The Concept Of Muraqabah From Hadith Perspective And Its Understanding Among Marriage Consultation Officer

Abstract

Disagreement in marriage life is ordinary, but if left prolonged without efforts to settle the situation, a small problem can spread to major upheavals and eventually lead to divorce. Hence, this is the function of the Marriage Consultation Unit under the Islamic Religious Department in every state of Malaysia. During any marriage dispute, the appointed marriage consultation officer (MCO) normally acts as a counsellor to listen to the issues of both parties and provide advice to reconcile the marriage relationship between husband and wife. However, the MCO is not among the accredited counsellors even though counselling practices are implemented during the session. Thus, many people blame the MCO due to various unsuccessful marriage reconciliation that led to higher statistical divorce rate in Malaysia. This phenomenon triggered the researcher to study the MCO’s understanding on one of the elements of hisbah (used as a module of the MCO), which is muraqabah. Besides, this study also explore the hadith related to the concept of muraqabah. This study is qualitative research that employed the use of document analysis method, and interviews. Document analysis was used to extract hadiths related to muraqabah. Six MCO from six districts of Kelantan participated to be interviewed in this research. The findings showed that there are 3 main hadiths related to muraqabah. Most of the MCO also understand the general concept of muraqabah with their own definition. Hence, it is hoped that this study would add to the existing literature of muraqabah as well as its understanding among the MCO. Through this study also, the techniques used in marriage consultation is expected to be more effective and hopefully lead to the reduction of divorce statistics in Kelantan and throughout the country.