We are a husband and wife writing team. We met in university and married after graduation. Soon after, we both began working as trainers in marriage preparation courses conducted by the Muslim Converts’ Association Singapore (MCAS), the Islamic Religious Council Singapore (MUIS) and Singapore’s then Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS). In 1998, we co-wrote Tranquil Hearts – A Guide to Marriage, which was co-published by MCAS and MUIS and is still being used as the textbook for the marriage preparation programme in MCAS. In 2011, we collaborated with an Islamic scholar and a social worker to design and conduct Suara Kekasih, a programme of sexual enrichment workshops for married couples in Malay. And in 2021, we conducted an online seminar hosted by Islamic Institute of Research and Development, UK and attended by about 300 participants worldwide.

Enon Mansor graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a BA in sociology in 1988 and a BA (1987) and MA in Social Work (2003), giving her a strong academic foundation in studying marriage as a sociological phenomenon. After the publication of Tranquil Hearts, she was actively involved in the standardisation of the syllabi for marriage preparation courses undertaken by MCAS and MUIS. Enon Mansor has more than thirty years of professional experience as a researcher, writer, social worker and marriage counsellor – helping hundreds of couples reconcile, rejuvenate and strengthen their marriages as well as separate harmoniously.

As an activist, Osman Sidek taught introductory Islamic knowledge and marriage preparation to new and non-Muslims in the 90s at MCAS. This exposure honed his skills in presenting Islam and marriage to a discerning adult audience from diverse cultural backgrounds. As an offshoot of the Suara Kekasih sexual enrichment programme, he wrote articles for Sutra magazine (Singapore) on sexual issues and co-counselled with Enon on a number of sex-related marital dysfunction cases for the Shariah Court’s Marriage Counselling Program.

This book is chiefly researched and written by Osman with academic direction, critical input and clinical insights from Enon. All the case examples we mention in the book are real, with the majority of them taken from Enon’s professional counselling experience, but for brevity and flow as well as client privacy, the cases have been summarised into broad strokes of relevant key points and referred to collectively as ours.