Marrying a Non-Muslim

Dear Hadi,

Dear Midwestern Muslimah,

Thank you so much for your question. 

It raises some very important topics that are personally important to you but are also becoming increasingly relevant to the American Muslim community. 

We will do our best to answer your question, provide our sincere advice, and frame the bigger issues for other readers. 

Because of this, our answer will be a bit longer and more detailed than other questions in this column.

We think that how you approach your parents will depend primarily on how you decide to proceed with this relationship, so let us first focus on that. 

As you likely know, the issue of a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim man is problematic from an Islamic jurisprudence perspective. 

Since many of our readers may have questions about this, we want to clarify a little bit about where this perspective comes from and its basis. 

The general rule (Sura Baqara 2:221) is that neither Muslim men nor Muslim women are allowed to marry “mushriks” (those who associate partners with God). 

However, in Sura Al-Maeda (5:5), Muslim men are given a specific allowance to marry women of the Book (ahl al-kitab). 

No similar express allowance is given to Muslim women. 

Based on this, there is a unanimous consensus among classical scholars of both Sunni and Shi’i schools of thought that such marriages (Muslim women and non-Muslim men) are prohibited. 

This consensus is known in jurisprudence as “ijma’” and is considered one of the sources of Islamic law. 

It is important to stress, as Dr. Khaled Abou El-Fadl (an American Muslim scholar and former professor of Islamic Law at UCLA) said that such a unanimity of opinion is quite rare in other matters of jurisprudence, where there is usually a fair diversity of opinion.

To quote Dr. Abou El Fadl directly, “I am not aware of a single dissenting opinion on this, which is rather unusual for Islamic jurisprudence because Muslim jurists often disagree on many issues, but this is not one of them.”  

Therefore, this consensus has carried and continues to carry a substantial weight in the minds of Muslims. Only in the very recent era (last couple of decades) have a few opinions emerged to challenge the consensus, but such opinions remain maverick and fringe. 

So, what is the rationale behind the consensus of the classical scholars? 

The explanations given are mainly along two lines. 

First, the scholars point out that Islam recognizes Christianity and Judaism as valid religions and honors and respects them, whereas Christianity and Judaism do not reciprocally recognize Islam. 

Throughout most of history, the man has had a more dominant role in the marital relationship.

The jurists did not want a Muslim woman married to a man who did not recognize or respect her faith and who may, therefore, pressure her to convert away from it. 

It is noteworthy that a Muslim man married to a Christian or Jewish woman is not allowed to pressure her to convert and should make accommodations for her to practice her faith. 

The second rationale concerns children who, in most societies, are given their father's religion. 

Therefore, once again, the classical jurists did not want a Muslim woman married to a non-Muslim man with her children carrying his religion. 

We realize that these rationales may not be as broadly applicable in our contemporary society as they used to be – and we’ll come back to this point in a bit. 

For now, we just wanted to share the traditional jurisprudential view. 

This traditional perspective is why most imams and most Islamic Centers will refuse to perform a marriage between a Muslim woman and a Christian or Jewish man.

Now, let’s move away from the traditional perspective for a moment and discuss our contemporary situation as a Muslim community living in the United States. 

We feel two salient characteristics of our current climate bear upon your question.

1.  You may disagree, but we believe there is a severe crisis in the marriage issue of Muslims in the U.S. 

This situation is often not discussed out of shyness or embarrassment, and so it has become a silent epidemic. 

Because a sizeable minority of Muslim men (by some estimates, 10-20%, and in our experience, we believe the numbers are higher than that) exercise their allowance to marry non-Muslim women, there are not enough Muslim men to marry the available population of eligible Muslim women. 

 

When this happens, it seems that no one is willing to point out that many classical jurists have clearly stipulated that Muslim men living in non-Muslim societies should not marry non-Muslim women. 

 

They have classified this as “makruh” (“strongly disfavored”). 

 

In fact, some classical and some modern jurists have even said that such marriages between Muslim men and non-Muslim women should be considered prohibited both because they leave Muslim women without a sufficient pool of eligible Muslim husbands and because a Muslim man married to a non-Muslim woman in a non-Muslim society would have a hard time raising Muslim children. 

