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Fatwa CenterWants to put his marriage on "hold" until she embraces Islam
Question
This is in reference to my previous question No. 260770: Please answer to my e-mail again.
Thank you very much for your reply. Yes, I talked to her yesterday and she says that she firmly believes in one God and she is not at all a Christian as she has never believed in their idea of Trinity and Jesus as God, so she is firmly of the opinion that she can be termed as a non-practicing Muslim (she is ready to say Shahadah). She says that since I have introduced her to Islam and before that she did not knew anything about Islam and now she is all the time mentally occupied with a thought that Allaah has send me to give her the light of Islam and that I must give her time to go through the human process of reflect/thinking about all and then she will be in a position to take a decision. She has also promised that she will not play a hypocrite game to tell me that she believes in Islamic way of belief and if not she will tell me that she cannot believe. So, I feel (but need scholarly advice indeed) that she is going in the right direction Ma' Shaa' Allaah, and soon she will be a Muslimah, Insha Allaah.
My further question is that in case she becomes a Muslim, do I have to make my Nikaah renew or the current Nikaah will be OK. Plus can I have marital relationship with her now or should I keep away until final decision comes from her. She is very cooperative and has told me not to break Allaah's Law and now we are living only as two persons without any husband/wife relationship until the final decision.
I am thankful again that your help is there as a guidance.
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. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.
Islam prohibits marrying a non-Muslim woman except if she is a chaste Christian or Jew. Allaah says (which means): {And do not marry polytheistic women until they believe .....} [02:221].
Therefore, if you married this woman who was neither Christian nor Jew then your marriage is invalid. You have to separate from her and stop sleeping with her since she is not your wife according to Islam. However, the children are traced back to you as long as you married her assuming that the marriage with her was correct.
If she embraces Islam as her religion and does not commit anything which abrogates her religion then you may marry her with a new marriage contract with a new dowry and two witnesses after ascertaining she is not pregnant.
We remind our Muslim brothers that they must learn their religious matters, especially what is lawful and what is prohibited. They have to know the rulings by consulting authentic scholars before doing any act if they have doubts about it.
Allaah knows best.
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