Category: Marriage and Family Relations

A young man proposed to a girl, but when the marriage contract was done, the girl’s father had a disagreement with his daughter’s fiancé, and refused to do the marriage contract. But the girl, her mother and her brother wanted the marriage to go ahead, so they left their house and rented an apartment, and they left the father who refused to do the marriage contract, and the marriage contract was done; the maternal uncle of the girl was the one who acted as her guardian (wali) in this marriage contract, in the presence of her brother. They argued that the father does not pray and they did not want him to be the wali of his daughter. How valid is this marriage contract?

I embraced Islam -praise be to Allah- and now I want to keep myself chaste, but my parents think that the most suitable age of marriage is not until twenty-five or preferably twenty-eight. Even worse than that, one of them thinks that there is nothing wrong with friendship and relationships outside of marriage - Allah forbid. The matter is extremely difficult and I do not know how to talk to them about this matter. I want to keep myself chaste; I want to marry a man who will help me to adhere to my religion, a man who will stand beside me and help me, a man who will live with me, because I am living far away from my parents. They are divorced and each one lives in a different city. I do not know how to explain these details to them in order to convince them that I should get married early; rather they think that getting married at an early age is something that is not appropriate. I am the only daughter of my parents, hence I do not want to disobey them and I do not want to upset them; I do not want them to forsake me either. I want at least to do the marriage contract, then delay consummation until Allah wills.

My questions are:

1. Is it permissible for me to do the marriage contract but delay marriage and the waleemah (wedding feast) and consummation for five years, for example?

2.  Do I have to repeat the marriage contract in front of my family later on and pretend that I was not married? Or is that regarded as coming under the heading of lying? I hope you can advise me because I do not know what to do.