Halal Money Matters Podcast

Episode 32 - The Blessings and Challenges of Blended Families with Shaykh Suhail Mulla

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Monem Salam:
Welcome to Halal Money Matters, sponsored by Saturna Capital. I'm Monem Salam. This one hits a little bit home for me, because we're going to be talking about the concept of blended families and what that means from a financial perspective. So we're happy to have and honored to have a special guest, as we are always, Shaykh Suhail Mulla, who graduated with a bachelors degree from CSUN (Cal State University, Northridge), got his master's degree in social work, and then also went off to study Islamic sciences at Al-Azhar University. And in fact, that's when I actually met him, was probably maybe a year before he was about to head off and pursue his Islamic studies. He is one of those people that does counseling for a living and comes across these kind of stories and anecdotes and, and maybe guidances that we can all learn from when it comes to finances and blended families. So without further ado, Shaykh Suhail Mulla.

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Monem Salam:
Jazakallahu Khair (may Allah reward) Shaykh Suhail for coming on the podcast. When I first thought about the topic of blended families, and I actually have one, and so that was an important aspect of why we wanted to do it. But you were one of the first people that came up. So I’m really excited and happy that you’re able to join us. So welcome.

Suhail Mulla:
Jazakallahu Khair. Thank you for having me.

Monem Salam:
Alhamdulillah (praise be to God). So like I said, this is kind of a little bit personal. I have some personal experiences I can share. And as from you being in the profession of counseling, I'm sure you've seen a lot of cases, and those type of things. So I wanted to kind of get the ball rolling and just talk a little bit about, besides the money aspect of it, maybe a little bit some complexities of blended family. And what I mean, the blended family is, you know, after one or both of the parties have gotten a divorce, they have children from that divorce, and they're getting married again to their spouse and they may or may not have children. So there are some different scenarios, but generally speaking, it's two different families trying to come together. Almost like whenever I tell people my story they're like, The Brady Bunch, exactly like The Brady Bunch. So maybe I'm not sure if the newer generation would know that, but I grew up on Brady Bunch, so…

Suhail Mulla:
Yeah, when you started talking, that's the reference that came up in my mind, too, right? And that works for our generation. But perhaps younger folks have no clue what that is. But yeah, the blended family comes with potentially many, many blessings, but also many, many challenges, as you know. The blessings are that you get to experience companionship at a later stage in life. You get to revision what family looks like, you know, can be very fulfilling in an interesting way, where husband and wife who have children from previous marriages, now their children have these new step sibling relationships. And, you know, and the interesting sort of things that happened in that space in terms of the alignment of that family and so forth, so all of those things can be a tremendous blessing. Your family is growing and they're not blood related. Right? That can be a beautiful thing.

Monem Salam:
I mean, I usually refer to my stepkids as stepkids and just that's because nobody understands it. But the first time I heard it, it was a very beautiful phrase. She was like, I have a couple of kids and I have four bonus kids. It was really cool. I really liked it, but I started using it and then people are like, what was that, you know, then I had to go back to using step kids, so I went back to that. But I really like this idea of, you know, it's a bigger family, it is a blessing and a bonus to be able to have something like that happen. So I mean, it comes with the challenges, but definitely a blessing as well.

Suhail Mulla:
I love that terminology. Bonus children.

Monem Salam:
Bonus children, exactly.

Suhail Mulla:
Like you said, there's the challenges, right? And the challenges can be very, very heavy. It's not only about the dynamic between man and woman, husband and wife, but you have to sort everything else out. The children from both families, ideally you want them to get along. The stepmom with her bonus children and stepdad with his bonus children. You want to have the best relationship there and those things can be challenging. I have a friend of mine, he's an imam and he told me when he remarried and he had now these bonus children, right? Stepchildren from his new wife. He said, man, it's hard to love somebody else's children, because they have their dad, they have their biological dad. And then, you know, and sometimes there's resistance from the children from the other side, and they're now having to navigate their biological father once the new home that they're living in. And so there's so many dynamics to it, so many moving parts. And that's where the challenges lie.

Monem Salam:
Yeah, you know, I've…multiple times, kind of describing it, if you take all members of your family, your kids, your bonus kids and everybody and you draw a line between every single connection there is, and then draw a line through all of them, that's how many complications potentially you could have with that. So the larger it is, obviously the more complications or lines you can draw.

Suhail Mulla:
Rather than freshly married 20 something year old husband and wife who just have that one line between them that they have to figure out, right?

