Fatwa ID: 04716

Answered by: Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah

Question

Assalamu Alaikum.

I and My boyfriend have been dating since 2009 It’s been a long time. We want our love relation to getting into a halal relation. We told our parents two years back that we want to get married. My parents are ready & his parents too. In Jan 2017 they came to my place & committed we will do nikah in a year. Almost 8-9 months passed as my parents asked them to take a date for Nikah in Dec as they committed will do nikah in a year. Now, after dating each other since 2009 & after waiting for a year for nikah, my boyfriend’s parents want more than 1-2 years (they failed their commitment) Now the issue is, even if we wait for more 1-2 years & they disagree what should we do? I and my boyfriend have decided to do court marriage as well as a nikah, my parents are ready for court marriage & nikah, but they don’t want my partner’s parents to know this till 1-2 years as they may create an issue or they won’t accept us. The main reason for our nikah is we are in a long-term relationship and we don’t want any more sinful life. Please can you suggest to us are we going right or we should still wait? If we do double nikah after 1-2 years in front of his parents, is it permissible in Islam? Are we right or we may have to face some problems in the future? Please suggest for us. I am in a very confused and depressed situation. We two don’t even want to get apart nor we want to live an unlawful life and relation.

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Answer

For a marriage to be valid the conditions are:

• There should be at least two male witnesses or one male and two female witnesses.
• The words of the proposal (Ijab) and acceptance (qabul) clearly. (Hidayah p.306 v.2)

In the aforementioned scenario, the first nikah or marriage in the registry office you will be doing will be considered the correct and proper nikah in the eyes of the Shariah as long as the aforementioned conditions are met. Your relationship will be considered lawful from that moment in time. The second nikah which your planning to do will be considered as repeating the process again. There is nothing wrong in doing that according to the Sharia.

Only Allah Knows Best

Written by Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah

Darul Ifta Birmingham