20 Islamic articles on: marriage in Islam

IslamQA: What is the wisdom in mahr (dower) and how much should a woman ask?

What is mahar and what is the requirement for me to decide how much mahar should I ask from the groom?

Mahr is a payment that the groom promises to give to the bride at the time of signing the marriage contract. The payment can be immediately or it can be in installments. Scholars say the wisdom in it is to impress upon the groom the seriousness of the marriage contract. It also makes divorce more difficult for him because it means he would lose that wealth if he were to divorce her. This makes it less likely for him to divorce her for frivolous reasons.

I would say another benefit is to give the woman a safety net in case of divorce, so that she is not left destitute. A woman with a mahr of $50,000 will be able to live comfortably on her own for a year after the divorce. This will give her the time she needs to prepare for the next stage of her life. It also helps make divorce easier for her, so that she is not forced to remain with an abusive man, for example, just because she’s financially dependent on him. The mahr will allow her to enjoy some financial independence.

How much you ask in mahr is entirely a personal choice. A man who is eager to be with you will likely be willing to agree to a year’s median salary (maybe $35,000 USD in the US). This is something that can be negotiated between the two of you (or between your families). If the man is rich you can ask to be given the payment immediately, while if he isn’t, if you trust him, you can agree to delay the payment, so that it becomes like a debt on him.

Followup question

Sorry brother but I strongly disagree with your mahr question response. I think it should be answered in full, establishing the problems with expectancy and unrealistic proposals of mahrs in today's islamic society. If a wedding/mahr is judged or depended on by how much a man can give his possible future wife with underlying tones of materialism.. then it should be approached with caution… to be continued

Continued…. There’s brothers out there going broke trying to impress a muslimah and her high demands and also falling into sin, by dealing in usury and Riba JUST to give her a large sum. This current Ummah has many many issues with this particular subject.

I’m quite aware of that, but I believe that each society and couple can find their own balance. If a woman demands a mahr that’s too high, a man can always find another woman. Of course in gender-unbalanced societies like India things can be very difficult due to the scarcity of women. But I believe things will get easier as Muslim cultures start to take in the Western culture of romantic love.

IslamQA: Is it permissible to marry someone if we do not love them?

Salam brother! As you always say that marriage is an individual's personal matter so cux of some valid reasons I think it's not appropriate for me to get married but at the same time I know very well that getting married is the only way I have, to escape from my toxic parents and purely because of this reason I'm getting married. What Islam says about this? Because if I continued living with my parents I would become severely psychologically ill.

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

Islam does not require us to marry for love. Many marriages take place due to the couple finding each other good fits due to coming from the same kind of family or having the same degrees. So if you want to marry to get away from your parents, that is perfectly fine. I believe a person is capable of falling in love with almost any person of the opposite sex as long as there isn’t something horribly wrong with the two persons. So regardless of what reason you marry for, as long as both of you are reasonably decent human beings, love always develops.

IslamQA: How do you know the person is the one you should marry?

How do you know the person is the one you should marry? It’s just that there are so many options and I don’t want to regret this major decision that is going to change my life.

There is no criterion that you can use to know with absolute certainty who the right person is. So the way I would go about it would be half intellectual and half based on my heart.

The intellectual part is to think clearly about the person’s attributes, his family and his life condition and to speak with your own family and friends and ask about their judgment of the person. This can help you form an idea of the men that are better fits for you than others.

Once you do this, you will likely still have multiple men that may be eligible and that you cannot easily decide between. This is where the heart’s part comes in. Pray, read the Quran, and try to get the person better, and see where your heart takes you. It may take many months of this before you are able to form a clear idea about the man you prefer.

If you eventually settle your mind on a particular man but remain unsure if that is the right man for you, you could consider going forward with an engagement (nikāḥ) without a wedding. This would enable you to date the man in a ḥalāl way without becoming his wife (as discussed here). Some Muslim cultures practice this form of dating, but others have no concept of it. But from an Islamic law perspective it is perfectly wholesome and permissible.

After that you can take things slowly. Create occasions for your family to meet the man and interact with him (for example by setting a particular day or two of the week for him to come to your parents’ home and have dinner there). You can also go out with him on dates with your family’s permission. Since you have performed the nikāḥ, spending time alone with him is permitted in Islam. This will help you gain an idea of what marriage to him would be like.

At some point you will likely feel content in your heart that this is the person for you and you can then plan the wedding. And if you discover that you do not like the man, you can break off the engagement. In such a case Islamic law only requires the man to pay half the alimony that is promised during the engagement if it is broken off before the wedding (i.e. before consummation of the marriage, i.e. sexual intimacy), but the Quran strongly recommends that the woman’s family should take no alimony from the man in such a case.

I hope you find this helpful. Best wishes.

IslamQA: It is permitted for Muslim women to marry if their guardian wrongfully prevents the marriage

i am a virgin woman of 35 and and my burning desire to marry a man of my choice and luckily i have found that man…but my family my guardian who is my brother does not in anyway recommend me to marry him…the person i m willing to marry is holding an upright character ,he is a religious man and a goverment office,he is hailing from a noble lineage..he is handsome…i truly love him and willing to marry him….m i supposed to go for court marriage and solemnize my nikah in the presence of two witnesses and magisterate who would act like WALI on my behalf…

If the man you mention is able to take care of you financially and if your brother has no good reason for refusing the marriage, then he loses his right to guardianship because he does not have your best interests in mind. In such a case, if the Muslim judge (a judge can be any knowledgeable person, such as an imam) investigates and finds that your brother is truly wrongful in preventing the marriage, then he can find a better person to act as your guardian (such as another relative, or himself). In such a case the marriage would be valid according to Islam.

However, keep in mind that going against your brother’s wishes could forever destroy your good relations with him, therefore before you go forward with the marriage, try to get your relatives involved and any imams you know in order to convince him to agree to the marriage. The Muslim judge should also try to reach out to him to convince him to agree. If he still does not, then you can still legally marry with the judge’s approval.

Sources:

IslamQA: The simplest way to do a nikah according to Islamic law

According to a fatwa on IslamWeb (run by Qatar’s Islamic Affairs Ministry), the nikāḥ ceremony is simply this: the man, woman, her guardian and two witnesses should gather together (this can be done over a video call if some of these people are not living close to each other). The witnesses must be respected members of the community and known to be good Muslims. The woman’s guardian says: “[woman’s name] is your wife.” The man then says: “I accept her as a wife.” That is it. They are now Islamically engaged.

From Islamic law’s perspective there is no need for anything else. But many countries pass laws that require marriages to be registered with the government, so the imams who usually oversee these ceremonies fill out forms and submit them to the government, or ask the couple to first get a civil marriage certificate before accepting to perform the ceremony. But the ceremony does not require an imam, it is just traditional to have an imam since it makes it feel official and proper. Some Muslim cultures have no conception of a nikāḥ that does not include an imam.