Monem Salam:
Absolutely. It's so true. There's many, many different aspects we can talk about from the blended family perspective. But this is the financial, but, Halal Money Matters. So we'll kind of restrict it obviously to this area knowing that there's a lot of other areas, you know, societal, social, personal, familial, all the different relationships that you have. But I wanted to try to focus just the financial aspects of it. And starting off, I mean, when I thought about this topic, it was like I could break it down into three different areas, right? Like, what do you think about finances prior to you getting married, again, during the marriage itself, and then maybe afterwards, you know, one of us passes away or so, maybe we can take that in that step by step format. And, you know, one of the things that happens is that for majority of people, I don't want to say for everybody, but you're coming out of a divorce. Most likely it was a very messy, Mashallah it wasn't. But, you know, maybe it was. You're just getting over this huge thing where you've lost maybe 50% of your assets, maybe gained it, depending on where you are, and now you're looking at it from a new perspective of, I'm getting married and I need to think about this all over again. So what are some things that you might have come across in your experiences that have helped kind of bridge that gap, or what are some things that definitely are must haves, need to have, and maybe want to have?

Suhail Mulla:
There definitely needs to be a lot of conversation and there needs to be honesty. The husband needs to be honest with himself. The wife needs to be honest with herself as they're going into this marriage about, you know, what they want and what they don't want. Chances are they have experiences that they have from their last marriage that are going to color what they want for themselves in the future. Right? You have to be honest with yourself there. Those are internal conversations, so to speak. And then there need to be very explicit conversations that you have with the other party because you want to set up real expectations and you want to verbalize all of those things. You want to articulate all of those things before you get into the marriage. And there were assumptions as to what things would look like, right? So there needs to be honesty as to what financial obligations are there as it relates to the previous spouse and children from that spouse, whether those children live with you or live with the other spouse or whatever the scenario may be. So things need to be clear. Things need to be out in the open, and there needs to be a lot of discussion so that you are then setting yourself up on the best foot.

Monem Salam:
Yeah. So we can look at it from two perspectives, like one is that from the Sharia perspective of what is required from the legal perspective. And then the other one is what is ahsaan (better) to be able to do. So let's start with both of those and say, okay, well so on a legal perspective, what should be done prior to the marriage taking place, and then maybe what we talked about that were good practices about sharing but, by being open and honest. But what about the Sharia side of it, if there is any?

Suhail Mulla:
Yeah, from the legal perspective, if you're just a regular, you know, American law perspective, that prenuptials are a consideration to be had. And chances are there's at least one of two parties that has some trepidation, some hesitations about what they're going to get into and what the future implications could hold. Now look, the divorce rate for blended marriages is some 70-plus percent. And so that's just statistically speaking. So you have to be real about things, having those sort of legal protections, if that's something that you feel is important for you to do, and then to ensure that the other party is on board. The prenuptial is a prenuptial. If you don't have it and you haven't talked about it, then you bring all of these tensions into the marriage from the beginning, from the get go, and you can easily just put that on the side, make everything clear. These are my assets. I'm going to hold on to these regardless, you know, that sort of thing. So you just make everything clear. From a Sharia perspective, I don't know if there's any particular considerations as such that need to be taken into account that differ from somebody getting married for the first time.

Monem Salam:
Okay. In previous podcasts, we've talked about the fact that even if you're just starting off, I mean, sometimes prenuptials are important to be able to think, consider, and really talk about and discuss whether it's right for you or not so that that's really good. And then also having discussions prior to the marriage, you talk about prenuptials. One of the things that I've noticed is some people, you know, have their own separate trusts that they create. For example, the husband would have a trust, the wife would have a trust depending on who has different assets. And that kind of clarifies as well, maybe from there there's no need for a prenuptial, but maybe you just do it in the form of having your own family trust for you and your children, and then she has her own or I'm saying that for she because I'm a male, but she has her own trust that she creates as well. So that might be another alternative. So now we get into now from a perspective of the marriage itself. Now you're in the marriage, your kids are there. And then again that you can paint so many different scenarios. Large family, small family, participant other spouse, ex-spouse non-participatory other spouse, you know, all of those different types of things. But let's start with the obligations part of it, for example, going into the marriage or being in the marriage. So as the kids get older or they're younger, is there any obligation on one spouse or another to be able to take care of those kids that are not theirs? And from that perspective, is it the same rules apply for your own kids versus your bonus kids?

