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Recordings › Can a Nikah with a Non-Muslim be valid? - Mufti Abu Layth Al-Maliki · 10 May 2019 › Segment 1 of 9

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I converted to Islam but my husband didn't. Do I have to leave him?

maaliki malikite malikiyyah maliki school fatwah fatawa fatwaa fataawa legal opinion muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam mubah mubaah 'alim aalim ulama ulema ulamaa shaikh sheik shuyukh shaykhs nikah nikkah nikaah nikah nama nikahnama

If a wife converts to Islam, must she leave her non-Muslim husband?

QuestionRaised by Mufti Abu LaythAnswered 10 May 2019Segment 1 of 9 in the recording2019-05-10-S01

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This segment0:00 to 5:09 · 5 min 09 sGeneral teaching

The answer in brief

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No: he agrees with scholars such as Abdullah bin Bayyah that a convert wife may stay with her non-Muslim husband, and vice versa. Telling converts to leave their spouses is home-wrecking.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth takes up a question he says people, especially women converts, have asked: when one spouse embraces Islam and the other does not, must they separate? He says the advice to leave the husband is home-wrecking and disastrous. He lists scholars who have ruled that the wife may stay, among them Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah, Abdullah al-Judai [?], Yusuf al-Qaradawi [?] and senior figures at al-Azhar, and says he agrees with them, and that the same applies to a husband who converts. On a couple not in a civil marriage, he says a mere dating relationship is different, but an exclusive relationship known to people seems in his understanding to fulfil the conditions of an urfi marriage, so she could remain in it if she wished.

Question as read aloud · questioner not identified

When someone converts to Islam and their spouse does not, especially a woman whose husband does not convert, must she leave her husband?

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Position stated

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Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees with these scholars that a woman who embraces Islam does not need to leave her non-Muslim husband, and vice versa.

In his words

“so I to agree with these scholars that the woman does not need to leave her husband”

Category: ruling

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Kind: general teaching

Transcript

machine0:00 to 5:09 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
0:00

right so the question is when people some people convert it to Islam I'm gonna get I'm gonna be distracted I'll stop reading the the comments right so some people convert to Islam and the spouse the husband or wife hasn't converted so this won't be problem you know so on one way there's the beam on the other way there's the it's like oh right so this becomes a struggle a struggle for people so they've asked

0:39

questions that look if especially if coming from women and that right especially coming from women that when they've converted and the husband doesn't convert to Islam must they leave their husband now some people have given them the advice that now now right so

1:18

you must leave your husband and I think this kind of attitude is so apart from it being home-wrecking it is disastrous it's absolutely disastrous okay now under the this is where this issue emerges any court light okay so since then several people have spoken on the topic they've issued rulings chef abdullah today who currently resides in the UK i believe now he he's also authored a book on it right including several of the scholars who have said

1:58

it's permissible namely some of these scholars have said that this woman can stay with that husband even though he's a non-muslim and they can remain married so I'll give this fatwa first then I'll go through the discussion okay so just to explain what the ruling is first of all right so the ruling according to share abdullah bin baya is a great epic scholar of our age Maliki in essence his people definitely know of him is the teacher of Sheikh Hamza Yusuf now and I believe share Hamza Yusuf would be with him on this now they share

2:37

abdullah bin baya has clearly given the fatwa that the wife can stay with her husband this was also the fatwa as I mentioned of sure hard to love today of share card ah we use of a condo we it was is the fatwa of Sheikh Ahmed Omar Hashim who's there are ease of giametta as her who was sorry previously the the head of geometry as her regimental as her is the fatwa of the tour mohammed el buro who is the race the kind of chair of dhamma yet solomon as her who's the

3:14

chair of the Council of scholars of al-azhar hizmet was well and also with them bandana cheese standing in the cute with weirdly is upon okay so I to agree with these scholars that the woman does not need to leave her husband okay she can stay with her husband and vice versa okay so the husband can stay as well with the why with the wife but I

3:52

was just saying that commonly the issue seems to be appearing more so from women than it does from men now what if they aren't married now you see that's a different interesting discussion because I believe that you see when you say they aren't married there's two things to that Oh up one is that they they're just like dating so okay that's that's fine you know then they weren't really in a relationship anyway the other is that they were in a relationship but it wasn't like a civil marriage but was a relationship now in my understanding and I've got a segment on

4:30

this that if a person is in an exclusive relationship that is known to people as it is an exclusive relationship then technically that is it seems to fulfill the conditions of an orphan occur okay because what is an orphan occur it is just exclusivity that's all it is just a bill to her will - that's it you know I accept I accept that's it there's nothing more to it now right so that would count as in the relationship is the okay so that relationship she can remain in that relationship if they

Paragraphs overlapping 0:00 to 5:09. Full text on the recording page.

Cite this segment

Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2019-05-10-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/c8fjy8mcezm/s/1/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2019, May 10). I converted to Islam but my husband didn't. Do I have to leave him? [Video, segment 2019-05-10-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/c8fjy8mcezm/s/1/
Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2019. "I converted to Islam but my husband didn't. Do I have to leave him?" Video, segment 2019-05-10-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded May 10, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/c8fjy8mcezm/s/1/
BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2019-05-10-S01,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{I converted to Islam but my husband didn't. Do I have to leave him?}},
  year = {2019},
  month = {5},
  date = {2019-05-10},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/c8fjy8mcezm/s/1/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/c8fjy8mcezm/s/1/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2019-05-10-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}
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