 

Unfortunately, in our opinion and our experience with the American Muslim community, neither the parents of the young Muslim men who marry outside the faith nor the Islamic societies and imams who officiate these unions are taking a strong enough position against these marriages. 

 

Hence the Muslim marriage crisis that we have today. 

 

We believe a concerted effort needs to be made to stem the tide of Muslim men marrying non-Muslim women. 

 

Muslim parents and Imams need to raise their Muslim sons with an understanding that they are part of a larger community, and have responsibilities toward that community – i.e., being part of the solution and not part of the problem of the marriage crisis.

2. The second characteristic that must be acknowledged is that times have changed. 

The reasons that the traditional scholars presented for their opinion may not be as valid today, and certainly not for every marriage. 

The “balance of power” in a marriage today may be relatively even or in favor of the woman. 

Taking these two points into account, some contemporary scholars like Dr. Khaleel Mohammed have begun to assert that the lack of express permission in the Quran for Muslim women to marry Christian or Jewish men is not tantamount to a categorical prohibition. 

Dr. Mohammed believes that the traditional consensus was based on women’s historical circumstances, where they would be forced to accept the religion of their husbands and raise their children accordingly. 

Dr. Mohammed asserts that Muslim women today live in “a different time and a different place.”

Acknowledging “that women are equals of men, that women have legal rights,” he argues that “an inter-faith marriage can take place on condition that neither spouse will be forcibly converted to the other’s religion.” 

Similar arguments, including the lack of a specific Quranic prohibition, have also impelled the Sudanese Islamist leader Dr. Hassan al-Turabi to state that marriages between Muslim women and Christian and Jewish men are not categorically prohibited.

So, where does that leave us? 

We wanted to share both sides of the issue from a scholarly perspective and would now like to give you our perspective. 

In our opinion, although it is quite understandable that a young woman such as yourself might meet and become interested in a non-Muslim man, particularly if he is kind, decent, and supportive of you practicing your faith, we feel that the weight of the consensus of scholars is not only difficult to ignore, but is overall correct. 

Let us elaborate.

As we said above, we recognize that the reasons that the traditional scholars presented for their opinions may not be as valid today since marriage is viewed as a genuine partnership and not a hierarchical male-dominated relationship. 

In practical terms, it will often be the mother who will have the most influence on the religious practice of her children.  However, there are still serious concerns which cannot be ignored.   

1.  First is once again the issue of children.
We think it would be fair to say that essentially all Muslims who have endeavored to raise practicing Muslim children in the United States recognize the immensity of this challenge in a society where movies, television, music videos, the internet, and classmates often send messages (materialism, promiscuity, drinking, drugs, hedonism, etc.) antithetical to traditional religious values. 

Even with two active, practicing parents united in trying to raise Muslim children, this is a complex undertaking. 

By marrying a non-Muslim (man or woman), Muslims are taking a significantly enhanced risk that their children will NOT grow up as practicing Muslims. 

We feel this risk is not worth taking, either in this world or for the hereafter, despite how much we may like, respect, or love the potential non-Muslim mate. 

We stress, once again, that this stance is equally applicable to Muslim men wanting to marry non-Muslim women and to Muslim women wanting to marry non-Muslim men. 

We share the view of Professor Abou El Fadl: “I must confess that in my humble opinion, I strongly sympathize with the jurists that argued that in non-Muslim countries, it is reprehensible (makruh) for a Muslim to marry a non-Muslim. God knows best - I have reached this position after observing that the children of these Muslim/non-Muslim marriages, in most cases, do not grow up with a strong sense of their Islamic identity. It seems to me that in countries like the U.S., it is best for the children if they grow up with a Muslim father and mother.” 

In justifying this opinion in another fatwa, he wrote: “This is based on a sociological reality that children who grow up with parents not sharing the same faith grow up in a state of confusion, which they often resolve by being faithless. Or, if they have any faith, it tends to be agnostic. In my over thirty years in the West, working in case after case, all stories begin with love, dreams, and high hopes. Ten, twenty, thirty years later, from my experience and the experience of so many that I have dealt with, the ending is not happy.”

It is important to stress that this is the opinion of Professor Abou El Fadl, who is one of the very few Islamic scholars who clearly state that they do not see an explicit Quranic ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men. 

