The Biggest Fitnah in Our Era
A husband writes:
The Demonic Master of the Home
Assalaamu alaikum Warahmatullah
Dear Ulama
Trust that you are well. This email is in the hope of guidance for me and the Muslim masses for we are in the age of the biggest fitnah that has ever engulfed the Ummah – the fitnah of the cell phone/smartphone.
My particular sphere of concern is the marital upheavals that this fitnah has wrought. Narrowing my sphere of concern further, it involves couples coming from good deendaar families and backgrounds.
Whilst I am the husband and am presenting my afflictions, the concerns and problems hereunder can be of the wife and even both parties in many cases are culprits.
I got married to a beautiful, young sweet girl and she completely gave herself over to me, and this lasted many years, until the cell phone came into her life. Then things started to change, and the cell phone started taking over her life without her realizing it and without even me realizing it. Slowly but surely, time on the cell phone increased, and then with the advent of the smartphone and WhatsApp she has become thoroughly entrapped in the smartphone’s tentacles.
She may not be visiting haram sites, but the problem is that now there is very little to no concern for her husband. What, with the hundreds of contacts on the phone, whenever I step into the room, or kitchen or lounge there she is with her phone, and upon me entering she will quickly conceal her phone and make as if she is busy with some chore.
The problem I have is probably shared by many out there. This damned instrument has literally broken the spirit of nikah in even supposedly deeni inclined couples. She keeps her phone to her bosom more dearly than keeping an infant, leave alone her spouse.
If I question the reason for such indulgence, then I receive abrupt and abrasive answers. The cell phone has literally turned her ways demonic. She now speaks to me like a demon, brushes me off like a demon and appears to me like a demon.
When we got married, she was the fairest and sweetest of them all to me. Now I have absolutely no feelings for her.
I have made sabr for months and years and now find no love in my heart for her at all.
Girls nowadays are coming to their husbands’ homes with the baggage of this accursed smartphone. I know of a shaykh’s son who wants to get married to a girl who does not keep a cell phone. Other girls scoff at this boy. In their minds he is being cruel, but in my eyes he is justified for wanting to preserve his marriage and his bond with his wife.
I am not alone in testifying that this rubbish gadget has ruined my marital life permanently. Now I am just trapped in a relation which has no meaning. I cannot give talaak also, since it is not in our custom to issue talaak. So, I just have to bear the ugly demeanour of a wife who has more love for her phone than me, or rather, has love for her phone, not for me.
The cell phone curse has even pervaded workplaces where a man is constantly on his phone. He goes home and there too the msg’s keep coming in. So, his time at home was supposed to be with his wife and is taken up by his job.
The wife on the other hand, cares less as she is also preoccupied with her contacts.
Then invariably, the wife being entangled with many women’s’ groups, imitating others she herself starts her home business and expects her husband to do her deliveries and work for her.
In short, the cell phone is the master of the home today and the man and woman in the house are subservient to this demon. The cell phone is undoubtedly today the minor dajjal, a precursor to the big dajjal.
Everyone is trapped in this web. The internet is not called the web without reason.
Yeh there are some Islamic sites out there, but most people just browse and skim through these sites and end up spending more time with wasteful and harmful articles and videos.
It is my hope that when the Mahdi comes the first instruction he gives, is for all cell phones to be dumped in the trash can like covid masks were dumped in certain places in the trash cans.
Please give some good advice to what must we do. There are times when the cell phone is really helpful, but what are the limits? Even unmarried girls can’t go without their phones nowadays, they have to keep in contact with their married sisters and cousins. Where do we draw the line? And even if a line is drawn who is going to listen? Everyone is for themselves nowadays.
In retrospect I wish I never got married and if I was a youngster and had knowledge of the outcome of a home where the cell phone is the master, I would certainly not have made nikah.
Your valuable advice may not save the day for my nikah, but perhaps many out there will stop and take a serious look at their lives and save themselves from falling into the pit of smartphone addiction.
JazaakAllah, for your time and guidance.