Therefore if you were to make love with your wife...

📌Therefore if you were to make love with your wife, make sure there is mutual foreplay, for it is better and more pleasant for this matter (lovemaking).” Notes: In Islamic terminology a ‘day’ ends with the sunset and at the same time the following ‘day’ begins. As opposed to the system that has currently become known and dominant where a ‘day’ starts at 00:00, i.e. midnight.

So under this current system a ‘day’ consists of a dark part –from midnight 00:00 to sunrise, the daylight part – from sunrise to sunset, and the second dark part from sunset to midnight 00:00. In the Islamic terminology a ‘day’ consists of two parts – the dark part and daylight part. The ‘day’ starts with the dark part – eve or night – which is from Maghreb to Fajr, and the daylight part, which is from Fajr to Maghreb. So the Eve of Friday starts when the sun sets on Thursday.

📌In other words Thursday ends when the sun sets, while at the same time Friday begins, starting with its eve. In the above hadith and quotations when the month is referred to, it is meant the lunar month in the Islamic calendar – Muharram, Safar, Rajab, Ramadahn, etc. and not in any other calendar such as the Gregorian. Reference Hadith presented here are mainly taken from the book “Makarem al-Akhlaq”. Notes 1 Mentioned on BBC Television’s Heart of the Matter, Sunday 28/11/1999, 11.25 p.m.

and on Night Waves, BBC Radio 3, 26/11/1999, 9.30 p.m. 2 See Europe in Figures, Chapter 18 Fertility. 3 See United Nations Demographic Yearbook 1999, Chapter 9. 4 The Holy Qur’an: The Tribe of Israel (17): 31. 5 The Holy Qur'an: The Forgiver (40): 21. 6 The Holy Qur’an: The Heifer (2): 5. 1 The Holy Qur'an: The Hajj Pilgrimage (22): 11. 2 The son's of Marwan refers to the Umayyad Caliphate in the early days of Islam. (Translator's note) 3 A reference to the 'Abbasid Caliphate.

(Translator's note) 4 The Holy Qur'an: Public Estates (8): 24. 5 A book on Qur'anic commentary mentions three possibilities for the identity of 'Dhul-Qarnain' … however the main thing is that he was a 'righteous servant of Allah.' (Translator's) 6 The Holy Qur'an: The Cave (18): 89. 7 The Holy Qur'an: Public Estates (8): 41 ('Know that whatever you acquire, a fifth of it is for Allah').

8 The word God is used here for translation purposes more or less interchangeably with the Arabic word Allah (The God, The Deity, The Unseen).

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