Sources:

IslamQA: Her intended is being forced by his family to marry someone else

Assalamu Alaikum. The brother who wanted to marry me had issues with his parents accepting me as they wanted him to marry his cousin. We remained patient and kept making dua asking Allah for help. Those parents have now forced him into a marriage with his cousin. Although there is no Nikah they are now “engaged”, even though he did not attend. He does not want to marry her but he is afraid he will lose his family over it so he accepted it. I feel devastated. Is this Allah’s decree? Can it change

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

Sorry to read about your difficult situation. May Allah make it easier.

Everything in life is God’s decree. God is in charge and He can prevent anything from happening if He wishes. Whenever something bad happens in our life, it is always with God’s awareness. There is a deep lesson in this; God allows bad things to happen to us in order to shape our character. We could not prove our faith, patience and dedication toward Him if nothing bad ever happened in our lives.

Anything can change. Just because something bad seems to be about to happen does not mean that it will happen. And whether it happens or not, it is always God’s decree because nothing escapes Him. There is really no solution to your situation. Some things in life make us suffer greatly and there is no escape from the suffering. We just have to accept it, wait patiently and see what happens. Submit to God, knowing that He is in charge, and leave it to Him to take care of the things in your life that you have no power over. You never know what may happen a few years from now. What causes us great suffering now may be the beginning of a process that eventually gives us great happiness down the road. God can always arrange for you to marry a better person at some point if and when He wishes.

Please check out the following essay in which I discuss in more detail how to deal with such situations:

The Road to Maturity: On Dealing with Life’s Unsolvable Problems

Best wishes.

IslamQA: Is nikah engagement or marriage?

Isn't Nikkah actually a marriage? If nikkah is dissolved, isn't the couple going through divorce and the woman has to observe the iddah? Why call it engagement when the Quran uses nikkah to mean marriage?

Because there is a space between engagement (nikah) and marriage (consummation) that Islamic law acknowledges. If the couple separate after the nikah but before the consummation, the Quran requires the man to only pay half the alimony to the woman, while telling the woman and her family that the pious thing to do is to not accept any of the alimony (2:237). Therefore Islam makes it easy to break engagements/nikahs that have not been consummated, similar to the way in the West breaking an engagement is nowhere as serious as a divorce.

The nikah therefore is more correctly called an engagement rather than a marriage. Some cultures do not differentiate between the two, and that is fine, since to them the nikah is always immediately followed by consummation. But other cultures separate the nikah and the wedding and consider the nikah only an engagement. This too is perfectly fine and Islamic law supports them in this, and it is practiced by millions of Muslims, both Sunni and Shia.

IslamQA: Islam’s solution for a woman who lost her virginity due to rape

If a girl is raped as a child and thereby loses her virginity, then that would make marriage difficult for her later if her future husband values virginity as very important. What is Islams view/solution for this?

I know of no technical Islamic solution for such a situation. There is, however, a spiritual or common sense solution that I am sure many women in such a position already know. A man who firmly believes in human dignity and who sees her as a person rather than an object, and who is willing to think the best of others, will accept her explanation and will not count it against her even if she has no proof she was raped. Of course, many “Muslim” cultures will consider marrying such a woman a questionable thing. This is a case where the most religious can be the most open-minded.

Cultural Muslims who know little about religion and spirituality will judge things according to their cultural traditions (which often value virginity very highly). Spiritual and devout Muslims will judge things according to their religion’s spiritual ideals. From a spiritual perspective, if such a woman’s present manners and reputation support her story, then her lack of virginity is going to be a complete non-issue.

She must share the fact of her lack of virginity with suitors before the marriage, but after she judges that the suitor is worth trusting. She can try to find out each suitor’s mindset and personality. If she discovers that a man is narrow-minded and judges things mostly by cultural tradition rather than spiritual ideals, that is a good indication that she should reject him without sharing her story. Sharing that story puts her in a very vulnerable position (if the man talks to others about it).

So it just depends on the particular man. After getting to know a suitor and speaking to him many times perhaps she will be able to judge whether he is worth trusting. If he seems open-minded and pious, then that indicates that he might be the type of person who will not mind her lack of virginity and who will be willing to accept her as she is.

IslamQA: Is it permissible for a man to marry if he needs his wife’s and relatives’ financial help?

Assalaamu 'Alaikum, In cities and towns with ridiculously high rent and living costs, young Muslim men are doomed. Apparently they're not allowed to marry if they cannot fully financially support the wife? If that's true, then how would one reconcile him now being exposed to immense fitnah (since they may have a women they love for marriage but dont financially qualify for nikah)? What if the couples' parents are willing to support the couple until the man can move out and provide for his wife?

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

The requirement that you should be able to support a wife means that legally she is entitled to sue you in court if you do not provide for her. But this does not mean that you cannot reach alternative arrangements with her as long as it is consensual. If she is willing to work to contribute financially to the marriage of her own free will temporarily until you can get a better job or a promotion, then she can do that and Islam does not prohibit it. In such a case her contributions would be legally considered charity from her to you, since it is not her legal obligation. But realistically since she is contributing to the good of both of you, in order to attain something both of you desire, it is not mere charity. But the law requires to define things , so according to the law it is charity. She can also give the money as a loan to you that you write down and pay back later in life, some men may prefer an arrangement like this. And in some cultures it is very common and natural for a woman to work and contribute to family finances without considering it an act of charity or a loan, and that is fine. If she is happy with such an arrangement then that satisfies Islamic law.

And if you need your parents’ help to make ends meet, then that is fine too as long as this is agreed upon by everyone involved.

When it comes to marriage, Islamic law only defines what you can sue your spouse for in court. It does not prohibit you from using your common sense and conscience to do what works better for the two of you as long as no duplicity or force or oppression is involved.

IslamQA: In Islam, are we fated to marry a specific person?

Asalamualaikum. are we have a fate to met and married someone?

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

There are many differing views on how fate works in Islam and each view has its own evidence and adherents. The fact is that the nature of fate is never fully explained in the Quran, but the Quran suggests that fate might at least be variable, meaning that you can change your fate based on what you do and what you pray for, even though God is always in charge. For more on this please see this answer:

Can prayer change your fate and destiny in Islam?

So it is possible that, based on the kind of person you are right now, God may have a particular person in mind for you. But if you change the kind of person you are, if you become much better or much worse, that might change the fate God has in store for you.

What we know without doubt is that fate is in God’s hands. What we do not know for certain is how it really works. Some people say that everything you say, think or do in your life is already “written” somewhere before you are born, but this is only one theory among many others, and it has its own problems.

IslamQA: The appropriate way to approach and propose to a Muslim woman

Salam, A man with good intentions and a clean heart, finds a young lady attractive and has heard very pleasant things about her. Mashallah, she is gorgeous and after getting to know her, he is very sure about the decision of inshallah making her his wife. Pure intentions, clean heart, no ill means wallah. However, the man is still early in life, needs to finish college in order to be able to provide for his loved ones. What should he do? (He is me haha)

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

To understand the proper way to approach her and why it has to be so, you have to understand the way marriage is meant to work in Islam. As I discuss in detail in my essay The Point of Marriage in Islam (and the Problem with Romantic Relationships Outside of Marriage), in Islam (and  Victorian Christianity), marriage is not only about the fulfillment of two individuals, it is about integrating their relationship into society in a safe and functional way. This means that the families of both the man and the woman have to be involved in the process, it is not something the man and the woman can set up entirely on their own. The same way that you have a right to be loved and taken care of by your parents, your parents have a right to have a say in your marriage.

