Question:

I am a nineteen-year-old young woman. I have a relationship with a young man whose mother is my father’s cousin. We have loved one another for a year. He is twenty-three years old and is continuing his studies, as I am also. We wish to marry one another after we complete our studies, find work, and settle down. However, there is a problem: both families are not on speaking terms with one another they are in conflict because of us  and they say that we will never be together. Our hope in Allah is strong. We want to complete our studies, and after two or three years, when we have settled, we wish to be formally joined in marriage according to the Sunnah of Allah and His Messenger  without our families’ knowledge, because they will not consent. Is this marriage permissible, or is it invalid?

Answer:

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. To proceed:

This young man is not among your maḥārim (unmarriageable relatives), and it is therefore permissible for you to marry him on the condition that the marriage is conducted in conformity with the Islamic law , that it be blessed by the families, and that it be executed by the guardian (walī) — for there is no valid marriage without a guardian (lā nikāḥa illā bi-waliyy). ¹

I must pause at your words: “I have a relationship with a young man whose mother is my father’s cousin…etc” . It is not acceptable for a private relationship to exist between a young man and a young woman who are not bound between them by a marital tie, a bond of unmarriageability (maḥramiyyah), or at the very least a formal engagement  bearing in mind that a fiancée is a legal stranger (ajnabiyyah), and that engagement does not render permissible what is otherwise forbidden in the relationship between the two parties. He is neither your maḥram(unmarriageable relative) nor your formally declared suitor(khatib)  for he has not yet come forward to the family, and no formal engagement has been concluded for him.

Review this relationship, my dear daughter, and bring it within its proper boundaries:

• Seclusion (khalwah) between you is not permissible.

   

• Any physical contact between you is not permissible.

   

• Conversation between you must not occur except when it is serious, appropriate (bi-l-maʿrūf), and in places of genuine need only — lest you be among those who go about morning and evening under the displeasure of Allah — Exalted and Majestic.

I ask Allah to prepare right guidance for you in your affairs, and to carry you toward what is most praiseworthy in His sight and most beautiful in its outcome.

And Allah Most High knows best.

Footnotes

(1) Ibn Ḥibbān recorded in his Ṣaḥīḥ (9/386), ḥadīth no. 4075, on the authority of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her), that the Prophet (ﷺ) said: “There is no valid marriage except with a guardian and two upright witnesses.” Ibn Ḥibbān remarked: “No other narration is established that mentions the witnesses.” Ibn al-Mulaqqin cited it in Khulāṣat al-Badr al-Munīr (2/176) and said: “It is as Ibn Ḥibbān stated, and it has other chains, though they contain weakness — which is of no consequence alongside this narration.”

Aḥmad recorded it in his Musnad (6/66), ḥadīth no. 24417; Abū Dāwūd in Kitāb al-Nikāḥ, chapter “On the Guardian,” ḥadīth no. 2083; al-Tirmidhī in Kitāb al-Nikāḥ, chapter “What Has Been Related: There Is No Marriage Except with a Guardian,” ḥadīth no. 1102; and Ibn Mājah in Kitāb al-Nikāḥ, chapter “There Is No Marriage Except with a Guardian,” ḥadīth no. 1879 — all on the authority of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her), that the Prophet (ﷺ) said: “Any woman who marries without the permission of her guardian — her marriage is void, her marriage is void, her marriage is void.” Ibn al-Mulaqqin cited it in Khulāṣat al-Badr al-Munīr (2/187) and said: “It was recorded by Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, Ibn Ḥibbān, and al-Ḥākim. Al-Tirmidhī graded it ḥasan*. Al-Ḥākim graded it* ṣaḥīḥ according to the criteria of the two Shaykhs. Ibn al-Jawzī said: its narrators are the narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ*. Ibn Maʿīn said: it is the most authentic* ḥadīth in this chapter.” Al-Albānī likewise authenticated it in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl, ḥadīth no. 1840.