Marriage is a Pleasure!

Kuwaiti Shaykh Explains and Justifies Islamic "Pleasure Marriages"

From YouTube:

Uploaded by translatingjihad on Nov 22, 2011

In the above video, Kuwaiti Shaykh Yasir al-Habib, a Shi'a, explains and justifies the Islamic practice of zawaj al-mut'a, or temporary marriage (lit. 'pleasure marriage'), which is many respects Islamically-sanctioned prostitution. In the longer clip which I took this excerpted portion from, Shaykh al-Habib starts out by saying that Sunnis often try to embarrass Shi'a by saying that they're going to marry their sisters in a pleasure marriage. Al-Habib responds by saying that, first of all, in Islam a brother has no authority over the actions of his sister. And secondly, he contends that Sunnis want him to deny pleasure marriage simply because some people find it repulsive. Then he turns the argument around, explaining that Sunnis attempt to deny pleasure marriage while accepting marriage with the intent to divorce, which is essentially the same thing. Then in the clip I transcribed above, al-Habib explains that pleasure marriages were sanctioned by the Prophet Muhammad, who "didn't find it repulsive." He also brings up a hadith or saying from one of the companions of Muhammad, who said that, "We contracted temporary marriage giving a handful of the dates or flour as a dower during the life time of Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and during the time of Abu Bakr until Umar forbade it because of Amr Ibn Huraith" (from al-islam.org). (h/t Nonie Darwish)