The proper way to approach her is therefore through her family. You have to present yourself to her family and they have to cast their votes, whether in your favor or against it. In some families the woman herself has most of the vote and the family will respect her choice, while in other families the parents and siblings expect to have more of a say.

First, you should mention the matter to your own family. Even if you think they will like her and approve of the relationship, the respectful thing to do is to get them involved. If they are not Muslim and they expect you to manage your own relationships, then that makes their involvement less important.

If you do not know the woman’s family, you can politely approach the woman and tell her of your desire to request her hand in marriage from her family, she would then tell her family about you and a day will be arranged for you to meet her family. It depends on a woman’s culture and education how she will respond to being approached. Some may consider it a natural and acceptable thing, others may be seriously offended and may consider it very inappropriate. Some cultures, like in Iran or Malaysia, are accepting toward strangers approaching their daughters for marriage due to the spread of university education and their cosmopolitan lifestyles, while others, such as that of Afghanistan, will in general find the idea of a stranger approaching their daughter an utterly unacceptable thing.

If you cannot take care of a family now but expect to be able to once you finish college, her family may approve of your engagement but ask to delay the wedding until after you finish college. This is commonly done in countries like Iran and Malaysia. But some families may refuse such an arrangement and ask you to come back once you have a job. Some families may simply refuse to meet you and ask to meet your parents first, or only approve a meeting once you have finished college. And if the woman has other eligible suitors, that will further complicate the picture.

So the way to approach her is to ask to be introduced to her family. If the woman says she is not interested, then you have to leave it at that. And if she mentions you to her family but they refuse to meet you, then you have to find out the reason. If the reason is something that can be changed (maybe they expect you to have a job), then you have to wait patiently and try again in the future.

If the family approves of the relationship but does not want you to get married just yet, you can perform a quiet engagement ceremony (nikāḥ) to make your engagement official religiously. After that the two of you can stay in contact and date like any Western couple until you get married. This is how some Muslim cultures do it, while others may find it strange to perform a nikāḥ without performing the wedding.

What you should absolutely not do is try to start a romantic relationship with her in disregard to her family. Islam is not opposed to your happiness, but it wants your relationship to be conducted in a way that will work out for everyone in the long-term, rather than enjoying a few months of bliss followed by years of disappointment and suffering. Even if she seems interested in such a relationship and wants to keep in close contact, you should keep things formal and professional and keep in mind that she may end up marrying someone else. If she is someone you meet daily (you attend the same classes or work at the same place), then your behavior toward her should be in a way that if her family was watching, they should not disapprove of it. It is impossible to stay within the appropriate boundaries if you keep in contact with her in private (such as through chatting on social media). Both of you will strongly desire to keep pushing the boundaries, this is natural and will invariably lead to both of you starting to act more like lovers. Therefore I strongly recommend that you do not keep up regular private contact with her.

It can be very difficult to act with perfect religious composure when you strongly desire to be with someone and especially when they too desire to be with you. But that is the polite and civilized way to behave, and it is designed that way for your own good and her good, so that you can both remain pious and get married with the blessing and approval of both of your families. If her family discovers that you tried to bypass them by keeping a secret romantic relationship with their daughter, they may never forgive you for it, and even if the marriage takes place, this mistake can negatively color your relationship with them for the rest of your life.

Sometimes her family may say the marriage is impossible for one reason or another, but they may change their opinion eventually. If she is from an immigrant family, her parents may expect her to marry someone from their own culture, for this reason if you belong to a different culture, they may simply refuse to even consider you. Books can be written about all of the complexities and nuances of getting married in Islam, so I cannot cover everything in this answer.

The best thing to do is to be patient and respectful, and to keep in mind that we do not always get what we want in life. I recommend spending an extra hour every night in worship (as I describe here), this will make it much easier to be patient and to remain on your best behavior in your interactions with women.

IslamQA: On an agnostic’s marriage to a Muslim

So I’ve been seeing a man for about 4 years now (I’m a agnostic woman) and he’s Muslim, however we started off dating and I thought it was ok in the beginning till later on he told me it wasn’t and our relationship is just a friend based thing. The thing is he wants me to convert and get married to him to make it work but I don’t feel the need I have to convert to love him and respect his faith. I really would like to have a life with him but I know deep down that may not happen Your thoughts

It was wrong of him not to tell you in the beginning that he is not allowed to marry an agnostic. As for your question, in Islam marriage is not about the happiness of the husband and life alone. It is about the happiness of everyone around you, and the fate of your children and grand children. Marriage is about socially integrating your relationship into society’s life. It is possible that you would make a great wife the way you are and would be capable of respecting your husband’s relatives and creating a happy and functional family. But the probability of a non-believing woman making a great wife is lower than the probability of a believing woman. There are always exceptions, but this is the general rule. A woman who believes in God and feels herself bound by His commandments is going to have a much stronger force on her making her act kindly and responsibly than an agnostic who is only morally responsible to herself and her close friends and relatives.

There is also the spiritual side. God’s believers are like a separate race of their own. Part of a successful life for them is the bringing up of children and grand children who have an equally strong belief in God. We consider ourselves part of one single line of prophets that go back to Muhammad, Jesus, Abraham and Noah until Adam. We do not want this line to go extinct by our children abandoning our faith. And since a mother has an important role in forming her children’s worldview, a believing mother is more likely to bring up believing children than an agnostic woman is.

Religious laws and regulations are there to take account of these probabilities by prohibiting the types of relationships that are less likely to be successful. It is possible, but not very probable, that an agnostic woman will make a great wife and will bring up strong believers in God, so to increase the probabilities of successful marriages and the survival of the believing community, marriage with agnostics is prohibited.

This is not a judgment on you as a person. It is about the long-term good of the community. In Islam personal fulfillment has to be balanced with our social duties. In the West the belief is that one should seek fulfillment as long as they do not do any harm to others. In Islam one is required to reach a compromise between their personal fulfillment and their duties toward their families and communities. We are neither slaves to the interests of society nor are we individualists who turn our backs on it. For more on the logic of marriage in Islam please see my essay: The Point of Marriage in Islam (and the Problem with Romantic Relationships Outside of Marriage)

As for your personally, you could try reading multiple translations of the Quran and watching lectures about Islam to find out if there is more to this religion than you thought previously. You could also watch videos about converts to Islam (such as this one) to find out what made them convert. If you are serious about your relationship, it is only reasonable to find out as much as you can about whether there is any chance at all that you could become a Muslim.

