Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #183 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 22 Sep 2020 › Segment 12 of 29
Can a Muslim woman marry a non-Muslim man?
imaam imams prayer leader masjed masaajid masajid muftis iman imaan eemaan eeman jannah janna jannat jahannam jahanam jahannum koran quraan al-quran ulama ulema ulamaa nikkah nikaah nikah nama nikahnama deen al-din ad-deen ad-dinCan a Muslim woman marry a non-Muslim man? Valid, but think it through
Watch the answer
Open on YouTube at 1:05:38The player starts at 1:05:38, where the answer begins.
This segment1:04:58 to 1:14:37 · 9 min 39 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenMufti Abu Layth holds that such a nikah would be valid, though not meeting every condition, but advises couples to think hard because faith often becomes a conflict once children arrive.
In more detail
A super chat asks about Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men. Mufti Abu Layth refers to his dedicated video, where he argues that the nikah between a Muslim and a non-Muslim would in itself be valid, drawing on the distinction between fasid and batil, the Majus being treated as People of the Book, and scholars who counted Hindus as such, while accepting that it does not meet all the conditions the scholars laid down. Mufti adds his caveat that faith matters a great deal: in the romantic phase couples forgive differences, but once children come and life becomes mundane, religion can become a huge point of conflict. He gives the example of a man he knew who called off a planned marriage to a Muslim woman once he realised religion would shape how their child was raised, recalling Imam al-Shafi'i's line that the eye of displeasure sees every fault. He advises people to have a reality check and think it through before marrying.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedWhat do you think about Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men, considering the woman is independent and can have her identity and follow her religion?
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says he feels the nikah between a Muslim and a non-Muslim would in and of itself be valid.
“i do explain in that video that the nikah in and of itself i feel would be valid between a muslim and a non-muslim”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine1:04:58 to 1:14:37 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
much love for the super chat mufti what do you think about women huh what do i think about what scandal this one become the scandal you know the scandal what do you think about women marrying non-muslim women non-muslim men where my what what's the subconscious doing to me today this one is on plotting against me the subconscious is considering if the women is independent and can have her identity and follow her religion
so i have a uh i have a whole video dedicated to this question do watch it i do explain in that video that the nikah in and of itself i feel would be valid between a muslim and a non-muslim the question but i go into great detail quoting evidences showing the understanding of the taberine and the definition of an act the distinction between farsi and batil that there is something when it is fasted you might say
wasa that the thing is by the origin the structure is valid it's just the conditions aren't being fulfilled but that does not necessitate according to all scholars that the whole structure is null and void and then i explain examples and i go through that i do explain that and i go through uh historic narrations where people the majous are then brought in as ahlul kitab and today who are can we consider as and how certain scholars had considered hindus and these people from the
indian subcontinent as al-kitab as well people of scripture and why the quran created an otherness that was needed at that time is it needed today so i go through all of these discussions i do explain that in my understanding the act and the act the contract of nicaragua would be the ceremony would be valid i accept that it wouldn't live up to all the requirements that the scholars have laid out obviously but the other person not being a muslim would
violate one of the conditions but i said that i still feel it would be valid that said i do caveat i do place at the end my opinion on saying that look i do believe religion is incredibly important faith is incredibly important to people who value it now you see you know when people are
right so when people are in a very lovey-dovey phase low low you see they're very um forgiving right they're very forgiving of differences of annoying factors features um they're very kind of accommodating but the problem is the problem [Laughter] the samasiyah is further down the road
when the relationship cements stabilizes uh not stabilized sorry cements people have children they have a family when it sets into the mundane at that stage in the future faith can become a huge um point of conflict and i think people sometimes in the lovey-dovey phase so easily undermine these that they think and they think yeah
come on it doesn't make a difference but for many people maybe not for everyone but for many people down the road it will it's a huge point of conflict so either come to terms with that in the beginning that's what i would say or think this through carefully because if a person has already got that understanding then it's that's fine if they haven't and they're just thinking they're just relying on love to swing everything through that they're gonna be in for a bit of a a surprise
i i remember speaking to a colleague a while back and he was a non-muslim vika english guy we used to work together he used to teach he would teach french and he was considering he was deeply in love uh with a muslim girl uh he was yeah she she was moroccan so the french i suppose helped in that sense and of course of course so he was uh completely and it was a
very like a long enduring relationship for many years and they they were on the verge of getting married and everything you know he see everything through it doesn't matter love blah blah blah all this kind of stuff she was cool uh there was one little thing i suppose she wanted him to become a muslim just nominally just for the sake of the moroccan law so because they need to kind of by law be a muslim so she was just saying well nobody's going to really you know question it whatever so he would because we used to work together me and him
he would sometimes kind of ask my opinion on things what do you think what's this what's that and i remember that at one point he after after everything was set and he'd made all the plans she was going to be coming here they'd looked at he'd looked at a place she'd already been here and he was gonna you know everything was everything was set up i remember at that stage he uh called it all off and you know when he called it off and he told me afterwards oh that i've cancelled all of that plan by the way so i was quite taken aback because i was like whoa what
because this guy was he was like at one point at one point he was madly in love with that girl and what did you see i tell you what changed the thing is because the relationship had endured for many years along the way they had some tiffs they had some arguments fights um trouble in paradise so what this had done was it had brought in a reality check that you know when you all of a sudden are angry with someone then you as imam shafer he says in his
poem that when you dislike something when you look with that eye all of a sudden you see a hell of a lot of faults now he started to say he said to me that look he wasn't against like he didn't like islam himself as a person he never used to discriminate but he did not like islam just because of the bad experience he had with muslims and he said to me look let's be honest she wants a child when we have a child he said that let's say his egos look
right now it's all you know just all lovey-dovey romance but ten years from today he said let's be honest she's gonna want her child to at least go to a mosque at least learn how to pray eve whether he prays or not he said she's gonna want these let's be honest she's gonna probably want him to have a muslim name she's probably gonna want him to at least learn how to read the quran and he said look i respect that that you know people that are muslim would want that even though he said she's not very religious at all but i understand i'm not stupid that she
would want this from her child and he said that i couldn't not tolerate my child going to a mosque like he said that that's just to me like taking the piss now you see that that's looking at things from the lens of sobriety so this is why i do say to people that you know have a reality check before you think these things through if you think it's fine then so be it right somebody said muftisab which masjid are you
in do i look like a masjid could contain me [Laughter] so right what is going on people what is going on right so right let's move on to sorry i was just trying to see the comments um yep claire jones doing it is you doing it you're doing it margaret you're doing it right so
Paragraphs overlapping 1:04:58 to 1:14:37. 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 2020-09-22-S12, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/12/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2020, September 22). Can a Muslim woman marry a non-Muslim man? [Video, segment 2020-09-22-S12, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/12/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2020. "Can a Muslim woman marry a non-Muslim man?" Video, segment 2020-09-22-S12, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded September 22, 2020. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/12/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2020-09-22-S12, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Can a Muslim woman marry a non-Muslim man?}}, year = {2020}, month = {9}, date = {2020-09-22}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/12/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jtyem-eee78/s/12/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2020-09-22-S12, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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