Fatwa #693330 October 2002India
marriage to a christian is not allowed - no book apart from the holy Quran is authentic, marriage to people who believe in these non authentic books is not valid and disallowed
Question
Recently i came across a person who said that marriage to ahle-kitab(those who believe in the holy books) is allowed. He gave me a justification that some people say that since no book apart from the holy Quran is authentic marriage to people who believe in these non authentic books is not valid and disallowed. Further he told me that since marriage to ahle-kitab is allowed we can marry a christian because when the prophet must have allowed these marriages he was also knowing that these books are not in there true form. Kindly please adivse me on how to guide this person because he seems to be firm on what he has told me.
Answer
The details of your question are not clear.%0D%0A%0D%0AKindly find below our standard reply on ?Marriage to Ahlul Kitaab?%0D%0A%0D%0Aand Allah Ta'ala Knows Best%0D%0A%0D%0AMufti Ebrahim Desai%0D%0AFATWA DEPT.%0D%0A%0D%0A'And We have made permissible the pure women from the believers and the pure women from the people of the Book.' (Maaidah)%0D%0A%0D%0AThe above verse is clear that it is permissible for a Muslim male to marry a female from the Ahl-ul-Kitaab (Jews%2FChristians).%0D%0A%0D%0AThe Christians during the time of the revelation had the distorted beliefs of trinity, crucifixion, etc. Despite that, Allah Ta?ala permits marrying a Christian or Jewish female. However, the purpose of marrying such females is their apparent adherence to a heavenly revealed book which could be a stepping stone into understanding the true religion (Islam). Understandably a marriage has influence on a person's thinking and ideology. Since the male is stronger generally, he would be able to influence his wife into Islam. Therefore, it is not permissible for a Muslim female to marry a Christian or Jewish male purchance she will be influenced to leave Islam.%0D%0A%0D%0AIt must be noted that if the Muslim male is weak in his Islam, and there is fear of him being influenced by the Christian%2FJewish wife, it is not permissible for him to marry her. A Christian%2FJewish woman should not be just by registration while not really being a Christian%2FJew.