A Sinful Father Serving as a Wali (Guardian) in Marriage

20-5-2025 | IslamWeb

Question:

I reverted back in 2020, my father's family is muslim, they are from Turkey. And if I want to get married, I understand the need and importance of having a wali. However, the confusion for me is that my dad says ya Allah ya rasulullah and he even said recently a curse word in regards to the prayer and that he will give up prayer because of me. My brother is not a Muslim and my relatives are all abroad. So who would be my wali in this case .... a local imam or family?....

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu`alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

We congratulate you on the great blessing that Allah has bestowed upon you by guiding you to Islam, and we ask Him, the Most High, to keep both you and us steadfast upon it until we meet Him.

If your father was originally a Muslim, he is still considered a Muslim, as if one’s Islam is established by certainty, his Islam cannot be removed except by equal certainty. The statements you mentioned from him do not, in themselves, constitute apostasy, because declaring someone a disbeliever has a specific criteria in Islamic law, which require that all necessary conditions are fulfilled and that no impediments exist.

Based on this, as long as he is still deemed a Muslim, he remains your legal Wali (guardian) and has the primary right to conduct your marriage himself. However, if he is unable to be present due to being abroad or for another valid reason, he may deputize someone else to represent him in conducting the marriage.

Lastly, if we presume that it is absolutely impossible for the marriage to be conducted either by him or through his appointed representative, you should turn to the appropriate authorities that handle Muslim personal status matters, such as Islamic centers.

Allah knows best.