His mother does not agree to him marrying this woman; what should he do?
Question I am 35 years old. I live with my mother, who has strived very hard to nurture my sister (who is married) and I since my father died 4 months before I was born. May Allah have mercy on him. My mother did not marry after him. 3 years ago I fell in love…
Question
Praise be to Allah.
If you cannot convince your mother about this marriage, your
going ahead with it will make her angry and will mean that you will lose
her, as you say. So what you must do is obey her by not marrying this woman,
unless you fear that you will fall into zina with her, Allaah forbid.
This is based on the fact that obedience to the mother is
obligatory, whereas marriage to a particular woman is not obligatory. There
are many women, hence Ibn al-Salaah, al-Nawawi and Ibn Hilaal stated – as
mentioned by the great scholar Muhammad Mawlood al-Mauritaani in Nuzum
al-Buroor – that it is obligatory to obey one’s father if he forbids
marriage to a particular woman.
But if you think it most likely that you will fall into
haraam, then warding off that evil takes precedence over obeying your
mother.
Our advice is to let reason prevail over emotion and to look
for another woman with whose religious commitment and character you are
pleased. It is better if she is a virgin and young enough to have children.
Thus you will achieve a number of interests, the greatest of which is
pleasing your dear mother who has sacrificed her own interests for the sake
of raising you. You will also be keeping the family together, and producing
children, which is one of the aims of marriage.
Pray to Allaah a great deal, asking Him to guide you aright.
And Allaah knows best.
