Happily Ever Hereafter
Are you a 20-year-old single Muslim woman who wants to avoid marrying Mr. Wrong?
Yes?
If so, "Happily Ever Hereafter" is the podcast that will turn you into a "Marriagineer" - someone who reverse-engineers a divorce-proof, happy, and healthy marriage that leads to Jannah, in shā Allāh. Not by accident. But by design.
Every episode walks you through Marriage.MBA's 8-Step Marriage Roadmap - practical True-Love Skills built on three things that matter: research, Islam, and real life.
First, you'll learn how to avoid the Love Mistakes that send good Muslim women straight into Mr. Wrong's arms.
Second, you'll discover your Marriage Sweet Spot, without sacrificing your education or career.
Third, Instead of waiting around and hoping "a good guy just shows up," you'll design your own Marriage Magnet, so your Mr. Right finds you faster.
Fourth, you'll learn how to Recruit Your Parents into your Marriage Team and turn them into your greatest allies.
Fifth, you'll learn how to Propose Like Khadijah (ra), so you can find your future co-founder the halal way, without secret DMs or acting like you don't care.
Sixth, get to know your Mr. Potential in a way that's Better Than Dating, no apps, no games, no wasting your 20s on situationships.
Seventh, you'll answer the most important question of your life: Is He The One? with clarity and confidence, before you get engaged. And finally...
Eighth, you will learn about The 10-Minute Wedding, so you can have a big wedding without killing your future marriage - stress-free, debt-free, and divorce-proof.
No fairy tales. No guesswork. No waking up ten years from now wondering how you got here. Just the honest, practical steps your future self, and your future co-founder, will thank you for.
New full episode every Friday. Mini-episodes throughout the week.
Once again, why do you want to follow this podcast?
Because you deserve to divorce-proof at 20, so you can live happily ever hereafter, in shā Allāh.
Happily Ever Hereafter
S1E06: Why Marvel Needs DC Comics
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📋 How ready are you for marriage?
Take the free Marriage Ready Quiz → https://MarriageReadyQuiz.com
Watch Chapter 6 deep dive here.
Most women spend years thinking about the kind of man they want. That is supposed to be the second question. There's one that comes first, and skipping it is why so many women end up with the wrong person.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The three things a man must have before he's even worth considering, and why the order matters as much as the list itself
- What actually determines how attracted you feel to someone over time
- A simple tool that will tell you whether you're ready to start looking, before you evaluate anyone else
🧭 WHY YOU FOLLOW THIS PODCAST:
Because you deserve to be a Marriagineer - a Muslim woman who reverse-engineers a divorce-proof, happy, and healthy marriage that leads to Jannah, in shā Allāh, following Marriage.MBA's 8-Step Marriage Roadmap.
So one day, you can ask your future co-founder, your future husband: "Will you marry me in Jannah?"
📚 LOVE MISTAKES BOOK BUNDLE
Hardcover + Audiobook + Videobook
Free shipping in the U.S.
All 20 True-Love Skills. One step-by-step roadmap. Built for a 20-year-old single Muslim woman who wants to divorce-proof her future marriage - because a solid pre-marriage education reduces your chance of divorce by 30%.
Watch the videobook, listen to the audiobook on the Marriage.MBA app, or flip through the hardcover as you sip your green tea. For the best results, do all three.
Whether he stares at women or lowers his gaze, that's also part of his character. He needs all three across the board.
Sharif FaizullahHe needs all three in this order.
SPEAKER_01He has the potential to be really handsome. The guy, the guy, the guy, but the guy comes second. You come first. How do you think we should be scoring people based on how attracted we are to them? Rank up that marriage that MBA divorce proof your future marriage today.
