Request:

Assalam-alaikum Shaykh,
I did Nikha with a girl without our parent’s consent, as our parents would not agree for us to get married. They would not allow us to get married until we had finished our education. They knew that we would still see each other and we tried our hardest to convince them but they remained adamant and we wanted to try our hardest to be on the right path. Shaykh i want to ask the validity of this nikha, we had two male witnesses only. I feel worried that the nikha is not valid. Shayk I feel ashamed of myself but my parents simply will not agree to the concept of marriage yet and at least for many years to come although me and this girl are in love and they know this. Please shayk do dua for our forgiveness and problems solved.

Response:

wa `alaykum salam,

As an introduction to my answer, I say in general the parents are creating a situation where they know their children are committing zina, fornication, and the don’t do anything. It might be these 2 children doing zina and you know that and you dont tell them to get married. Whose responsibility is it? It is the parents’. If immigrants don’t want children to marry why do they came to this country because in this country everyone is looking at someone. in other countries that is not all the time in the mind, not as much as here, perhaps only 10%. But most people don’t go that route like they do here in the west.

To proceed with the answer:

First of all without the consent of the parents, the nikah will not be considered, we cannot say it is illegimitate but it not complete. If the girl is under 18 she cannot do it, and even if she is above 18, up to 35 she cannot do a marriage by herself. She has to have consent of someone to represent her, the wali al-amr, either father or brother or someone who is relative to her and she gives him the authority to represent her in the marriage. This is the Shari`ah-wise opinion.

As for the boy, whose age we dont know, he still needs the consent of his parents. So first off all you didn’t have the consent of the parents which makes the nikah not complete. Second they have to have 2 witnesses and an imam, but you mention “we had 2 male witnesses only” Where was the one who conduct the nikah. On what did these 2 witness? Whoever conduct the nikah, must be someone eligible to conduct the nikah.

I will say the nikah is not complete, some is complete and some is not. It does invalidate it but it is also not valid – it is in a grey situation. So they have to fix it. Unfortunately we are seeing this kind of thing happening a lot around the world today and that is a big problem.

Also the meaning of nikah in Islam is to be public, that people must know these 2 are married. That means they did it privately. To be correct at least there must be 2, 3, 4 families to know that this is the case. So sorry for that but I think you have to fix it.

Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani