Interfaith Marriage Between A Muslim Woman And An Atheist Man
I didnt know you dont speak Urdu. I will try to summarize the argument. Since marriage is an institution for bringing up the child hence care must be taken about choosing the spouse. If someone is intrested to promote same religious thought in children then interfaith marriage is not allowed. About your comment on verses 1) You right about 60:10 2) Verse 4:25: If you understand the language of Quran, it gives us very important rule (apart from integrating slaves into society) even if a person claims to be a Muslim, we should make sure that person is believing person keeping in mind the objective of marriage institution (this was told by Ghamidi sb in one of video offcoarse in urdu withour reference to the verse). 3) Verse 2:221: Ghamidi sb writes in his exgesis that although it was specific to arabs but if same belief is found today, this principle will be applicable. Although atheist donot fall in category of polytheist but still muslims should marry a person who believe in one God. According to Ghamidi sb understanding, we should not even marry a non practicing muslim too considering the objective marriage in Islam. 5)Verse 5:5 : From verse 4:25 and verse 2:221, we have already come to conclusion that muslim should not marry a person not beliving in one god. In the exgesis, Ghamidi sb have written that while interpreting this verse we should be careful of word اَلْیَوْمَ which signifies Tawhid as supreme point. Also, he mentioned that Jews and christians are technically claim to believe in god thats why the permission was given to men for marrying “good chracter women”. According to Ghamidi sb and his teacher Ahsan Islahi sb (based on words in the verses), these verses were revealed when Muslim became a political power and couldnot be influenced by other culture. Ghamidi sb argues that in todays era, even Muslim man should avoid marrying of books. Btw it only allows to marry people of book, not atheist or polytheist. I hope it helps. May be @Irfan76 @UmerQureshi @faisalharoon can add more to what I have written or correct me if I am wrong
Peace! Ahsan Bhai, I think the points raised by Dr. Farhad Shafti need to be brought into consideration: https://www.exploring-islam.com/interfaithmarriage.html
Mr. Douglas. I was an atheist for a major part of my life too. I am not a scholar, but I read Quran very carefully numerous times. I have quickly read your article and I do agree that many verses are related to a particular incident, but the basic rule that is established in those incident still stands. A major part of Quran is repetition and stories from the past. The purpose of the stories is to covey a message not to merely tell stories. So, to me the underlying message in the 2:221 is clear not to marry nonbelievers.
Verses 5:5 and 2:221 are very clear about marriage and with whom it can be done. It is true that Verse 2:221 is specifically talking about Polytheists of that time but the same verse also has a generic nature in it when it uses principle statement that “ And a believing slave woman is better than a polytheist, even though she might please you “, and similarly, “And a believing slave is better than a polytheist even though he might please you” . Similarly, verse 5:5 is giving an explicit list of which females can be married to and exludes the polytheists in that list, which is quite enough to understand the meaning of this verse and there is no linguistic compulsion to mention polytheist females as Haram separately, as it is the only logical conclusion that doesn’t need any explaining. In verse 2:187, the use of term “ you used to deceive yourself ” refers to the fact that Muslims after seeing the practice of Jews used to believe that initmate relationships with wives were prohibited even during nights of Ramdhan and yet they used to do that at night against their initial belief which they developed on their own from Jews. Quran simply corrected this belief and pointed out this practice of theirs. All the verses that were revealed were specific to begin with, but it is the linguistics and presence and /or absence of certain conditions (illat) within the same verse which decides the universality of a verse. The verse 9:5 that you referred to was also time-speific, as the condition for such a directive was i) the presence of a Messenger among the people and ii) a group of people who explicitly denies that Messenger after knowing the truth. Since none of this condition exists today, therefore, this ruling cannot be entended to today’s time. Quran has mentioned this law more than any other thing w.r.t all the messengers that came to this world and what happens when the people deny that Messenger even after knowing the truth (also known as ‘Kuffar’). People of the book believe in one God and they do Polytheism in their interpretation of monotheism and Quran has clearly declared this belief to be a polytheistic belief. Since their belief is primarily based on monotheism, that is why this allowance was given to Muslims to marry their women. However, Polytheism on the other hand is not based on interpretation of monotheism as opposed to people of the book, therefore, clear prohibition exists to marry polytheists. Atheism, although not mentioned in Quran, doesn’t share any monotheistic base whatsoever (as is the case with people of the book), infact it stands in denial of God. Therefore, it is only logical that marriage of a Muslim with an atheist should also be considered within the same category as that of a polytheist.