Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Egypt's Ifta Forbids Intermarriage of Muslim Women to Non-Muslims


Thu 19 Nov 2020 | 04:54 PM
Ahmed Moamar

The Egyptian Dar Al Ifta settled the controversy stirred on social networking sites recently, about the intermarriage between Muslim women to a non-Muslim man.

It affirmed that it is not permissible, in Islam, for a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man, and this legal ruling is final and decisive.

This came in response to the controversial fatwa made by Dr. Amna Nosseir, professor of faith and philosophy at Al-Azhar University in Egypt.

She claimed  that "there is no text in the Holy Qur’an that prohibits the intermarriage marriage of a Muslim woman to a person of the People of the Book (Christian or Jew)."

The Egyptian Ifta published on its official Facebook page a fatwa in which it stated that it is not permissible for a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim.

Dr. Nosseir had stated that the non-Muslim man, either Christian, and  Jew, as they are the People of the Book, and the Qur’an named them thus, meaning they are not idolatrous worshipers or deniers of God Almighty, but they have another religion that differs from Islam."

In a decisive response from the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayyib to that controversial fatwa of Nosseir, he emphasized that marriage of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim is not permissible according to Sharia.

Al-Tayyib said during a previous speech to members of the German Parliament in 2016, that marriage in Islam is not a civil project, but rather a religious contract.

He indicated that our religion commands a Muslim to enable his non-Muslim wife to perform the rites of her religion, and he has no right to prevent her from going to her church for worship.

He added that Islam prevents the husband from insulting the sacred rites of his wife.

He explained that if a Muslim marries a Christian, then he believes in her religion and believes in Christ Jesus and lets her go to church to perform rituals.

The Holy Qur’an describes the church as a house of worship and God has instructed Muslims to guard it just as they guard mosques."