Tranquil Hearts – A Guide to Marriage started life as a collection of lecture notes a group of us, volunteer trainers, distributed while conducting weekend courses on marriage preparation at the Muslim Converts’ Association Singapore (MCAS) back in the nineties.
In line with an ensuing drive to streamline this course, an editorial team set out to find a running thread that could unify the diverse teaching materials into one common message. Although still faint then, we sensed a parallel between what makes for successful marriages with what make Islam itself ticks. Delving deeper, we found that as Islam addresses the mind, body, and soul of mankind, marriage occupies a special place in the development of Islamic iman, amal and ihsan. The initial faint connection became a framework to reorganise the notes. Then, as the connection grew stronger into an intricate tapestry between the philosophical, legalistic, and sociological aspects of marriage with the aqidah, syariah, and akhlaq of Islam, we figured, it is a novel connection that should be shared with the general readership beyond MCAS’s marriage preparation program. Three activists rewrote the notes into a book.
Through the then President of MCAS, the book got the attention of the then Minister in-charge of Muslim Affairs leading to it being co-published by MCAS and the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) in 1998. All proceeds from the sale of Tranquil Hearts go to MCAS, although copyright still belongs to the three co-writers.
Enon and Osman 