Q368 :When I married my wife, she was a Christian.
The witness to the marriage were my sister, her husband and the imam
who took care of the formal contract of marriage. I did not ask the
consent of her parents, since they wanted us to get married in the
presence of a priest or a judge, which I declined. Later, my wife
became a Muslim. Now we have three children. In view of the requirement
of a woman’s guardian to be present when the marriage contract is made,
I would like to know whether my marriage is valid.
A368 : From what I gather from your letter, your
wife’s parents were willing to attend to your marriage contract, if it
was done by a priest or a judge. Perhaps you would have been well
advised to grant their wish and have the marriage officiated by a
judge, even if he would not have been a Muslim. If you have enough
Muslim witnesses, i.e. a minimum of two, then the marriage would have
been perfectly valid. However, you did not wish to do that and wanted
an imam to officiate. Let me tell you that in Islam, an imam does not
have any particular status, except that given to him by his knowledge
of Islam. Therefore, anyone who knows the rules of marriage and how a
marriage contract should be done can make the marriage. Indeed, the
marriage can be done without the presence of any such person, if the
two parties concerned i.e. the husband and the wife’s guardian know how
to make the netmitment and acceptance which are necessary for the
marriage contract to be concluded. I see no point for you to be
worried about the validity of your marriage. It is certainly valid,
since it has had enough witnesses. The imam himself should be
considered your wife’s guardian because at that particular time, she
could have no guardian. You may be sure that there is no question about
the validity of your marriage.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )