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The reason I want to make this video today is because there are so many people out there who have children who don't realize that once you have children you will always be connected to the person you had the kids with right up to the end even if you were divorced.

That is a test from the Almighty for all of us. Those who think I'm married, I've got kids but I'm going to go through a divorce and I don't ever need to see this person again.

They are actually wrong because you will have to have something to do with them for the rest of your lives or at least until these children become adults and they are married and so on.

But mostly people don't consider the fact that the children are innocent. What is the sin of children in this whole thing? If you did not get along with your spouse and you decided after having tried whatever you could that we need to part ways, you need to make sure that you are selfless regarding the children. Come what may.

The hatred you might have, the ill-feeling you might have, the bad experiences you've had, all that needs to be put aside and you have to for the betterment of your children and the offspring for the fulfilment of the rights that the Almighty has placed on your shoulders, you have to be mature enough to understand that these children come first.

So as much as you and I might think that you know what, it's okay for me to just go away and walk out. If you've got children, it's not going to be that easy. Consider this.

These children at the beginning, they will have the custody, they will be in the custody of their mothers according to the Islamic rules, they will be in the custody of their mothers initially.

May your female because obviously they need the mother at that stage. When they get to a certain stage, a stage of understanding, an age of understanding, the scholars differ exactly what that age is.

I'd like to think about 10, 11 somewhere there to be fair. Nowadays you have primary school, high school, perhaps in the middle there so that you don't affect them in a bad way.

Then the custody actually shifts to the father in the case of the girls and in the case of the boys, a lot of the scholars say the boys are told to actually choose where they want to go.

Why should the custody shift to the father because the father is responsible to then get the child married and so on.

But if there is a mutual understanding between these warring factions, if I can read it that way because people are normally so angry with each other when they divorce, there has to be some form of an understanding.

If this understanding is mutual and it is something that you've agreed, then Islam doesn't get involved. The rules and regulations don't get involved at that stage. Like if you say, take care of them, don't worry, it's fine.

I'm okay with it. I'll keep on maintaining or I will do whatever I can and you do whatever you can. It's not so easy to come to a mutual understanding because as it is your whole marriage broke apart because you could not come to any agreement.

So it's not going to be easy to agree on something after the marriage. Now what we need to know is whoever has the custody, the other party will have reasonable access.

This reasonable access is something that needs to be discussed because people don't know. In the initial two years when the child is breastfeeding, the father cannot just come and say, right, I'm taking the kid away for the weekend, etc.

You know, the child is in need of the mother. You may come and see that particular child for an hour or so under the supervision of members of the family of that particular mother or, you know, with her terms so to speak in the sense that something understood.

So if you come while they're busy or without announcing it, for this reason, we must stipulate things. You must make sure that everything is written and the lines are drawn. This day of the week, this time of the day, for two hours, we will come.

So you cannot just send your neighbor or just a distant relative or someone. It has to be you or perhaps a parent or someone who is very related to you in the first order.

So you cannot just say, right, I'm going to send someone to collect the child and send the child away. Children at that age, they recognize people and they begin to cry when they don't have a connection with that person. So you have to develop the relationship, you have to understand.

For this reason, upon the divorce, you have to agree that look, say for example, on a Saturday, every alternate weekend and a Sunday, the other weekend. So one week Sunday, one week Saturday, for two hours, for example, at a time that is suitable to both of us, I will come and see my child.

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