Secret Relationships

...Mufti Maybe

These are my reflections on secret relationships - which make up the bulk of relationships that young Muslims engage in. I've split it up into two sections. The first deals with the reaction from the Community, and the second deals with the actual parties in the relationship itself. People feel strongly about this question. It is hard to balance the needs for public morality versus the freedom of individual responsibility. I've tried my best to make it an objective evaluation. If you're upset at finding out that such secret relationships exist, don't come hatin' on me. I'm just a part of the audience.

The Community - It's been said that where there is a man and a woman, the devil is the third. In the world of secret relationships, not only is there a devil, but there is a fourth member - the Community. It plays an important role.

News of a secret relationship spreads fast amidst the Community. It usually comes to be known through some accident. Let's say on some late night someone sees a boy where he would generally should not be. After that, the rumor mill begins to churn. Speculation begins. Someone else's personal life becomes public domain. People sit around in cafes and class, missing their own prayers to make sure they have every little detail of the secret relationship worked out. What compels people to do this? There are many reasons. Some people live vicariously through those who are crazy enough to try a relationship. Others react in pure jealousy - of course, they would never say they are jealous so they condemn all those in secret relationships to hell. Some react in legitimate concern because they fear for the well-being of their friends, and so on. Whatever the reason, in a short while, everyone becomes aware of what's going on. Each member of the community feels better about himself, knowing that they know something about another. It makes them feel more powerful.

But there is an unsaid code of conduct. Once everyone has satisfied their thirst for knowing the littlest, most intricate details, they don't do anything more. Even brothers that one would characterize as the religious police move on and busy themselves with their own lives. Of course, they may condemn the secret-relationship parties out of the Community, but they will never say anything to his face. The Community acts by giving the silent treatment. The assumption is that the parties in the secret relationship should know why they are being thrown out. I have never seen a case where a party in a secret relationship couldn't figure out why they were being ostracized. It's pretty clear why they are no longer respected like they used to be.

There are, however, times when the Community becomes very intrusive. I'm sad to say, that this is often due to the personal jealousies of a particular person, and not because Muslims on the whole are intolerant people. Let's say Sister A has long been infatuated with Brother B. But Brother B is now rumored to be courting Sister C. Sometimes it happens that Sister A, instead of honorably accepting defeat, goes around invoking the "lack of piety" of Brother B and Sister C. She tries to convince all the others that B & C are "less than Muslim in their morals." She invokes countless real and imagined hadith to make her case. It doesn't matter that until last week Sister A herself was one of those apathetic Muslims who cared little and knew even less, but this week, upon hearing of the secret relationship, has become an expert on Islam. At times like this, the Community becomes manipulated under the hands of a sort of moralistic propagandizer. Thus, the religion comes to be used for someone's particular purposes.

The Actual Parties - Their experience of a secret relationship is much different because they are on the "inside." No pun intended. Here are some ways you can tell that a secret relationship is going on.

They study on Friday nights even though they have never cared for grades. They "go see their family" every, yes, every weekend. They pray Jummah "at that other masjid." They somehow "work" two full-time jobs while in school full-time. They have a "cousin" of the opposite sex they appear to be very close to. They come online at 3 a.m. and even though you know that none of your mutual friends are online, they stay online till fajr time. They have the same ring on their cell phone for everyone - but there's one distinct ring which rings more often than all the others.

They buy airplane tickets on other people's credit cards and give them cash, instead of buying the tickets on their own credit cards. They buy phone cards instead of using the university phone plan or the family cell-phone. They seem to have more "job interviews" requiring travel than everyone else, even when they are still juniors and sophomores. They keep talking about how they are so good at interacting with opposite sex but you've never seen them put their skills to work. Yes, all these are symptoms of those who are involved in secret relationships. (Now that I have said them, parties of such relationship are likely to note these down and will probably no longer engage in them, thus becoming more creative).

Those engaged in secret relationships are always concerned with concealing. So much so, that they forget that at some point they are going to have to come out in the open. So, the darker cave they hide in, the harder it is to come out of it. If parties in a secret relationship want to make it legitimate - and I know many who do - the trick is not to try to become invisible. No, to acquire legitimacy one has to figure out ways to become more visible early on.

However, there's a problem with this - and usually that problem is the guy in the secret relationship. Many guys engage in secret relationships precisely because they are secret. They have no intention of, or desire in, making it public. Secret relationships allow a boy to increase the amount of play he can get before marriage. It's the sort of play for which there is no accountability - because no one knows about it. The biggest reason most secret relationships stay secret - and are more likely to fail - is because they boy is not very interested, or very ready, to allow it to become public. Publicity of a relationship means accountability and responsibility. Little boys are not ready for that so they tell the girls of the "horrific consequences of going public." They instill in the girl, who is largely ignorant and naïve of how things work, of what will happen if anyone found out about them. Usually then, in secret relationships the boy gets to do, say, and command whatever he wants and the girl becomes increasingly depressed until her depression leads her to want to break off the relationship. And then, somehow, the break-up becomes her fault and the boy feels no guilt. The problem, in keeping a girl in a secret relationship is that she has no girl-friends to talk to and when things get rocky, girls (and guys) need someone to talk to. You take that freedom away from anyone, and any relationship, even a marriage, would go down the drain.

Now, let me not totally hate on my kind. Sisters make their own errors in secret relationships. Sometimes they are too timid and fearful of their families and prevent the boy from acting honorably. At other times, girls, in their heart, know they won't be spending the rest of their life with this boy but because it would be dishonorable for their family to find out that their daughter was dating, they prevent the boy from going public. Some girls know that the Community already dislikes them, and refers to them as "slut." To prevent people from flinging her name around like that, she prevents the guy she's with from ever making it public.

There's a final class of secret-relationships. The ones involving a Muslim party and a non-Muslim party. From what I've noticed, in situations like these, the Muslim party doesn't really care much what the Community has to say. People that don't care don't get very upset, and thus, are not very fun to talk about. However, what's interesting is that in some cases the Muslim in a Muslim/Non-Muslim relationship, to try to make their partner more interested in Islam, will start to bring him or her along with them to Muslim events. Its upsetting that at times like this some Muslims act cold or hateful towards the non-Muslims instead of being welcoming. Regardless, many of you out there are familiar with brothers or sisters who are dating non-Muslims...but that is the subject of other articles.

There you have it. A rough overview of the Community and the Actual Parties in secret relationships - the soft underbelly of our American-Muslim culture.

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