asalaamUaliekum What if a guy likes a girl (or vice versa) and wants to marry the girl due to her deen in Islam and there’s no kind of pre-martial relationship. Is that considered a good or a bad thing. Can the guy ask the girl about her opinions about the guy. What can be done in order to arrange the wedding. Please provide some Hadiths as well. Jazakal Khair
Kindly refer below our standard reply to similar queries.
and Allah Ta’ala Knows Best
Mufti Ebrahim Desai
FATWA DEPT.
PRACTICAL LESSONS FROM HADITH
Do Not Delay
Nabi (SAW) said: “Do not delay in three things, Salaat when its time has
arrived; the marriage of a solitary woman when her match is found and the
Janaza Salaat of a deceased when the braise is ready”. (Targhib).
The practically of the advice given in this Hadith cannot possibly ever be
questioned. As to the advice of not delaying Salaat or Janaza Salaat one can
quite easily fathom the great number of benefits and wisdom behind such
advice. However, it is our intention to specifically discuss the point of
the marriage of a woman whose match has been found. We have generally become
extremely negligent in this regard and we find marriages delayed for months
on end on absolutely baseless and trivial grounds. The girl is too young
(although in the age factor doesn’t step her from ranking around with the
boy); my uncle from avenues will be coming in six months time; we can’t get
a booking in a ‘certain’ hall; let him finish his studies, etc. These are
just some of the more common excuses put forward by those who have an
intention of acting on the invaluable advice of our beloved Nabi (SAW). The
fact of the matter is that marriage is such a venture that, once embarked
upon, should not be beset with delay.
In most cases the question for a partner is motivated by the development of
a certain level of maturity and physical need in a person. In delaying the
matter, especially now that the couple have established inclination for one
another by committing themselves to marriage, we are in fact creating a
volatile and dangerous situation. They are bound to try and express their
need someway or the other and by delaying the marriage, we are in fact
becoming the means for the doers of sin and transpession being opened.
We often witness nowadays the manner in which prospective couples mix with
one another and go all over the places. Such Haraam practices are even
condoned and encouraged by the parents who simply explain it all away by
saying: “they are engaged”. In many cases it is exactly such Haraam
intermingling which result in disastrous consequences and often leads the
marriage not occurring at all while the couple (the girl especially) has to
live with the stigma against them.
The abovementioned is just one of the harms of failure to practice upon this
beautiful injunction of our beloved Nabi (SAW). Another point to consider is
the fact that the prolonging of the affair serves as a catalogist to ensure
that more and more unnecessary extravagance and wastage accompanies the
Nikah (when it finally takes place), since the more time there is the
greater and more affluent the preparation will be.
The list of harms goes on but the bottom line is that those endowed with
true love for Nabi (SAW) will unquestioningly practice upon the Sunnah
regardless of whether they understand the benefit or not. It is exactly this
spirit of emulation that we so badly need.