Question:

As-salaamu Alaykoem (WRBT) Shaykh Hisham

I am married for 24 yrs, my marriage has not been one that I can be happy about. Many arguments have filled my marriage. About 4 years ago my wife starting changing. I have noticed that she would be sexually aroused (which I have not seen before) in her sleep and when I wake her she be angry with me. I need your help since my marriage is heading for divorce. She thinks I am crazy when I discuss this with her.

Answer:

`Alaykum as-Salam,

She is right in the sense that sexual dreams, like nightmares, are a dream illusion (hulm) from Shaytan only in the sense of inspiration, “not in the sense that Shaytan effects something in someone” (Qadi Iyad, “Ikmal al-Mu`lim”). So you should never describe it to her in the wording of the title header as it would distress her. It is best to pray two raka`ats and read Qur’an or du`a before sleep.

Recite Ya Wadud 100 times daily to the intention of renewing love and tenderness in your couple. Twenty-four years prove friendship, partnership and love of a high order regardless of what Shaytan would like you to think. So think of the good things that have filled your life together, not the arguments. It is mostly insignificant things that create separation between long-time partners.

As for the (unrelated) question in the title header, the uncontested Shaykh al-Islam and true Imam, al-Jalal al-Suyuti (Allah have mercy on him) said in his book on jinns, “Ahkaam al-Jaann” (ed. Khalid `Abd al-Fattah Shibl, Cairo: Maktabat al-Turath al-Islami, 1989, p. 24-25):

<<The truth is that it is possible for human beings and jinns to have intercourse and al-Tha`alibi mentioned [in his Tafsir] that that is the meaning of {and be [O Iblis] a partner in their [human beings’] wealth and children} (17:64). Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi [in Nawadir al-Usul, Asl 76 and Asl 207] and Ibn Jarir [al-Tabari in his Tafsir (22:248)] narrated that Mujahid said: “When a man has intercourse with his wife and does not name [Allah], the jinn coils around his urethra and has intercourse along with him. That is the meaning of the saying of the Most High: {whom neither man nor jinn has touched before them} (55:56) [cf. also al-Baghawi in his tafsir under that verse].” … Ibn `Abbas said: “The epicenes (mukhannathoon) are the sons of jinns. Allah and His Messenger forbade that a man have intercourse with his wife during her menses; when he does, Shaytan is there before him and then she may get pregnant and will give birth to a mukhannath.”>>

The latter report is narrated by al-Turtushi with his chain in “Tahrim al-Fawahish” and, from him, in “Aakaam al-Marjaan fi Ahkaam al-Jaan” by Qadi Badr al-Din al-Shalabi the student of Imam al-Dhahabi. And Allah knows best.

Hajj Gibril Haddad