Qawwama is impossible in the West

If a Muslim man in the West tries to discipline his wife, she will file a police complaint against him and ruin his life. This is one of the sophistic arguments of the Tomasin against Islamic Qawama. They say that it is unrealistic to imagine that a Muslim man can exercise qawama in the West. Number one, because it's impossible for him to ever find a Muslim woman in the West who will accept his qawama, and number two, because in the case of any disagreement between them, she has the state behind her that will take her side against him in any issues that arise. Okay.

In these sorts of arguments, the Tomasiin really reveal the extent to which they are living in their own heads and the extent to which they have very limited life experience of their own, and the extent to which they seem to hold pessimism and self defeat very dear to their hearts. I mean, of course, if you imagine that the whole world is rigged against you, then it absolves you of any responsibility for negative outcomes in your life, and you can justify complete lack of effort. Most divorces in the Muslim community in the West occur within the first five years of marriage, and most of them are initiated by women. The of course assume that any divorce initiated by a woman is by definition unjustified and proof that she is a narcissistic feminist. What this statistic tells me is that young men are entering into marriage with insufficient preparation on how to properly exercise their kawama, and it's taking them around five years to get the hang of it, and sometimes that's just too long.

The number one cause of divorce in the Muslim community is incompatibility, which includes religious incompatibility and incompatibility of religious understanding and practice. In other words, one of the spouses is either more or less strict and observant than the other. But, of course, in Islamic divorce, is only going to be granted if the religious laxity is on the husband's part. So in other words, far from being westernized narcissistic feminists, the data would suggest that a significant number of divorces are being initiated by women because wives want their husbands to be more serious in Islam. Male qawama is a fact of nature, but the nature of a man's qawama will depend upon his character.

If he's religiously devout, then his religion will guide his approach to qawama. If he is not religiously devout, then his qawama will be driven by his nefs, which will make it erratic, self serving, and very often unfair, unreasonable, and oppressive. He will not cultivate a dynamic in his household that fosters trust, respect, and a sense of value in the project of building a family. In these conditions, a woman is likely to feel that preservation of the marriage is less vital because, frankly, it is less vital under these conditions. If a husband creates a home of value, one in which the wife feels emotional, spiritual, psychological, and material stability, security, and development, she is unlikely to jeopardize all of that over a disagreement.

And if the husband has proven through his own character and behavior that he is mature, responsible, fair, and sincere in his deen, she is more likely to accept when he disciplines her. Religious Muslim women believe in qawama. They value it. They embrace the role of the husband as the leader of the family and the head of the household. This is exactly the kind of wife that Tomasi'in claim they want but tell themselves is impossible to find.

Well, most marriages in the Muslim world do not end in divorce. Most Muslim marriages even in the West do not end in divorce, and the overwhelming majority of Muslim men never find themselves facing a criminal complaint by their wives. So if the Tomasin are finding it impossible to find good righteous Muslim women to marry, There's two probable reasons for that. One, they're looking in the wrong place, or two, which is more likely, they're just the wrong kind of men.