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I don’t know if anyone else in the world could have coped with me, and the tests we were assigned. For sure, I’m so grateful to that brother from West Ealing mosque, whom I didn’t know very well at the time, for introducing us. A brother who, until moments after my mildly racist diatribe on a bus through Southall, I had been convinced was an English convert like me. Fortunately for me, my sour words didn’t seem to have a seriously detrimental impact on our relationship.

Perhaps if he had known all that was to follow, he would have had serious second thoughts about inviting me to dinner that auspicious evening this month twenty-two years ago. The redundancy that came within just months of our marriage. That long period of unemployment, punctuated only by inconsistent freelancing and a few stints working in cafes and a warehouse. The devastating diagnosis handled with so little care. The long periods of melancholy and lethargy. My flaring temper, and so many unresolved issues and anxieties.

I have been a work in progress for a very long time. I can’t imagine any other who could have had such patience with me, always at my side, offering encouragement and support, despite all of my foibles and eccentricities. Had I attempted to plan any of this, it would never have been possible. How my world has opened up as a result. What adventures we have been on together. I wish I had been a better companion on this journey, but perhaps we’re slowly getting there. Perhaps, at last, I am more relaxed and more content, more the man I should have been two decades ago.

In the self-help guides offered to young couples, newly married, I would have been the one the modern gurus would advise a woman to shun. Fortunately for us, our self-help guide was the Quran, which speaks of the tests faced by man. Of righteous men and women tested by childlessness. Of the reward for those who are patient. Of the importance of treating one another with kindness. Of the great signs in the coming together of two strangers, and the affection and mercy placed between them.

When I hear our demagogues opining about the perfect “authentic” marriage, I can only wince. Mostly it is a fairytale based on the alpha male’s rendition of the manosphere, in which his spouse is subservient and obedient, and he is strong and self-sufficient. But of course none of us are self-sufficient: we’re all entirely dependent on the creator and sustainer of all things. The One who created us knows our soul better than we know ourselves. He knows the complement of chromosomes we were bestowed with, and the environmental and psychological factors which shaped us in our formative years.

If our scholars advise us to abandon our companion due to infertility or poverty, we know that our Book sets out a completely different narrative altogether. Instead it speaks of those men and women who relied upon their Lord, patiently persevering into old age, whose patience was then rewarded to magnificent effect. Indeed, it speaks of the great reward for those who look after orphans. In its pages it encourages kindliness and humble living. We are to be truthful and charitable, forever mindful of God. The believer is caring, kind and considerate. Such is our true foundation.

Honestly, I don’t know where I would be without a foundation like this.