Of course, converting to a religion is a very heavy decision to make and it can sometimes take years. Your only way forward, as far as I can see it, is to explore Islam deeply to find out whether a chance you could convert or not. If you convert, then your relationship will work out for you, and if you conclude that you could never convert, then, in that case, maybe you would be able to make a firm decision about whether to continue the relationship or not.

Best wishes.

The Point of Marriage in Islam (and the Problem with Romantic Relationships Outside of Marriage)

An essay on the question of whether romantic relationships outside of marriage are acceptable in Islam, and if not, why. Why is marriage such a big deal in religiously conservative societies? Why can’t people just enjoy themselves without involving everyone and their mother in their private affairs?

Islamic law does not have anything strict to say on the topic of romance. As religious scholars admit, falling in love is something we cannot help. But there are ways to engage in romantic relationships that fit within Islam’s framework of ethics and morality, and there are ways that conflict with it. Islam is not made to be applied in a vacuum. It is assumed that people who embrace Islam will, generation after generation, build their own culture around it, using its morality and ethical teachings to create their own standards of manners, etiquette and appropriate behavior. We see this in all Muslim societies. They often have a vast set of standards of behavior that cannot be found in any religious text. The reason for this is simple. Human life is so complicated that there is no way to define every single detail of their lives in a religious text. Rather, Islam provides general guidelines, people fill out the specifics, except in those rare cases where specifics are given (such as in the case of dividing an inheritance). If you were brought up in a devout Muslim family, you know that your parents will likely not think very highly of your being in a romantic relationship without their knowledge. To understand why there is a good reason for this taboo on romantic relationships outside the knowledge of your family and society, we have to talk about the point of marriage.

In Islam the appropriate, safe and socially integrated way for a man and woman to be in a relationship is through marriage. In many Western societies that have lost their religious beliefs, marriage is just a formality. Many people engage in intimate relationships without seeing a need for officially marrying. That is the primitive, natural way for humans to do things. Islam (and Christianity, and Judaism, and most sophisticated cultures) add an extra layer of formality to the relationships between men and women that greatly complicate matters. What is the point of that?

The point is that the formality enables the man and woman to relate to each other as socially integrated humans. A religiously conservative husband (assuming he is a relatively well-educated and civilized man) does not just see his wife as a piece of attractive flesh that can be treated however he likes. The solemnity of marriage, the fact that it involves so many people’s approval and attention, means that he is forced to look at her and see her not just as a body, but as someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s niece. She is not detached from her society and background. She is a great deal greater than her body and her personality. And that means he is forced to respect her as a person. He is beholden to dozens of other people who will all have something to say about it if he mistreats her. Through the constant interactions with her family, he is reminded over and over again that she is more than just a body, that she is a person with an honored social status. One could say that we can have such relationships without involving our families; we do not need our families to force us to be nice and considerate toward our spouses. But the reality is that human nature always “reverts to the mean”. At the beginning of a romantic relationship we can treat the other person with the greatest consideration. But once the honeymoon is over, the couple start to take each other more and more for granted and start to do less and less for each other. This is something that has been experienced by most people, who may have at first thought they would be the exception to the rule. The point of socially integrating a romantic relationship into society is to extend the honeymoon-level of consideration to the period that comes after the honeymoon. That is the magic that social integration achieves and that is almost impossible to achieve without it.

A wife, in a religiously conservative society, is not just a random woman who signed some paperwork. She has a defined and honored social status. It is similar to the way a queen is honored and respected by the virtue of her social status, without anyone caring what her body or personality are like. Just by being queen, she gets all kinds of rights and privileges. In a similar way, marriage in a conservative, religious society forces men to treat women as if they are more than their bodies, their beauty or their personalities. You can see this at work in classical English-language novels like Pride and Prejudice, when the West was still highly religious. Mrs. Bennet, the mother of the novel’s heroine, is an extremely ignorant and annoying person. But thanks to the institution of marriage, everyone around her is forced to treat her with great respect. This is respect that she does not “deserve” if we were to look at her personal qualities. That is the point of marriage; it integrates people into society, gives them a status and position, and in this way protects their honor and dignity. Today a person like Mrs. Bennet would be made fun of by her children for being stupid and ignorant. She would probably have to take antidepressants because no one will treat her like she matters. In a society like that of Pride and Prejudice or like today’s conservative Muslim societies, she will be treated like she matters, because the society’s values and the institution of marriage force everyone around her to treat her with great respect and dignity and to take her opinions seriously regardless of how ignorant or stupid she is.

That makes her feel like she is important, like there is a place for her in society. She feels appreciated and is happy with her lot in life.

Such a system has its own problems. But as a person who has experienced such societies in countries like Iran and Iraq, and their opposite in the United States, I can say that such a social system is far superior to the disintegrated societies of the West (of course, things are not bad everywhere in the West and there are still many happy families and societies). In secular societies a woman has to prove her worth to be respected and taken seriously. In a traditional society she does not need to prove anything. She is a wife, a mother, a sister, an aunt, and since these social roles are taken very seriously, they grant her all the respect she desires without having to do anything. She is like a queen who is born into a social position without having to work for it.

Naturally, the system also provides similar benefits to men. A wife has to treat her husband, even if he is not very intelligent or attractive or interesting, as a person who matters. In a class I was attending in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a woman said that her husband had “the most boring job in the world.” It was a funny statement, but it made wonder why a woman of my society would consider it extremely vulgar for a woman to say such a thing about her husband in public. The reason, of course, is that in my society a husband is not just any random man. A wife and her husband together rule their own little private kingdom where they are honored and valued, and it would be as foolish for her to make fun of her husband as it would be for a queen to make fun of her king in public. In a religiously conservative society, a wife does not treat her husband as if he is a random male, she treats him according to the demands and duties of the offices they both hold; the offices of “husband” and “wife”. It is similar to the way a company executive treats another executive; or one government official or minister treats another. They cannot treat one another as random humans who met on the street, they have to respect the office or rank held by the other person and treat them according to that.

Marriage as Election

If you think about it deeply, in a religiously conservative society a marriage is an election. The extended families on both sides are given a proposal and study it, until they cast their votes in favor of or against the marriage taking place. This process is sometimes taken as seriously as the cardinals take the process of electing a new pope. Once the marriage is approved, the husband and wife end up wearing the “robes of honor” that signifies their new offices or ranks that society has elected to give to the two of them through its approval. In a disintegrated society “walking down the aisle” does not have that much significance (although it can still be quite affecting), while in a religiously conservative society “walking down the aisle” is quite similar to the coronation of a new king or queen and just as serious and solemn. It is how society integrates these two new people into its future. The wedding process in Islam is similar to two kingdoms coming together to agree on the formation of a new kingdom on their borders with one side providing the new king and the other the new queen.