He writes, “I am not comfortable telling a Muslim woman marrying a kitabi (a Christian or Jewish man – definition added) that she is committing a grave sin and that she must terminate her marriage immediately. I do tell such a woman that she should know that by being married to a kitabi she is acting against the weight of the consensus; I tell her what the evidence is, and then I tell her my ijtihad on the matter (that it is makruh for both men and women in non-Muslim countries).”

2.  The second issue is the notion that you can practice your faith independent of your husband’s influence. 

Assuming that he does not pressure you in any way, many issues come up in the course of life – e.g., will you allow alcohol in your home, or if you treat friends to dinner, will you also buy them a glass of wine, etc? 

Even if we assume that all these issues are arranged following Islam, there is an intangible influence that spouses have over each other. 

A growing body of research in psychology discusses the notion of “synchronized thinking” among married couples – how their attitudes, likes, dislikes, etc., grow closer together with time. 

This happens with anyone to whom we are close.

That is why the Prophet (pbuh) stated, “The person follows the religion of his friend. Let each of you, therefore, be watchful whom you befriend.” 

This would undoubtedly apply even more to spouses than friends.

3.  Thirdly, even if you are lucky enough to be the exception and you somehow can maintain complete physical, psychological, and spiritual independence from your husband in the practice of your Islam – the question becomes, is this really where you want to be? 

If faith is the most crucial thing in our lives, would we not want to be married to someone with whom we can share it? 

We believe that Professor Abou El Fadl answered this most beautifully when he wrote,
“There is a quintessential and fundamental question that every man and woman should ask himself/herself. Personally, I cannot be married to someone with whom I cannot pray, fast, celebrate Eid, and perform all my other religious duties.

My faith is of such importance to me that I must be able to share it with my partner.

In a marriage, you share your body, money, heart, and perhaps your soul. You must ask yourself: Is religion less critical or more important to you than all of these things?

To me, Islam and its practices are more fundamental than my money, body, heart, or soul. I cherish it more than these things. If I am married to someone with whom I cannot share what I hold the dearest, I feel that I am cheating them and that the relationship is superficial and insincere.”

4.  The last point we want to make concerns your comment that the person you’re interested in is “not religious.” 

Even the most liberal opinions that would allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men stipulate that this would be equivalent to the dispensation given to Muslim men and that dispensation is to marry from among the People of the Book, i.e., the Christians and the Jews. 

There is no opinion, classical or modern, that allows either Muslim men or Muslim women to marry someone who does not subscribe to the monotheistic faith. 

 

For all these reasons, our most sincere advice is that you do not proceed with this relationship along the current parameters you have outlined.   

 

You have told us in your question that you do not want to ask your prospective partner to convert for the sake of your marriage. 

 

We genuinely hope that we have made enough of a case for you to reconsider that stance. 

 

We suggest you have honest discussions with your parents and prospective partner. 

 

You should let your partner know how important Islam is to you and that you cannot imagine sharing your life with someone who does not share your faith, and see if he is willing to learn about Islam with a view to converting. 

 

We mean a sincere conversion and not an “in-name” conversion to allow things to go smoothly with your parents. 

 

People come to Islam through many doors, and Islamic history is filled with the sagas of sincere Muslims who began as arch-enemies of Islam and the Prophet (pbuh). Indeed, your prospective partner is starting much further ahead than that. 

 

At the same time, let your parents know that you are interested in this man and what you see in him and that you will try to introduce him to Islam. You can seek their help and the help of others in the community, including possibly other converts. 

 

We have seen this approach work multiple times, leading to happy families who are committed and active members of their Muslim communities.

If these attempts prove fruitless, then our advice is that this is not the person for you and not the relationship you want to be in. 

We truly understand that you love this man, but we believe there are even more important considerations that outweigh our worldly desires.

We hope that you would be open to meeting suitable Muslims with whom you could share a similar deep connection and love. 

Of course, at the end of the day, only you can make these decisions, and only God will judge you. 

We have tried to give you our best advice and tried to substantiate where this advice is coming from, but as in all things, God knows best. 

We genuinely appreciate the difficult situation you find yourself in and pray that you will find an answer that pleases you and God.

In peace