Suhail Mulla:
Yeah. So a man, in Islam, a father's responsible for providing for his dependents. His dependents are his wife and his children, his wife that he's currently married to, right, so he's not responsible for spousal support for the previous wife, unless of course, there's some sort of court order that's mandating that, dictating that side of the Sharia per se, but one should not renege on that. That's a responsibility. But he's responsible for taking care of his biological children, and then he's also responsible for taking on the new dependents that he's taken on. So he is married to, let's say, his second wife, and she has her children from her previous marriage. He's responsible for taking care of her needs as well as their shelter, food and clothing. Those are the basics. And that is his obligation in the time that they are with him. Now, that's in absence of those children's biological father taking care of those needs. I'm only framing it in this way, right, because I'm a male as well. Let's say, for example, my second wife, she has her own children. I shouldn't say my second wife. I mean, the second… (laughter) Right? And…actually was a cool little comedy piece right there, but… (laughter) The obligations towards a new wife and her children, look, if the new wife, her ex-husband, her children's father is taking care of them financially, then obviously I don't need to take care of them financially, right? Whatever I provide for them is above and beyond. This bonus is my own sadaqah that I'm providing to these minors, that I already have someone else who is responsible for them. In absence of their biological father providing, for whatever reason, whatever that may be, whether he's not alive, whether he's negligent or what have you. Then if they're in my household, I'm responsible.

Monem Salam:
And that's from a Islamically legal perspective?

Suhail Mulla:
Sharia perspective.

Monem Salam:
Okay. So like you said, shelter obviously would be one of them. Shelter, food, clothing, you know, those type of things, that are there. From a Sharia perspective, obviously there's one like you mentioned about the imam was who said it was very difficult for them to love his bonus children, is there some type of obligation or something like that to be able to keep, for example, my kids and my bonus kids equal?

Suhail Mulla:
Hmm, yeah.

Monem Salam:
The reason why I ask that is sometimes you do have a situation where you're coming from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Let's supposing you, you know, you have three kids, you're now set up in one way of life. Now you have three more. And now you're obviously economic situation is going to change. So what would be something you can advise there?

Suhail Mulla:
Yeah, it's a really good question. At the very least what's 'ahsan, what's best, the general rule is that your children, you provide for them equally and there should not be feelings of jealousy, feelings of wait a second, he or she has more than I do. And that's not fair. Parents are responsible for making their children feel loved to the fullest extent, and part of that love is, is showing them they're treating them equal and they're not favoring one over the other. Now, that's in terms of the financial provision, in terms of the heart, you know, even the Prophet sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam, who was the best of creation, he's married to multiple wives. He has love for Aisha that surpasses others. And he says those things in, you know, financial provision and so forth, I have control of that. My heart I don't. And that may very likely be the case. Right? A father has more affinity towards his biological children. Maybe he's seen them born and he's raised them from young and so on, so forth. Whereas these other children are come to his life later in life. And so that's going to be, you know, probably a very common scenario. But as much love as he can extract and show and pull out and try to be that best person that he can be and definitely not overtly show favoritism towards his own children, within that which is within his control, is important for then increasing the success rate of his new family, his new blended family, staying together and for all parties to be happy. So again, I'm talking from the male perspective. One has to be a bigger man about things.

Monem Salam:
Yeah. I'm going to push back a little bit if you don't mind giving a kind of the opposite example of that, which is, you know, my kids could easily come back to me and say, well, look, man, you got married again. Why am I having to maybe lower my standard of what I would have gotten normally, because of the fact the decision to you made to take on a blended family.

Suhail Mulla:
Yeah, yeah. I can't say that I've lived that and that I've experienced that, to be honest with you. But again, part of the process of remarrying is having very honest conversations with your own children about what life may look like moving forward. You know, we're living by ourselves. And if I get married again to this woman and she has these other children, then our financial situation may change. And so, you know, there is a prepping for your own children as to what that future may look like. But yeah, even if, let's say those feelings do come up, you know, again, I don't know about the very specific because I haven't researched it. Is there a financial obligation that now varies between one's biological children and one's bonus children that are in his household? Now that's an important question.

Monem Salam:
The way I think about it, this is not a legal opinion, right. Like I just meant my thoughts on this, you know, every child comes with his own risk or his sustenance. And so you don't talk to your kids about having another child, right. And saying, hey, because we're going to have another child, we might have to technically suffer a little more because there's an extra mouth to feed in the family. So from that perspective, you take care of the new child and you at least spread out whatever you can. And the same thing would be for the bonus kids as well. You don't need to have a conversation with the kids. That would be the same thing as, they're coming into this life with their own risk and if you're that mechanism to provide that for them, if their father's not around and that type of thing too, so.