The Marriage of the Prince of Wales with Princess Alexandra of Denmark, Windsor, 10 March 1863 by William Frith (1865)

In Islam, when a man wants to marry a woman, he has to first present himself to her family. The family judges him and casts votes either in his favor or against him. A critic of Islam, on reading this, may jump to the conclusion that that means the family control’s a woman relationship. But that is just the prejudiced nonsense that we Muslims have to deal with every day. The woman, being part of the family, also casts her own votes. If she is in favor of the man, her vote may count as 50% of the necessary vote. If her mother also approves, that may add another 25% to the vote, meaning that the family as a whole is 75% in favor of the marriage. If the father disapproves, his 25% negative vote would have to stand against the 75% positive vote, meaning that he will be under pressure to justify himself, and this pressure may make him slowly change his mind in favor of the man. These percentages of course change from family to family, and if the woman has siblings, they too will cast their votes. Ideally, and in most cases, the marriage will only go forward once the man has 100% of the vote of the woman’s family, and the woman has 100% of the vote of the man’s family. This makes the formation of the marriage something that is done with the unanimous vote of both of their families.

This extra layer of complexity and formality that religious societies have (and truly primitive societies lack) helps create a society where most people feel as if they matter regardless of their personal qualities. By the mere virtue of being in that society they get a great deal of respect and honor. The society as a whole acts like an aristocracy where everyone holds some important position and has to be treated according to it.

Romance Outside of Marriage

The reason that a romantic relationship outside of marriage is not liked by religiously conservative societies is that it does not fit well within the above picture. It is perfectly fine to be in love with someone and to know that they love you back, and to work toward getting married through socially-approved methods. The problem is when two people in such a society try to bypass their society in order to enjoy the benefits that come with marriage without doing the hard work of getting the approval of their society. They want to enjoy the benefits of the office of marriage without bothering to get elected.

A man and woman who build a romantic relationship without involving their families are insulting both of their families. The pleasures of love are something granted by society to people who go through the process that society has designed for creating romantic relationships in a safe and integrated way. A religiously conservative society honors you, takes you seriously and treats you like you matter very much just because you were born into that society. You did not do any work to deserve being honored by your society the way they honor you. The honor is granted to you by the mere virtue of being born into that society. But in return for honoring you, society demands that you honor it back. The way that people take their relationship with you seriously, treating you as if you are a worthy and important human being just because you are a daughter/sister/niece and so on, you have to take your relationship with them seriously.

And that means that when it comes to a romantic relationship, you cannot act entirely on your own initiative. You can do so at first, for example you may love someone and think they love you back. You can act on this and find out if they are interested in marriage. If they are, then that is when you should involve your family. The longer you wait, the more you involve yourself romantically with them, the more insulting your actions become toward your family. Your family’s involvement and approval are necessary to integrate your relationship with your society. This ensures that the person you wish to marry will become beholden to their office and the duties that come with it. A husband cannot treat a wife in any way he likes, he has to treat her in the way that his socially-granted office requires of him. In the same way, the wife is beholden to her office. These offices force them to be nice and considerate toward one another and toward one another’s family even if they do not feel like it. They act according to their office, not according to their personal desires.

The worst cases of abuse that I have heard about in the Middle East have often involved a man taking a wife then separating her from her family, such as by moving to a different city or country. When that happens, when the woman is taken out of her social context, he no longer feels beholden to her family and society. He starts to treat her however he likes. If he is a good and kind man then she would be in no danger. But if he is not, then there is nothing forcing him to be kind and considerate. She is fully at his mercy. Even if there are laws in their country against domestic abuse, these laws rarely do anything until things get really bad, sometimes after years of abuse. Most cases of abuse will likely not involve the law, and emotional abuse, which the law largely ignores, can be just as bad as physical abuse. In a religiously conservative society, by integrating marital relationships within society, a woman gets a great amount of protection for her rights and dignity.

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet cannot start beating or insulting his wife even if he feels like it, because he knows everyone around him will be seriously angry and upset with him if he does that. Any undignified treatment of his wife will bring upon him a great deal of negative consequences that have nothing to do with the law.

One of Mr. Bennet’s daughters (Lydia) tries to have a romantic relationship with a man without involving her family. Her family are naturally greatly upset and insulted by this. A modern reader might think their reaction illogical and unjustified, a silly and hysterical response to an unimportant matter. But within that religiously conservative society, they have every reason to be upset and insulted, because she is being disloyal to her society. Her action is similar to a minister making an important decision about his country without consulting the other ministers. It is also similar to an employee making an important decision about his or her company without consulting the other employees. It is a betrayal because she is making a decision that affects everyone around her without bothering to get their opinion, approval or involvement. It is also similar to your daughter deciding to sell the family car or the house without consulting anyone else.

The result of her action is that her family lose their respect for her. They continue to treat her with the basic dignity that everyone gets in that society, but her action has proven that she is either foolish, disloyal and ungrateful. She has been treated with the greatest honor all her life even though she has done nothing to deserve it, yet instead of repaying that treatment in kind by honoring her parents and relatives and helping her society continue in a healthy way, she thinks she can make a decision that affects everyone without consulting them.

Now a person may ask why marriage has to be such a serious decision (it is like selling the family car like I said). Why shouldn’t it be her own business? The reason is that marriage is a fundamental aspect of society, similar to birth and death. It is how society creates new humans and integrates them into itself. Marriage, in a conservative society, is very serious business because it has everything to do with society’s existence, survival and continuation. Selling the family car is serious business because it affects everyone’s fate and happiness in the family. Marriage is serious business for the same reason. Everyone around you wants you to marry in a way that enables them to continue having you as a beloved daughter or son. Marriage should be about you entering a higher and better stage in society while everyone continues to love and appreciate you. They want to grant you the office and all the honors and respect that come with it. But if you bypass this, if you try to create your own happiness without regard for your family, this will break apart the way everyone around you relates to you; they could in fact lose you forever, and what you did could give them as much sadness as if you had died. It is quite similar to an aristocrat betraying his or her country. They lose their honors, their place in society, and their own families can no longer relate to them.

When we are young and desirous of love, we wish to avoid the difficulties society throws before us when it comes to love and romance. We wish to find a lover and go live in the woods together without anyone interfering with our lives. The young man will treat his lover like a queen, she will treat him like a king, and everything will be happy ever after. But those who are naive enough to actually go through with such a plan almost invariably end up suffering the greatest misery. All that it takes is a month or two for the honeymoon period of the relationship to be over. When it is over, the two start to take each other more and more for granted. Neither of them sees the other in a socially integrated way; he is no longer a king but a not-too-attractive male with all kinds of annoying habits and shortcomings. She is no longer a queen but a demanding or needy female with an anxiety problem. Neither of them is capable of being the other’s “everything”. They start to miss their previous, socially integrated lives that so effortlessly granted them so much respect and honor, and they wish to get that back. They will enviously look at those who “married right” and who continue to get the love and respect of their families, while they themselves are outcasts who have the tiresome task of being everything for each other.

The problem with romantic relationships outside of marriage is that such relationships have their own gravity that pulls people away from their families and societies, unless they quickly involve their families. As most classical fiction and poetry tells us, romantic relationships make demands on us that can break apart our families and lead to much misery. So an intelligent and pious Muslim girl will avoid romantic entanglements like the plague, knowing that despite the pleasures such relationships bring they can also do the greatest harm to her long-term happiness among her family and friends. Like a good girl in a Victorian novel, she finds it far beneath her to develop a romantic relationship outside of the knowledge and approval of her family. That is something done by low-class and uncultured women, it is not something she does.

