• bāraka: People say, “bāraka Allāh lak, fīk, ʿalayk,” meaning: may Allah make you blessed and place blessing in you. Barakah (blessing) is goodness and increase, whether tangible or intangible; it also denotes the abiding, continuous divine good within a thing.

Lessons derived from the ḥadith:

1. The marriage contract is a matter of the utmost importance; it requires from the parties involved sincere counsel and righteous supplication. Its outcome is uncertain and fraught with risk: it may turn out to be one of the greatest sources of happiness, or one of the worst of bargains.
2. For this reason, whenever the Prophet ﷺ congratulated someone who had married, he invoked these noble, wholesome words: that Allah’s blessing would dwell in him, descend upon him, and that He would unite him with his wife in goodness.
3. “Goodness” is an all-inclusive term for every aspect of felicity: harmonious companionship, ease of livelihood, and the granting of righteous offspring.
4. It is recommended for anyone present at the marriage contract to pray for the couple with this very supplication. It is superior to the pre-Islamic formula “in harmony and with sons,” for that is a limited prayer, scant in blessing. Likewise, the customary “mabrūk” (“congratulations”) people now exchange is insufficient. The preferable wording is this noble Prophetic formula, for it encompasses every meaning of goodness and happiness.
5. As for the groom himself, the Sunnah for him is what Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and Ibn Mājah narrated from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather: the Prophet ﷺ said, “When one of you acquires a wife, let him take hold of her forelock and say, ‘O Allah, I ask You for her good and the good disposition upon which You have created her, and I seek refuge in You from her evil and the evil disposition upon which You have created her.’” The verb afāda here means “to obtain.”
6. It is recommended that Muslims supplicate for one another, especially on such occasions, or when