I-iii). Another says: “Matrimonial alliances increase friendship more than anything else” (ibid.).

Marriage as the union of two natures which are one in their essence

The Holy Qur’ān repeatedly speaks of the two mates, man and woman, as being created from each other: “O people, keep your duty to your Lord, Who created you from a single being and created its mate of the same (kind) and spread from these two many men and women”(4:1); “He it is Who created you from a single soul and of the same did He make his mate that he might find comfort in her” (7:189). Both these verses are generally understood as referring to the creation of the first man and the first woman,10 but that they signify the relation of man to woman in general is obvious from other verses: “And Allāh has made wives for you from among yourselves (min unfusi-kum), and has given you sons and daughters from your wives” (16:72); “And of His signs is this, that He created mates for you from yourselves (min unfusi-kum), that you may find quiet of mind in them” (30:21). And thus, in a Makkah revelation of the middle period: “The Originator of the heavens and the earth; He has made for you pairs from among yourselves … multiplying you thereby” (42:11). Thus marriage is, according to the Holy Qur’ān, the union of two souls which are one in their essence.