Sharif FaizullahWhy Marvel needs DC Comics? Here are four reasons a man wants to marry a woman. Which one do you think is number one in terms of priority? Virtue, nobility, wealth, and beauty. Virtue is the guy's dean and character. Nobility is like a fancy way of saying his family. Which one is the most important one? The most important one of these four is virtue. That includes dean and character. Now you might say, okay, that's a good advice. But specifically, what do I look for in a potential husband? What you look for is that Marvel needs DC Comics. DC Com. D is for Dean, C is for character, and C O M is for compatibility. So Deen, character, and compatibility. Alright, time for a screenshot. Here we go. A man is marriage material only if he has deen, character, and compatibility. I did not say deen character or compatibility. I said deen character and compatibility because you want all three. We all know what deen means. Deen is his practice of Islam. If you say, oh, his deen is strong or he has good deen, that means he praises for daily prayers, fasts, sin Ramadan, etc. Deen, of course, has two different levels. Pay attention to this. There are parts of Deen that are visible for a guy keeping a beard, things like that. And then there are some parts that are invisible, the guy staying away from Reba or from interest, right? Invisible. You might assume that if a man has deen, he also has good character. That would be true in an ideal world, but on planet Earth, that's not the case. Character is something you have to look for in addition to Deen. Remember all the red flags you talked about? They fall under character. On the flip side, character covers traits like what? Being honest and truthful, keeping promises, being respectful and kind. The kind of friends he has falls under that. Whether he stares at women or lowers his gaze, that's also part of his character. But the one thing that most people ignore when it comes to this is what? Compility. And that is what we're gonna talk about next.
SPEAKER_00Is one of these things more important than the other? Can they be ranked? Or should I be like, oh, he has two out of three, so it's fine. Or is it like a hard he needs all three across the board?
Sharif FaizullahHe needs all three in this order. First thing you look for is deen. So guys are non-Muslim, it doesn't matter how what good of a character he has and how greatly compatible he is. You get it? So it's like the filtration is built into this thing. And then you look for character. Because he might be greatly compatible with you, but he doesn't have the character, it's useless. And then if the guy has deen and character, then you look into compatibility. So it's actually in that order, and you want all of them. Don't just focus on one and just ignore the other. Look into all three.
SPEAKER_00What if we're compatible? I think that our Dean levels match. Is character like a six out of ten? Our compatibility is like a eight out of ten. Should that six be a red flag, or should they all have to be ten out of ten? What's kind of like, yes, we're looking in this order and he has them, but does he have them in a good way or a bad way?
Sharif FaizullahSo that is something that you have to decide. What is acceptable in terms of deen? One person might be here, somebody else's acceptance level might be way up there. There's no cookie cutter answer there. It depends on your personal level as well. So when it comes to deen, where do you fall? And you want your husband to be in the vicinity. Because if you do not pray at all, and then you expect your husband to pray five times a day, well, that would be ludicrous, right? Do you get what I mean? And there's also something called halal haram ratio. The things that you really care about when it comes to halal and the things that you want to stay away from that are haram, between the two of you is their overall match. Do you get what I mean? So I'm not just talking about food, I'm talking about lifestyle, I'm talking about everything else. So that's where you look into the level of deen, level of religiosity. Are you guys compatible for each other? Now, if you ask me, okay, I am at level three and it comes to Deen, is it okay if I marry a guy who is like a level five or six? I'll say yes. Your husband being a little bit higher in terms of religiosity is actually good. So you can actually, you know what, I'm gonna try to catch up to you. But if your husband is lower, you don't want it to be too much of a gap. That's why I said it's within the vicinity, as long as you guys are around the same area, then it's fine. You don't want that to be a huge gap. So a lot of the time, especially if it's a like very practicing Muslim, they have this idea, oh, you know what? If a guy does not pray and she doesn't pray, they cannot get married. I'm like, wait a second, but but they're Muslims. Maybe they pray jum'ah, right? Okay, maybe they go on Ramadan time to time, right? So yeah, maybe they don't have some of the fundamental practices of Islam, but as long as they identify as Muslim, as long as they strive to be to go there, that's good. It's okay if they get married with their understanding. Hey, I know where I stand in terms of my deen, I know my shortcomings, I also know your shortcomings. Okay, maybe we can help each other. Does that make sense? So whether you are like super, super ultra practicing, or whether you're like, you know, you pray maybe twice a year in Aid prayer, and anywhere in between, you want to make sure you're marrying someone who understands where both of you are and okay with that level.
