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Is marriage a provision that a servant seeks, or a provision that seeks the servant, and how can that be?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The statement attributed to Imam Ali, may Allah be pleased with him: "Provision is of two kinds: provision that you seek, and provision that seeks you. If you do not come to it, it will come to you," was cited by the author of Kanz al-Ummal and attributed to Wakee' and al-Askari in al-Mawa'izh. Its meaning is sound Islamically. Marriage may be a provision that seeks you or that you seek, according to Allah's decree. A person should take permissible means while relying on Allah, and what has been decreed for them will come to them. For a woman to seek marriage, it should be through supplication and seeking help from righteous people. It is permissible for her to offer herself to someone she approves of, within legitimate Islamic guidelines, while being cautious of forbidden means such as excessive display of adornment (tabarruj) and impermissible free mixing (ikhtilat).

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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