Shari'ah (Islamic Law): Difference between revisions

The Quran forbids believers from marrying those who associate partners with Allah (mushrikun), though believing men are permitted to marry believing women or women from the People of the Book (Jews and Christians). There is no similar verse explicitly permitting the same for believing women, and they are explicitly forbidden to marry disbelieving men (Kuffar), which led scholars to conclude that Muslim women may only marry Muslim men. The relevant verses are {{Quran|2|221}}, {{Quran|5|5}}, and {{Quran|60|10}}. Another justification given by scholars was that a non-Muslim husband may compell his believing wife to compromise her faith or their children's faith. The reformist scholar, Dr. Abou El Fadl, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, notes, “I am not aware of a single dissenting opinion on this, which is rather unusual for Islamic jurisprudence because Muslim jurists often disagreed on many issues, but this is not one of them". Today, there are some discenting opinions among Islamic modernists, arguing that there is some ambiguity in the relevant verses and using arguments such as that women have greater legal protections in the modern world, though this is very much a minority view. Such marriages are considered void under Islamic law. Moreover, if in a married non-Muslim couple the wife but not the husband converts to Islam, the marriage in annulled. It is also annulled if the husband becomes Muslim but the wife is neither Christian nor Jew. If a Muslim husband abandons his faith, his marriage to his Muslim wife is similarly annulled, and perhaps vice versa.<ref>Alex B. Leeman [https://ilj.law.indiana.edu/articles/84/84_2_Leeman.pdf Interfaith Marriage in Islam: An Examination of the Legal