Suhail Mulla:
True. But only because you brought up this pushback earlier, if my kids are teenagers and now I'm marrying a woman and she has younger children and, well, wait a second now you are about to buy me a car. I can imagine that comes with its challenges, right? Financial limitations. So, raising our children to have bigger hearts, right? And to help them understand our own lot in life. And I mean, you know, the individualistic sort of culture that we grew up in, in the West versus, reminding our families about our roots and who we really are and the societies and the communal outlook that Islam promotes and proposes, first, as a general principle in Sharia, Haqal jamaa yuqadima ala haqul fard, that the right of the group takes precedence over the right of the individual. And so that principle applies here, that, you know, we have a familial responsibility. There's other people. It's not just you.

Monem Salam:
And you have to be very mindful of your children. Sometimes it's not voiced, it's felt and it's kept inside. So the example, the car, about to buy a car, but I didn't. Sometimes they're not going to say it, but they might feel it. It might manifest itself in different ways later on, that type of thing. So you really have to be very careful in regards to that. So one part of it is in okay. Well obviously the shelter, the food, the clothing, that type of thing. But the other part of it would be, okay, now they're getting older now you're still married to, Mashallah, your wife, kids are getting older now. Now there's college, there's marriage. There's mahr. All of these other things are going on. And so again, ideally the situation would be, well, their father would be providing for them. Inshallah, that's great. So you can do that. And maybe their husband's obligation would be not there. But what if that's not the case for whatever reason? Right. Is there an obligation to be able to say, you know what, you know, I do have to provide for them equally, even when it comes to college and that type of thing, or the other way is to say, you know, I mean, yeah, you either have to, you know, get scholarships or wife has to work or, you know, those type of things, so.

Suhail Mulla:
You know, I mean, there is not an obligation per se, from a Sharia perspective, even for my own biological children, that I have to provide education, right, being very technical. But it's an urf (custom) matter, right? It's a cultural, customary sort of reality that the Sharia also acknowledges. Like, if this is the standard, then that standard should be engaged. Now, can you call it an actual obligation? Is it Fard for me to provide, again, even my own biological children with a college education? I would be hard pressed to say that. And so therefore, you know the same with my bonus children for example. But now again, it's a matter of your taking on these dependents into your own and when you do that, when you marry a woman and she has other children from her previous marriage, you're also, in a de facto sense, taking on the responsibilities that are generally understood to come. Now, is it Fard, is it an obligation, again, be hard pressed to say that. But would it be the right thing to do? Would it be the stand up thing to do? Would it be generally expected? I guess part of that would entail some discussion prior to, you know, like, well, what does the future look like? Maybe my new wife, maybe she has a family that where there's some wealth there. She knew her father has kind of taken on some responsibility or she works and does well for herself. And she tells you when you get married, look, I'm going to take care of my kids. I'm going to provide for them. You don't have to take on some of those realities. Then that's there. Right? A lot of that, I think, really should be just to work out with one another.

Monem Salam:
Do you have any real life examples that you've come across?

Suhail Mulla:
You know, over the years have dealt with a few blended families here and there and, you know, 1 or 2 of them that are quite close and often times there is a lot of familial affinity towards children whose parents went through a divorce.  So you know, again, like I said earlier, the grandfather may take a heavier role. The mother, by virtue of the fact that, you know, she had to work through a divorce and then she had to provide for herself to take care of her family, having her husband provide, you know, she engaged her own career. And so a lot of times those things are already worked out, but that's not always the case. Sometimes one's spouse has been maybe living off spousal support, and they haven't been able to engage in career and do their own thing. So I think there's probably so many different ways in which that plays out in people's real lives, you know?

Monem Salam:
That's a good point. Getting, you know, towards the latter part of it. Right, which is now talking about it from a, you know, what happens when you pass away or your spouse passes away and then what happens to the al-Wadih, or the distribution of assets, that are concerned. Now ideally would be in a situation where, you know what, each of you had a trust, and then that trust was able to basically say, this is how the assets will be divided. But even in the form of trust, you still have to mention how from a Sharia perspective, it'll be decided. So in that I do understand, what I learned was, is that the spouse, your wife is getting the portion, but obviously you're married to her now she's going to get it. But when it talks about the children and the bonus children, are those included in the schedule of children, or is it just your biological children that are need?

