What is the meaning of the hadith: "Whoever marries has secured half of his religion . . .", and what is the ruling on marriage?

The questioner : May Allah reward you. Shaykh, regarding the hadith ... what is the wording of the hadith from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) meaning that the married man is as if he has completed half of his religion. So is the one who has not married deficient in his religion? That is what I mean.

The Shaykh : I understood you. The hadith you are asking about is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) . There is no doubt that this hadith cannot be understood except on the basis of the ruling on marriage being established in the mind of the listener of this hadith.
And in my opinion, the difficulty in accepting the ruling of this hadith is that it has become established in the minds of most people that marriage is a sunnah, meaning a sunnah that is not an obligation, and the matter is not so.
Marriage for one who has not married, or more precisely, for one who does not have a wife, is obligatory upon him. He must strive for it with great effort, as the command for it is established in the Book and the Sunnah. As for the Book, it is the saying of Blessed and Exalted is He in the famous verse . As for the Sunnah, it is the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the authentic hadith that I mentioned in a past occasion or occasions regarding the story of the group of men who came to the wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) asking them about the worship of the Messenger (peace be upon him) and his enjoyment of his wives. They were surprised at how the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would come to his wives. So the Messenger (peace be upon him) delivered that sermon, and there is no need to mention it again, as it is well known, if Allah wills. The point is that he responded to each of them regarding what they had vowed for themselves. One of them said "As for me, I will not marry women" , so the response of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was .
So marriage is an obligation, not a sunnah, because of the verse and this hadith, and because of his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) "O young men, whoever among you can afford it, let him marry." The Messenger (peace be upon him) says and explains the reason for it, for it is more modest for the eyes and more chaste for the private parts. And there is no doubt that there are preliminaries to zina that he (peace and blessings be upon him) explained in some authentic hadiths. So this hadith mentioned above explains that the one who marries is saved from these preliminaries, because you heard that he said .
As for those preliminaries, it is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) . And this hadith contains a refutation of some of the young people who may be deceived by themselves when they say, "I lower my gaze." The Messenger (peace be upon him) refutes them by saying . These preliminaries, without a doubt, are what he is falling into, as for the major sin, it has been and has been .
So marriage is an obligation because it prevents a person from falling into many of the forbidden preliminaries mentioned in the context of this hadith - to the end of the hadith - . And therefore, the capable Muslim must take the means that prevent him from falling into the major sin, and this is done by two means.
The first means is marriage, but this is restricted by the ability to afford it, because Hajj, which is greater than marriage, is only obligatory for the one who is able, as is well known. So the first means for the Muslim to prevent himself from falling into sin is marriage . He (peace and blessings be upon him) said .
And here I must pause, and I hope it will be short. It is that some people, in the past and present, issue fatwas to young men who desire marriage but do not find a way to it for one reason or another. They issue fatwas to them, and some of them have written about it or written in some books, issuing fatwas that the secret habit, masturbation, is permissible. And this is forbidden upon forbidden. How is that? First, they contradicted the command of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and second, they contradicted the noble verse. As for his command, his saying (peace be upon him) is . So fasting is the means for the young man who is feared to be overcome by the desire for marriage which would lead him to ruin. So he should fast by the command of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him).
Meaning that his command (peace and blessings be upon him) is the medicine and the cure for every young man who has a desire for marriage but cannot afford it, as we mentioned. So his medicine is fasting, because he (peace and blessings be upon him) compared this fasting to castration, which is the castration of the animal, and when it is castrated, its desire for its female is cut off. So the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) compared this fasting to castration, so the meaning is that the cure for the young man who desires marriage is not masturbation, but rather fasting. That is from the Prophetic medicine.
As for the contradiction of the Qur'an, He the Exalted said in describing His believing servants meaning that behind marriage and concubinage is a way to release his desire meaning the fornicators, the wrongdoers. So how is it permissible for a Muslim scholar to present a cure for the young man who cannot afford marriage, presenting them with a cure that contradicts the cure of the Messenger (peace be upon him)? He tells them that masturbation by hand is permissible and does not command them to fast, which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded. Is this not like a doctor who knows that the black seed, for example, is a cure for every disease and knows the method of using it, but prescribes the forbidden intoxicant for the patient and turns away from this prescription that came from him (peace and blessings be upon him)? There is no doubt that these fatwas, in addition to their contradiction of this noble Prophetic methodology, are on the level of the saying of that famous dissolute Abu Nuwas, who used to say out of his love for intoxicants and being intoxicated by them "And I cure with that which was the disease" . This is not permissible in the religion of Islam.
So if we know this reality and return to his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) , it is as if the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is pointing with this hadith to his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) . This is the end of the answer. Please.