If a man falls in love with her and approaches her, if she likes him then she will refer him to her family. She can introduce the matter to her parents, who may ask to see him. If they think it is too early for marriage (maybe they want their daughter to complete her university degree first) but they approve of the man, they can perform the nikāḥ ceremony for them without performing the wedding. This would officially engage them and make it perfectly fine for them, from the point of view of Islamic law, to become romantically attached to one another and to do whatever the typical engaged Western couple do before marriage. This is how marriages work in Iran, whether among Sunni or Shia Iranians. The nikāḥ ceremony makes their engagement official. During the engagement period the man and woman are given freedom to spend time together and go out together, they are considered to be dating. But it is culturally taboo for them to become sexually intimate until after the wedding. If they do become intimate, they do not break any Islamic laws because they have performed the nikāḥ ceremony and are already married according to Islam, they are merely delaying the consummation of the marriage.

In the above way, a man and woman can safely date and get to know one another in a way that enjoys society’s approval and protection. While in the West we often have boyfriends and girlfriends treating each other with the meanest and most disrespectful and hurtful attitudes, by solemnizing the relationship before dating can take place, the couple are forced to be nice and considerate toward one another regardless of how they feel. In the West we run into many people whose self-esteem has been completely shattered because of an abusive partner’s actions toward them. This solemn dating system helps prevent that. Since their families are greatly involved, they feel beholden to everyone around them to act responsibly and respectfully. To a Muslim woman who understands the benefits of this system, it would sound like utter madness to involve herself with a man without enjoying these protections. It would be like a queen going anonymous and getting into a relationship with man on the street who, of course, can treat her with the greatest disregard and disrespect. A queen, by going through the formal, socially approved methods for getting married, ensures that her husband will continue to treat her like a queen. In the same way, a self-respecting Muslim woman demands a husband who will continue to treat her like she is someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s niece. The husband is forced to take her social status very seriously, and this ensures even if she has the most infuriating and annoying behaviors, he will tolerate her and not insult her. She, of course, is forced to have the same respectful attitude.

The above is how things work in many relationships in religiously conservative society. Of course, things do not always go perfectly and we have cases of the greatest disrespect and abuse. But the point is the nature of the average relationship in such a society compared to the average relationship in other societies. If 90% of Muslim marriages involve a husband and wife who respect each other greatly compared to 50% of secular Western marriages, then that is a great proof of the superiority of the conservative, Islamic system.

Love and Duty

Sometimes we cannot help it and fall in love with someone our families do not approve of. In such a situation, we have to balance our responsibilities toward our family and friends on the one hand, and our desire for personal fulfillment on the other. It would be highly irresponsible of us to bypass our families and let the romantic relationship take its course (even if we desire to do this with all of our hearts). We should instead try to convince our families to approve of the relationship, and if they are adamantly against it, we should patiently wait. When they see that we are refusing all other marriage opportunities, then they may slowly, after months or years, change their minds. That is the price way pay for enjoying the honors given to us by our religiously conservative societies.

We are free to ignore our families and do whatever we want. But the costs of doing this are very high and very few romantic partners deserve this sacrifice. When your family sees that you are staying loyal to them and patiently waiting for their approval, that is likely to soften their hearts, compared to if you were to try to keep a romantic relationship going out of their sight and enjoying it regardless of what they think.

It is not always easy to be patient or to make the right decisions. But it should always be our goal to mend things between us and our families and friends. We should remain loyal to them and honor them as much as we can the way they honor us. If we make the error of engaging a romantic relationship without their knowledge, we should try to tell them as soon as we can. Our desire for the pleasures of love should be counterbalanced by our knowledge that we have many decades in front of us. The honors our religiously conservative societies grant to us are extremely valuable and we should not let them go to waste, we should instead work to maintain and improve our societies.

In the United States, you have homeless people who have rich family members and relatives who do not care about them. That is what things look like when a society has disintegrated. The reason why society gets in the way of your desire for casual romantic relationships is to prevent that from happening. Our conservative Muslim societies, despite of their myriad problems, are infinitely superior to a society where things are in such a state. Romantic relationships outside of our families’ approval almost always end up damaging our relationship with our families unless things go perfectly, which they rarely do.

Romantic entanglements often force us to make a choice between our loyalty toward our families and our loyalty toward our lovers. The wise and pious thing to do is to not put ourselves in such a situation. Our religiously conservative societies are not against our enjoying ourselves. What they want is for us to do this in a way that enables to keep enjoying society’s benefits, to keep the love and respect of our families and to contribute something back to their happiness. And the way to do this is through having our relationships critiqued and approved by them. Once we have their blessing, we can enjoy ourselves as much as we want in a way that adds to their happiness and to the health of our societies rather than causing harm to them. It is, of course, sometimes a great sacrifice to put our romantic relationships at society’s mercy, letting it decide whether it can go forward or not. But in return for this show of loyalty, we continue to enjoy the great respect and honor that such a society has for us and that we did not do anything to deserve them to begin with. By continuing to respect our religiously conservative societies and holding ourselves to the high standards they demand of us, we can continue to enjoy our Pride and Prejudice-like world.

As for those who have never enjoyed living in such a world (converts, for example), through following traditional Islamic values you can be the initiator of such a world (although it can take generations for it to fully develop and flower).

I should mention that I have never actually seen a Muslim society that lived up to the high standards of good manners and ethics depicted in Pride and Prejudice. It represents an ideal that we can aim for. I should also mention that when young Muslims engage in illicit relationships, their families and societies are often partly responsible. When our children do not get the love and respect they deserve, they seek these things from others when they grow up and get the chance, and a romantic relationship, by promising them a lover that truly loves them and cares for them, can appear as a highly attractive alternative to the lowly lives they currently suffer in their families. Some families treat their children, especially their daughters, as part of their home’s furniture rather than as proper humans to be honored and respected and treated as integral parts of the family’s life. The beautiful thing about Islam is that when everyone tries to follow it as best as they can, they naturally tend toward the beautiful society depicted in Pride and Prejudice. It is when we fail at following Islam’s values, whether through disrespecting our parents or neglecting our children, that we suffer the painful consequences mentioned above.

IslamQA: Dealing with a family who want to marry off a daughter without her consent

Kindly forgive me if what I'm about to ask is uncomfortable in anyway. But I am stricken with grief and anger in my heart. I am aware this is wrong for my soul. But its when things take non-islamically that I feel most stricken with disappointment. My father has without my consent promised me to a family. I am already in love with a muslim man who I believe will help my deen and faith. How can I help myself and my cause. Any dua or insight?

Sorry to hear of that. Have you told him that you do not wish to marry that person? Perhaps talk to your mother and ask her to explain things to your father if you do not want to talk directly to him. If he does not listen to your wishes then you could ask the help of any male relatives you have. And if that does not help, if you live in a Western country there are various agencies who can help, although escalating things this far can seriously damage your relationship with him.