SPEAKER_00A lot of these things, like determining if we're compatible, if he has good character, if we match up in terms of deen, I have to know where I fall on all of those scales.
Sharif FaizullahYes.
SPEAKER_00So how do I find that out about myself?
Sharif FaizullahIf you know your marriage ready score, that's an excellent place to start. If you don't, go to marriage.mba, find the quiz. It's 20 questions, and you'll get your score. That's the first step. And second step, inshallah, in the next chapter, as we go through the eight slices of compatibility, you can assess yourself on each slice on a scale of zero to 10. Where do I fall? In terms of me being prepared. This is like this is self-assessment. This is not about whether you and the guy are a good match. That's a separate discussion. Here you're talking about in terms of my personal growth, in terms of where I want to be, where am I currently? You could be working on your physical health and emotional health. And we tend to look at like, hey, the guy, the guy, the guy, but but the guy comes second. You come first. This is why we are talking to 20-year-olds so that you have time for that self-growth and self-awareness and to develop those skills, inshallah.
SPEAKER_00Suppose I'm not scoring myself very highly on these things. I'm not very prepared. Should I take a step back or should I look for someone that's also not prepared and be like, oh, I'm a four out of 10, so he should be a four out of 10 and we'll be fine because we make an eight out of 10.
Sharif FaizullahSo if you take the marriage ready score, the ideal threshold for me is 80. If you are here and you're growing, I think you can move forward. I would put that in the green zone. This, in between, find out which area that you need to grow and learn and do your best to get to 80 plus as quickly as possible. So it's not really like passing and failing, you know, where can you get married with a 40 marriage ready score? Sure. But you will be facing all of the things that you are now skipping. Trust me, they'll come back to bite you later.
SPEAKER_00How do you think we should be scoring people based on how attracted we are to them? Like, is it something that matters or doesn't it matter? What do you think?
Sharif FaizullahSo, bottom line is this if you find the guy to be hideous completely, forget it. Okay, end of story. Do not pursue, because even if he has a DC company, if you find someone to be absolutely hideous, then obviously it's not gonna work. But do you need to have like 10 out of 10 butterfly, you know, cloud nine level of attraction? No. And that's the mistake a lot of people fall into. As long as there is some basic level of attraction and vibe and chemistry, as long as it's there, even if it's very little, that's okay. And sometimes that attraction doesn't grow until you sit down and actually get to know each other a little bit. Because Rasulullah told one of their young companions, he's like, hey, did you go and look at her? Like, look at her with your eyes open. So that is something that is based on Islam and research and real life.
SPEAKER_00Do you think it's okay to look forward to potential in that area? Like I know we said, oh, be okay with marrying them as they are, which okay. But should we be like, okay, I think he has the potential to be really handsome, like yeah, absolutely.
Sharif FaizullahSo when it comes to handsomeness and beauty, a lot of it has to also do with how you carry yourself. Because a guy who may be like four out of ten in terms of just handsomeness, but maybe because of his leadership, because of his kindness, because of his charisma, because of what he does, of his achievements and everything, you might be attracted to him on a nine out of ten level. So something else to keep in mind, how beautiful or handsome someone looks outside and how attracted you are to them are the same. Because there are other factors that go, and then you have the overall attraction that you feel towards someone. So is it important? Yes. Is it the number one thing? No. Is it something you want to look into? Yes. Is it the only thing you want to make it a deal breaker even though the guy has some of the other things? No. Do you see what I mean? So look at it in a balanced perspective, okay? Don't make it the end all and be all of your decision-making process. This is essential in order to divorce-proof your future marriage, inshallah.
SPEAKER_00What is compatibility?
Sharif FaizullahIf you fall in love first and then realize he's not compatible, that's a recipe for disaster.
SPEAKER_00What does it mean to be compatible?
SPEAKER_01This is how you will judge. Am I compatible with the guy or not? Do we have to have the exact same answers? There is no such thing as 100% compatibility. None.
Sharif FaizullahBased on 40 plus years of research, they are never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever resolved.