Good Man, Bad Husband?

How Marriage Tests Character

Dear Reader,

I hesitated to write this blog post. I thought carefully about what I wanted to say and not say. The labels I would use or not use. The accusations that might come from those labels could cause more problems than they dare to resolve. 

You see, I know that words like “good” and “bad” are in both ways simple and complex. A “good person” means something very different from one person to another. Its definition is both dependent on the subject’s upbringing, belief system, and environment, just as much as it is on the individual doing the judging. There are so many variables that pave the way to assessing goodness.

And yet, for Muslims the complex nature of the task gets multiplied when you add religion to the mix. Thus, making the jump from assessing a “good person” to assessing a “good Muslim,” becomes in one regard easier and in another instance harder. 

The easy (and not smart) way to assess a “good Muslim man” is to count up all his outwardly religious acts and put him into …