You should seek out all the help you can get from family and friends if necessary and perhaps you will find a peaceful solution. If absolutely necessary, you could even reach out to that family if at all possible and tell them you do not want to marry their son, maybe they will take your wish seriously even if your own family does not. You could ask for a private talk with the man, and during that talk you could tell him you do not want to marry him.

IslamQA: Why Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslims

Why are Muslim men allowed to marry a non-Muslim but Muslim women are not allowed?

One theory is due to genetic and psychological differences between men and women, Muslim men will be better able to  remain practicing Muslims and to bring up devout Muslim children even if their wives are Christian or Jewish, while Muslim women will be less likely to accomplish these.

Scientific studies are needed to prove whether the above is true, but it seems to be true from anecdotal evidence. It is probably true that some Muslim women will be perfectly capable of remaining practicing Muslims and bringing up practicing Muslim children when married to non-Muslims, but these will be the exceptions, not the rule. It is similar to drinking wine; some people are able to enjoy it without becoming drunkards, but Islam forbids it to all Muslims since this is better for everyone. So that fact that I or you can drink wine without it causing us noticeable harm does not mean that it is halal for us and haram for others. It is haram for everyone.

If Muslim women who are married to non-Muslims are twice as likely to stop practicing Islam compared to Muslim women married to Muslim husbands, and/or if their children are twice as likely to abandon Islam, then these can be considered sufficient justification for prohibiting it.

So in this case, as in the case of wine-drinking, a person has to refrain from it for the sake of the greater good.

There might be many other reasons for forbidding such marriages, I’m mentioning only two potential explanations.

In Islam, everything is allowed unless explicitly forbidden. In the matter of sex, however, the Quran reverses matters; everything is forbidden, as numerous verses say, unless explicitly allowed. The Quran commands the believers to “guard their privates” (abstain from sex) in five places (23:5, 24:30, 24:31, 33:35, 70:29), then in the contexts of two of these verses it makes exceptions for cases of lawful relationships (23:6, 70:30). The picture that the Quran draws is that all sexual activity is forbidden, except when it is expressly allowed. Since the Quran expressly allows men to marry non-Muslim women belonging to God’s other religions, while it does not expressly allow women to do its counterpart, this can be considered strong evidence for considering the latter forbidden.

Those who want to legalize marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men say that such marriages are in a gray area, even though they are not expressly allowed, they are not expressly forbidden either. The reasoning offered by such people is that it is in the best interests of Muslim women to be allowed to marry outside the faith, that this is more likely to ensure their long-term good, and that the prohibition may have made sense in certain societies, but does not make sense in Western-style diverse and multi-religious societies.

But as I mentioned above, if such women and their potential children are more likely to abandon Islam, then that is a very good reason for prohibiting such marriages, and it is a weak argument to say that it is materially better for women to marry outside the faith if their spiritual and eternal life is harmed by this.

Islam is not forced on people, so a Muslim woman should be free to marry outside the faith from a civic law perspective, so it is ultimately a matter between the woman and God. Marriage is one of the most important decisions in life, and a Muslim woman who truly fears God and wishes to please Him will never base her marriage on what is at best in a gray area, since she cannot be sure if God will be pleased with her.

Reader question

I am in no hurry to get married anytime soon, and when I do decide to get married I value Islam so much I’d definitely marry in Islam but in the instances I’ve read that you spoke about out of Islam marriage concerning women you are dismissive about it. (Part 1)

You even called it prohibited even though you previously called it a gray area. Growing up I didn’t even know out of Islam marriage was allowed for Muslim women and I think girls deserve to know that it’s not haram (even if it’s better not to) (part 2)

I think it’s a traditional thing that people are unwilling to let go of so they miseducate girls on it which isn’t just unfair but in the long run only makes things worse. This quote “And give not (your daughters) in marriage to Al‑Mushrikoon till they believe (in Allaah Alone) and verily, a believing slave is better than a (free) Mushrik (idolater), even though he pleases (part 3)

you. Those (Al-Mushrikoon) invite you to the Fire, but Allaah invites (you) to Paradise and forgiveness by His Leave, and makes His Ayaat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.) clear to mankind that they may remember” is common for saying Muslim women can’t marry non Muslim men but (Al-mushrikoon) is polytheist and men marrying polytheist women is ALSO not allowed (part 4)

And do not marry Al-Mushrikaat (idolatresses) till they believe (worship Allaah Alone). And indeed a slave woman who believes is better than a (free) Mushrikah (idolatress), even though she pleases you” Since the polytheist example doesn’t make marrying non Muslim women haram it also can’t make marrying non Muslim men haram. (Part 5)

Hii, the women cant marry non Muslim men anon. I totally get that since in Jewish/Christian households men have higher authorities in families which is why it’s easier for a woman to be influenced by a mans religion I just think that it’s miseducating how people just refer to it as prohibited (like drinking alcohol) even though it isn’t actually explicitly haram and could be argued for

There’s no evidence from the qur’an that states It’s haram for Muslim women to marry non Muslim and since it is clearly not haram for men and not clearly haram for women, women are “forbidden” from marrying non Muslim men shouldn’t be used. Also Christian/Jewish men and women are both Christians, and if a woman isn’t considered mushrikaat a man isn’t mushrikeen either. (Part 7)

Another excuse is that men have bigger roles and the woman’s sense of religion is weak so he will make her change but that’s misogynistic and I’m not “historically localizing” it because it wasn’t in the qur’an to begin with. The fact that It was specifically stated that marrying mushrikeens for both genders is haram but Muslim women not being haram to marry non Muslim men wasn’t stated shows it’s not haram. (Part 8)

The idea that only men can marry out of Islam needs to go but that doesn’t mean it can’t be voiced that it isn’t recommended for neither men nor women to marry out of Islam. (By non Muslim I mean Christians/jews) (last part, so sorry this was long) hope u’r doing well!!!

The idea that only men can marry out of Islam needs to go but that doesn’t mean it can’t be voiced that it isn’t recommended for neither men nor women to marry out of Islam. (By non Muslim I mean Christians/jews) (last part, so sorry this was long) hope u’r doing well!!!

The Quran originally prohibits all marriage with mushriks (those who assign partners to God, does not mean merely polytheist). a mushrik is any person who believes in God in their hearts but is not happy to submit to Him and follow Him. Their submission is divided between Him and other things, in this way they “assign partners to God”. A mushrik can be a Muslim who out of the desire to appear modern and liberal throws away the Quran and says Islam should only be about ethical and spiritual things.

The Quran, in another places, says that Muslim men can marry Jewish and Christian women as you mentioned.

On the one hand, marrying mushriks is not allowed. On the other, men marrying Jews and Christians is allowed. The case of a Muslim woman marrying a Jew or Christian is a bit ambiguous because Jews and Christians are not mushriks, at least not all of them. But since the Quran mentions only the permissibility of Muslim men marrying Jews and Christians, this has been taken to mean that Muslim women cannot marry Jews and Christians.

