Mar­riage With The ​“Peo­ple of the Book” (Ahl al-Kitab)

In Islam, ​“Peo­ple of the Book” are the Jews and the Chris­tians, those who believe in the Books of Allah like Tau­rat and Injil revealed to Prophets Musa^(P) and Isa^(P) respec­tive­ly. Mar­riage with women of the peo­ple of the Book if [sic] per­mit­ted in Islam accord­ing to the fol­low­ing injunc­tion in the Qur’an :

“This day are all things good and pure made law­ful to you. The food of the peo­ple of the Book is law­ful unto you and yours is law­ful unto them. Law­ful unto you in mar­riage are not only chaste women who are believ­ers, but chaste women among the peo­ple of the Book revealed before your time, when you give them their due dow­ers, and desire chasti­ty and not lewd­ness nor secret intrigues“Qur’an 5:5

There is a con­sen­sus of opin­ion of the Ula­ma of the Ahl al-Sun­nah Wal-Jama’ah that mar­riage with Jews and Chris­t­ian women is per­mit­ted as was the prac­tise of the Com­pan­ions of the Prophet^(R) (sahabah) like Uth­man, Tal­ha, Ibn Abbas, Hud­haifah and their fol­low­ers (tabi’un) like Saad bin al-Musayyab, Said bin Jubair, Al-Hasan, Mujahid, Tawus, Akramah and others.

In spite of the prac­tise of the Sahabah, and the Tabi’un, Abdul­lah bin Umar^(R) was of the opin­ion that one should not mar­ry a Jew­ish or a Chris­t­ian woman. He used to say : ​“Allah has for­bid­den to mar­ry poly­the­ists, and I do not under­stand any­thing oth­er than greater poly­the­ism when a woman says that her Lord is Isa(P) who is a ser­vant from the ser­vants of Allah.“cf. Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al-Sun­nah. op. cit. 6, pp. 208 – 209 

Although there are exam­ples of the pious Sahabah and their fol­low­ers (tabi’un) who mar­ried the Kitabiyyah, one has to take enough cau­tion before con­tract­ing such mar­riages. The Sahabah had exem­plary char­ac­ters and their lives were full of right­eous­ness and piety (taqwah). After mar­ry­ing such women who fol­lowed dif­fer­ent reli­gions and cel­e­brat­ed dif­fer­ent fes­ti­vals, they knew how to keep them under prop­er con­trol so that their chil­dren were not influ­enced by their moth­ers. There is not a sin­gle exam­ple of the Sahabah or the Tabi’un whose chil­dren ever trans­gressed from the lim­its of Allah or changed over to the moth­er’s reli­gion. There­fore, mar­riage with such ladies is per­mit­ted but is gen­er­al­ly dis­cour­aged as Makruh.

I have seen in many such mar­riages the food prob­lems, when the moth­er even at times brings for­bid­den food and chil­dren par­take of it. Like­wise, she would sip wine as part of her reli­gious rit­u­al, and the habit slow­ly finds its way into the house. In some hous­es, I have even seen Christ­mas and Mus­lim fes­ti­vals cel­e­brat­ed simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. In extreme cas­es, boys of such mar­riages bear Mus­lim names, while girls bear the names com­mon among the Chris­tians and Jews.

If there are a good num­ber of Mus­lim women to get mar­ried with, in any giv­en coun­try, it will be con­sid­ered unlaw­ful, accord­ing to the Ijti­had of cer­tain Ula­macf. Al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, Al-Halal wal Haram fil Islam, 1977 p. 245, to mar­ry the Kitabiyyah women. Since Mus­lim women can­not mar­ry the kitabi men, who will mar­ry them in those cir­cum­stances ? It is bet­ter then that Mus­lim men mar­ry Mus­lim women. The jurists of the four schools of Islam­ic jurispru­dence have dis­cussed the mar­riage with the Kitabiyyah women and giv­en their juris­tic views. Accord­ing to the Hanafi school it is unlaw­ful to mar­ry a Kitabiyyah women if she is in the coun­try which hap­pens to be an ​“abode of war” (Dar al-Harb) because that can open up a door to mis­chief. In such con­di­tions, the chil­dren by that mar­riage will be more inclined towards the reli­gion of their moth­er.Kitab al-Fiqh alal Mad­habib al-Arbiah, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 76

The Mali­ki school on the oth­er hand, has two opin­ions. The first is that the mar­riage with a Kitabiyyah is com­plete­ly dis­ap­proved (makruh) whether she is a Dhim­mi or one belong­ing to the abode of war. The dis­like for a woman of the lat­ter cat­e­go­ry is greater. The sec­ond opin­ion is that there is no com­plete dis­ap­proval in mar­ry­ing a Kitabiyyah because the Qur’an­ic words has giv­en a tac­it approval. They show dis­ap­proval of such a mar­riage in the abode of Islam because it is not for­bid­den for a Kitabiyyah woman to drink wine or eat the flesh of a pig or going to the church and this affects the reli­gious belief and behav­iour of her chil­dren. It is not essen­tial for a Kitabiyyah that both of her par­ents are ahl al-kitab. Her mar­riage will be valid even if her father is a kitabi and her moth­er is an idol-wor­ship­per. The Shafi’i and the Han­bali schools believe that both her par­ents must be ahl al-kitab in order to have a valid mar­riage. If her father is a kitabi and her moth­er is an idol-wor­ship­per the mar­riage is unlaw­ful even though she has reached the age of puber­ty and has accept­ed the reli­gion of her father.Ibid., p. 77

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