Suhail Mulla:
Yeah. As you know, the Quran is very specific, right? It's not ambiguity as to who gets what when somebody leaves this world. Inheritance law is very specified and there's really no variance that one can engage beyond that. But there are some mechanisms that the Sharia allows for which wealth can be transferred. If they have their children, my bonus children, if I die today, they don't take anything from me, from the specified shares that are there. However, during my lifetime I can give them from my well. During my lifetime, I can specify in my trust and give them up to one third of my wealth upon my death. That's sanctioned in the Sharia. That one suyah (portion). And so that's something that can be written into the trust and that can be a significant amount, you know. The other medium by which they'll also receive is when I leave this world, my new wife, she will receive a portion, a share. And she can dispense that and, you know, provide for her children from that as well. So there's still these ways by which provision will take place. Or you can write into your trust as to how they will take, but you can't change the specific shares that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala (Allah, glory to him in the highest). outlined. The one way that that can happen is if someone becomes a sibling by wadha'ah by a suckling, right, taking from the mother's breast milk, if the children are young and so forth, then they become of equal rank.

Monem Salam:
Sure, sure. So there is that difference between your biological by your sibling or your, you know, children by suckling as you as you mentioned it, and then your bonus children. That's three separate categories. And just to be clear, what you're saying is that the bonus children are not specified as your biological children when it comes to al-Wadih or the inheritance schedule. However, there are provisions you can make in your lifetime and the one third that you can give to anybody or anyone or anything that you want to, they could easily classify within those categories and be able to, you know, have some type of an inheritance. That's the case. And have you come across any cases, best practices or something along those lines within your practice yourself in this regard?

Suhail Mulla:
It all goes back to what family life is all about. Family that's premised on love and mercy. Waja'ala bainakum mawaddah wa Rahmah, you know, we placed between husband and wife love and mercy and then that love and mercy is then to be displayed and carried into the children. And if you are marrying a new wife and the bonus children come along, that should absolutely be the spirit that showers down upon that new family structure that you have. And ultimately, that's the best provision you can give, even for your own biological children. Forget about money. Love and mercy, good treatment, respect, decency, positive discipline, positive parenting. You know, just being connected, all of these standard sort of things that we know are important and we all struggle to, on some level, perhaps to implement. Right? That's the best provision you can give them before the financial provision, because that love and that mercy that you inject in them, that's going to make them that beautiful person, that better person that's going to help them navigate life. You can give them a billion dollars and I can name you a bunch of examples right now, people who inherited a tremendous amount of generational wealth. But they're some of the world's most evil people and wreaking havoc upon this earth as we speak. And so they didn't receive love and mercy. Right? So that's, that's number one.

Monem Salam:
I want to kind of take a step back a little bit. If a couple approaches you and said, look, we're thinking about doing a blended marriage. And this is, you know, the number of kids we have and that type of thing. What is your advice to them? Is your advice, you know, great idea. Let's do it. Or is it like, well, you better be careful what you're getting into. And these are the things that you look at. What do you advise potentials?

Suhail Mulla:
That's a great question. And it's a very important question. The latter, everybody has the right to re-experience love and to relive companionship. It didn't work out the way we had planned the first time around and so forth. And Islam encourages that. Absolutely. When you look at the lives of the Sahabah, there was a lot of exchanging and someone passes away and then somebody else marries that woman. And these are major Sahabah. They divorce someone and then somebody else marries that woman and so forth. So, you know, the preservation of people within homes and to have a good home environment and to have a mother and father, that's so important. So in terms of, you know, what do we do when people are at that stage and they're exploring it? We tell them, yes, by all means, explore it, but be ready. Do all of your homework. We encourage premarital counseling, of course, for all people that are exploring marriage. But for those that are exploring a blended family situation, even more so, there's so much more to talk about. There's so much more, like you said, all of those lines, those multiple points of connection, all of those things should be explored, should be touched upon prior to marriage, just to make sure you're giving yourself the best chance of success because you've set out expectations that are lined up rather than making assumptions. And you make something out of you and me. So, you know, you'd be very clear about having those conversations to the full extent. We encourage it, but we also want you to take the right steps before you do that.

Monem Salam:
Uh huh. And have you seen that advice being taken? And most people are saying, you know, and this is really too complicated for us to do anything with, or is it mostly like, yeah, I think we can do this.

