Sustaining Muslim Marriages: The Role of Premarital Counselling in the Nima/Mamobi Muslim Communities

Abstract

The Nima/Mamobi Muslim communities for several years has a traditional method of counselling prospective Muslim couples in the community, however due the challenges of this method there is an introduction of formal premarital counselling centres . This is basically what has aroused the researcher‟s interest. The aim of this research is to highlight the roles of Imams, Muslim scholars, Aluwanka, and relatives of the bride as traditional premarital counsellor and that of Hajia Memuna Maliki as well as Sheikh Muhammad Zakariya Addo as formal premarital counsellors. As a result interviews were conducted with the facilitators of both traditional and formal premarital counselling in these communities. It included married people who have gone through the formal premarital counselling and some Muslim Non- Governmental Organizations (NGO) such as the Ahmadiyyah Muslim Mission (AMM) in Accra, The Office of the National Chief Imam (ONCI) and the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama‟a (ASWAJ) among others. Marriage ceremonies and premarital counselling sessions were also observed. In addition fifty questionnaires were distributed to ascertain the attitude of Muslim youth in these communities to formal premarital counselling as an emerging new development. The findings revealed that some of the Muslim NGO‟s like the ONCI and ASWAJ who receive complaints on marriage problems from Muslims have no structure for premarital counselling. Also despite the important roles of the traditional premarital counsellors, very essential topics in premarital counselling such as sexual relationship between couples and parenting in Islam were not thoroughly discussed. Another finding was that the traditional system was biased towards the wife, in the sense that more emphasis is laid on the responsibilities of the wife. However a substantial number of people in the community are not aware of the existence of marriage counselling centres in these communities. Interestingly the individuals running the emerging formal premarital counselling centres have no training in the field of marriage counselling. This therefore raises questions of whether they are able to counsel appropriately and effectively or may be considered „as square pegs in round holes‟. The research therefore suggests that for the traditional premarital counsellors to continue to remain relevant and impact positively on marriages in these Muslim communities, the Aluwanka and the Imams should be taken through an in-service training on marriage counselling. In addition the formal marriage counsellors in these communities will be more effective if they also go through some training on marriage counselling to improve upon their skills. It is also important that the Muslim NGO‟s in Ghana provide premarital counselling for the various Muslim communities in Ghana, and take initiatives to educate Muslim communities in Ghana on the importance of premarital counselling. This research is important because it serves as a pioneering work in the area of premarital counselling in the Nima/Mamobi Muslim communities.