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Fatwa CenterHis wife believes in God but does not follow a religion
Question
I am a Muslim man got married about a year ago and i got a daughter. My wife believes in God but she has not choose which realign she will go to Islam or Christianity. And we decided that I will give her full support to understand both realigns. The only thing is that my wife she use to have boyfriend before we get married and she really fill regret about what she has done before in her life and now she wants to start a new life and she wants to find the wright way to god and she’s hoping that god will light her way to the right direction. Her ex-boyfriend was Muslim and he said he will make contract by words so they can have relation together. The question now is the boyfriend relation can be consider as Zina and what about if she decided to get back to God and she wants start a new life? What about contract by words to have relation is this can be consider as marriage?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His Slave and Messenger.
The mere agreement between a man and a woman to live like spouses is not marriage at all; rather, this is pure Zina. An Islamic marriage must meet certain conditions for its validity. For more benefit, please refer to Faatwa 83629 and 92129.
If this woman does not believe in any divine religion, then she is not one of the People of the Book, while it is not permissible for a Muslim to marry a non-Muslim woman other than a woman from the People of the Book as we have clarified in Fataawa 126747 and 18290. Therefore, your marriage to her is void and it is an obligation for you to separate from her.
However, it should be explained to her about Islam and that it is the true religion, and that Allaah will not accept any other religion than Islam.
For benefit on on how Islam is the religion of all the Prophets, kindly refer to Fataawa 81979, 88906 and 88051; and to Fataawa 85234 and 111063 on how Islam is from Allaah, and finally to Fataawa 30506, 85307 and 84195 on how Christianity is a distorted religion.
Also, she should be urged to ask Allaah to illuminate her way and guide her to the Straight Path.
Allah Knows best.
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