Suhail Mulla:
You know, I'll be honest, I can't say that I've seen droves of people that have kind of engaged that and me being at the point of intersection when they're doing that. You know, generally speaking, in the Muslim community, I feel that we fall short in terms of fully understanding the challenges, the complexities that come with marriage and the lifestyle changes that that's going to entail. Oftentimes, we're trying to find alignment after we've already been married, and then we find out there's some fundamental irreconcilable views of the world. Irreconcilable differences, no problem. That's part of marriage. We have in the field of marriage what we call perpetual problems, I'm a spender. You're a saver. You're an extrovert. I'm an introvert, you know, you're a neat person. I'm a messy person. And we're always going to have a level of conflict over those things. There's no problem with that. The majority of problems in marriage are what we call perpetual problems. But knowing where those things are from the beginning, as much as we can, and especially about our views of what marriage is supposed to be, those things need to be explicit from the get go.

Monem Salam:
So, you know, it seems to me that there's not a lot of research done in this area, or at least there's not a lot of translations from the Arabic to the English that I'm aware of. But one thing that does come to mind, and that's there's a beautiful hadith about the Prophet sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam when he married Umm Salamah and you know Umm Salamah had a lot of children because she was older in age. And so when the Prophet made the proposal for marriage to Umm Salamah, she responded back and she said, I'm an old woman with many children. And the response of the Prophet was, And I'm a man with children as well, and your children will be mine. I just thought it was a beautiful hadith to be able to put out there for this particular area, because it really talks about the stepchildren.

Suhail Mulla:
And that's beautiful. That's such a beautiful hadith, right?

Monem Salam:
It is.

Suhail Mulla:
That's it and that's what we were talking about earlier. I'm going to be that father. I'm going to be that caretaker. I'm going to show that love, and I'm going to provide not just bare minimum, like what are Sharia bare minimum. We shouldn't be looking at things like that. By the way, you know, there is the spirit of the law. And then there's the letter of the law. You know, unfortunately, when you have people that navigate marriage by the letter of the law, there is a tremendous amount of unfulfillment on the other side, because you're dealing with me with legal provisions and as if this is a legal contract rather than this is a contract of two hearts coming together, two people mixing their lives together to the fullest. Hunna libasun lakum wa antum libasun lahunna, we're garments for each other. We cover each other. We take care of each other. We help each other walk towards Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Jointly walking down Sirat al-Mustaqim that straight path. And I need you on every step of that way. But I don't need you as this person that's just dotting the I's and crossing the T's. And it's about, yeah, black and white filling this obligation. That's not what marriage is. And definitely not how our second marriage should be conducted either.

Monem Salam:
We're coming to the end, I think. But I wanted to allow you to be able to say the last words, if you don't mind. And it's really very important topic. I know it's not a topic that affects everybody, and Inshallah, it won't affect everybody, right? That's the goal to do that. But it will affect, you know, some of the people some of the time. And so it was an important topic for us to cover. So thank you for  joining us. But I'll leave you with the last words, if you don't mind.

Suhail Mulla:
Sure. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala help all of our brothers and sisters who are navigating marriage for the second time around and having to reconfigure their families and striving to ensure that they have a, you know, a household that's full of laughter and happiness and love and mercy. It's not an easy venture. It's not an easy journey, but it's something that we absolutely need to pay attention to in the Muslim community, because divorce is a reality and divorce rates continue to climb, and there's no reason at all, there should be no stigma at all when people are seeking to remarry. And it's people already have children from the previous marriage. Unfortunately, there is a stigma in certain communities. Well, she already has children from a previous marriage, I don't know if I want to engage that. No, we should absolutely encourage the engagement of that because of the fact that there is a need for people to establish homes where children receive love and care from mom, and maybe a new dad, and dad and maybe a new mom. And so, it's absolutely imperative that we, you know, put some energy and focus on that in the community. And I thank you, Brother Monem, for engaging this space and engaging this topic for those people that are curious about, well, how do I do this?

Monem Salam:
Yeah. No. Thank you so much for your insightful thoughts and obviously on ongoing discussion and finance is not only one aspect of this, but I think there's a lot of different moving parts to this discussion. But I really appreciate your time in there and Inshallah Mulla bless you and continue to shower you and your family with Barakah.

Suhail Mulla:
Allah bless.

Monem Salam:
Thank you for listening to Halal Money Matters. If you like what you hear, please do rate us on the app stores and also leave us a review. It helps other people find us a lot easier.

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