A recent article in the Huffington Post entitled “Muslim Women Can Marry Outside The Faith” opined the notion that “Many Muslim scholars and Imams affirm interfaith marriages of Muslim women to non-Muslim men”. This disputable contention raised a number of questions on social media from Muslims. Does Islam permit Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men? Does such a marriage fall under the category of ‘makruh’according to Islamic law? Since there is no explicit prohibition of women marrying non-Muslim men in the Qur’an or Hadith, why is it considered haram for Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men?

For the answers to these questions, we turned to Dr.Abdullah Ali the founder of the Lamppost Education Initiative and a Professor of Islamic Law at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California. He conducted an informal “Facebook Live” session that we recorded. Please listen to his responses to this article.

The 2021 Ramadan Reflections Series featuring prominent Islamic scholars, teachers, and Imams.  For more details click the link below

Dr. Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

He holds a Ph.D. in Cultural and Historical Studies in Religion (2016) and an M.A. in Ethics and Social Theory (2012) from the Graduate Theological Union. He  obtained his B.A. (ijaza ‘ulya) in Islamic Law (Shariah) from the prestigious Al-Qarawiyin University of Fes, Morocco in 2001. He served as full time Islamic chaplain at the State Correctional Institute of Chester, PA from 2002-2007, and is the founding director of the Lamppost Education Initiative. He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Islamic law and Prophetic Tradition at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California. His research interests include the interconnection between law and identity formation, comparative Islamic law, and Islam’s role in the modern world.
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