Younger brother getting married before older brother

Question

Praise be to Allah.

This question was put to
Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him), who said:

I say to the brother who
is asking the question, you are not too young to get married. ‘Amr ibn
al-‘Aas got married when he was 11 years old, and he had a child. Hence
it was said that that there was only thirteen years between him and
his son ‘Abd-Allaah.

I say to the brother who
is asking the question, put your trust in Allaah and get married, and
when it is easy for your two older brothers to get married they will
get married too.

This is one of the grievous
mistakes that some people make, when they do not let the younger daughter
marry so longer as there is an older sibling. This is a shame.

If someone whose character and religious
commitment are suitable proposes marriage to her, then they should let
her get married to him. Maybe there is something preventing the older
sister from getting married. Often what happens is that it is decreed
that the younger sister will marry first, so if the younger sister is
not allowed to marry first, the older sister is prevented from marrying.
Then when the younger sister gets married, Allaah opens the door for
the older sister (to get married). This is something which is well known
from experience, i.e., that not letting one daughter get married may
prevent another from getting married. The same may apply to having children.
We have heard more than one story of a man who gets married and remains
childless for fifteen years, then he takes a second wife and the second
wife gets pregnant from the first night of marriage, and then the first
wife get pregnant at the same time.

So we say to the one who
is asking: get married and do not think that this means you are disobeying
your parents or severing your ties of kinship with your brothers.