Islam functions according to democratic consensus (as I discuss in this essay). No one is forcing a particular interpretation on you or on anyone else in most societies. You are free to try to gather evidence and maybe write a paper or book defending your opinion. And people are free to either agree with it or reject it. Since most people are unable to judge religious debates on their own (due to their lack of scholarly training), they have to go by what their favorite scholars and preachers say. So anyone who tries to change or reform a part of Islam should make an effort to convince the scholars. If your argument is intelligent and well-supported enough by the evidence that it can convince a few respected scholars, then that can be considered a valid alternative to the majority opinion. But if out of 100,000 (or however many) scholars and researchers you cannot convince even a single one that your opinion is valid, then Islam’s democratic consensus decides that the opinion is invalid.

So like I have said, even if a Muslim woman’s marrying a Jew or Christian is in something of a “gray area”, that is sufficient for pious Muslim women to avoid it. They would not want to build the most important part of their lives on something that is a in a gray area and that is universally considered forbidden by the scholars.

Maybe future generations will think differently about it, and maybe they will not. Many women are willing to accept the justifications offered for the prohibition, even if a few do not accept them. We should not say that these tradition-accepting women are ignorant or mis-educated. Women have as much right to to be conservatives as they have to be liberals. It is common to pathologize conservative women by saying they lack education or are not intelligent enough to be liberals. But the same attack can be used on liberals; maybe liberals lack the proper religious upbringing and the proper spirituality to be conservatives. My point is that if you find that most women tend to disagree with you, you should be willing to accept their opinion at least as equal to yours.

We should learn to transcend the Western argument between conservatives and liberals, where each side dehumanizes the other. Only if we respect the human dignity of those who disagree with us can we consider ourselves enlightened and civilized.

My first criterion for deciding whether an intellectual is respectable is if they respect those who disagree with them. Richard Dawkins likes to demonize the biologists who disagree with him (on issues like group selection), so he is not very respectable. But the evolutionary biologist David Sloane Wilson respects those who disagree with him, so I have great admiration for him even if I disagree with him on many things.

IslamQA: House husbands in Islam

Your thoughts on House Husbands? I read that it is Haraam, unless the husband faces health difficulties, but then Islam is a religion that emphasized on "niaat", so what if they both agree to let the wife to be the breadwinner, and it wasn't a decision made because the husband is simply lazy?

I do not know of any clear Islamic principle that would forbid that. For example the wife may get a very good job while the husband stays at home to work on some project that does not earn him any immediate income, such as writing or scholarly research.

I guess those who oppose such arrangements fear that society will come crumbling down if every single husband decided to stay at home. But in reality the vast majority of men will not be content to stay at home, they will want to work regardless of religious considerations, so I don’t consider their critique valid, since it is based on an invalid slippery slope argument. Not all slippery slope arguments are invalid, but this one is, because it ignores the very important fact that men are genetically programmed to seek to gain wealth and status, and for most men this means they have a strong desire to work. So allowing men to be house husbands will not affect the fact that the majority of men will not want such a lifestyle.

IslamQA: Are Muslims allowed to never marry?

Aslamu Alaikum! Brother I'm suffering from social anxiety (or with some other phychological disease). As I can't afford therapy because I'm not financially well. So i don't wAnt to get married because I don't want to intentionally ruin someone's life. So, is this a valid reason for not getting married ? What Islam guides us about this?

InshaAllah things will get better for you. Marriage is not obligatory, therefore you always have the choice of not marrying. There are many important scholars, such as Imam al-Nawawi and al-Tabari, who never married due to their busyness with their work.

It is however not permissible for a person to claim that never marrying is a good thing, since it is considered a sunna (a Prophetic tradition). But as long as it is a personal choice then there is no religious issue with it.

Regarding your situation, you can wait and things may change a great deal for you in a year or two. There is no problem with delaying marriage for now, but there is no need to say that you will never get married, since you never know what the future may bring. You may one day meet someone who doesn’t mind your social anxiety and who can take care of you financially.

Do what you can with what you have, and always try to increase your knowledge through lectures and books, and inshaAllah you will be able to change yourself and your life for the better.

Source (in Arabic): Fatwa on the permissibility of never marrying

Also see: Marriage is not necessarily “half our religion”

 

IslamQA: Can someone with mental illness marry in Islam?

Can a person marry, even if he/she is suffering from some kind of psychological disease and knows that it can affect his/her married life?

It depends on the seriousness of the illness. If there is a good chance that you can have a functional family life and can bring up children safely, then it may be fine (you should get other people’s opinion on this and not rely only on your own). Be honest with your potential spouse regarding your illness, you should let them know about it and give them your honest opinion on what you think your limitations are when it comes to being a good spouse and parent.

IslamQA: Marriage is not necessarily “half our religion”

You said marriage is not obligated but we're told it's half of the deen

The “half our dīn” saying comes from a group of hadith narrations all of which are of questionable authenticity. One of them comes from al-Bayhaqī’s collection and the chain of narrators includes Yazīd al-Raqāshī, who is untrustworthy according to al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Ḥajar. Another version comes from al-Ḥakām’s collection, and the chain contains ʿAbd al-Raḥmān bin Yazīd, who is also untrustworthy according hadith scholars.

There is another famous saying that says “A woman completes part of a man’s faith”, this is not from the Prophet, but from Ṭawūs ibn Kaysān, it is just a scholar speaking his personal opinion.

The hadith scholar al-Albānī performed a detailed study of these narrations and considers all of the them untrustworthy except one that says “A woman supports a man in part of his dīn, so let him worry about the second part.” This hadith is not authentic due to its chain containing at least one person whose is known to be of arbitrary reliability (he sometimes speaks the truth, sometimes says something completely wrong). Al-Albānī concludes that the hadith has a status of ḥasan, meaning that it is not authentic (ṣaḥīḥ), but that its meaning sounds good and one cannot say with certainty that it is fabricated.

In conclusion, therefore, this “half our dīn” concept is not firmly established and cannot be used as a basis for deriving principles.

IslamQA: What is permissible for a Muslim woman to wear in front of her husband, and what are they allowed to do in private?

I have a question over husbands. What can you wear or do with your husband in private? What is allowed in Islam?

The rule regarding both clothing and sexual enjoyment is that everything is allowed unless it is specifically forbidden.

She can wear anything and nothing. Spouses are permitted to see each other naked.

Women are strongly discouraged from wearing male clothing, that’s the only important limitation I can think of regarding what she can wear in front of her husband.

As for what they can do, they can do all that’s customarily done between a husband and wife throughout the world, except for three things: Anal sex, sex when the woman is menstruating, and anything that causes harm to either person.

Sources: Dr. Khalid Abdul Mun`im al-Rifa`i (Azhar-educated scholar), UAE Fatwa Authority, Dr. Muhammad Sa`eed Ramadan al-Buti (Syrian Islamic studies professor).