I am a student living in Paris. Here I met a girl whose father is Christian and mother is Jew. The girl herself is atheist. We have very good understanding and we like each other. To avoid the chances of Zina I proposed her marriage and explained to her what marriage in Islam is. She has accepted my proposal. Please explain with references that,
1) Can I marry this girl according to Islam?
2) If not, is it because she is atheist or she is non-Muslim?
Regards,
Answer
At the time of the Prophet there weren’t many atheists. Therefore the issue of this group of people is not directly addressed in the Qur’ān. However, it is possible to derive from the verses of the Qur’ān that God the Almighty likes His obedient servants to marry only those who believe in Him, even though this belief might not be a totally completed one. Please refer to verses 2:221 and 5:5 as a reference.
We need to appreciate that a partner for life will have a huge effect on almost every aspect of our life, our way of thinking, our children and consequently our future generation. Living in the not very religion oriented world that we are in this era, it is extremely important to make sure that at least within our family unit we are having a strong base of belief in our creator.
Accordingly, I do not think that a Muslim should allow himself to marry an atheist and the reason is not that the atheist is not Muslim; rather it is because she does not believe in God. If the girl you are interested in (through your guidance and through her own research) accepts God as her Creator with all honesty (even without ascribing to any religion) then the situation will be totally different and the doors of allowance and flexibility will start to open up. However even in this situation one needs to make sure that one has enough influence on one’s wife and future family in order to run the whole family in the way advised by Islam. This is because the verse 5:5 (starting with the word Al-Yaum, that is ‘Today’) makes it clear that even the permission of marrying with the People of Book was given only when Islam became the dominant religion in the area and there were little chances that a non-Muslim wife would influence her family to distance it from Islam.
Please do let us know if further clarification is needed.
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