Interfaith Marriage: Can a Muslim Woman Marry a non-Muslim Man?

When

3 p.m., April 10, 2015

Until recently, the idea of a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim man was unthinkable in Muslim communities. While Muslim men were able to marry from other faiths (Christian and Jewish), Muslim women, on the other hand, were not permitted to marry non-Muslims. This presentation examines the legal reasoning behind the law which forbids Muslim women from marrying outside their faith. The aim of this presentation is to unpack the arguments employed by Muslim jurists and exegetes throughout the ages which have allowed these laws to remain on the books until today. During this presentation I will provide an analysis of these laws in order to determine whether or not these rulings were rooted in the Islamic tradition—specifically, the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet. Islamic legal scholars and jurists have long claimed that it is forbidden for women to marry from outside the Islamic faith, maintaining that their reasoning is based on evidence from within the Islamic primary source of law (the Qur’an). This presentation, however, will show that such claims by Muslim jurists have no base in the Qur’an or the tradition of the Prophet and, instead, jurists have relied on one of the most strenuous methods of Islamic law—jurists’ consensus (ijmā‘)—to reach these conclusions. Jurists’ rulings, which later became law in almost every Arab-Muslim state, tend to discriminate against women, especially with regard to their right to choose their own spouse.Nayel Badareen holds a PhD from the University of Arizona in Near Eastern Studies with a focus on Islamic Studies. NAYEL BADAREENPostdoctoral fellow at School of Middle Eastern and North African StudiesMENAS Colloquium SeriesFriday, April 10, 20153pm in ILC 120 (NOTE DIFFERENT ROOM)Map Click to return to main Colloquium page