emilia says: January 10, 2017 at 11:53 pm
hi, congratulations to your happy marriage. guide me, a chinese non-muslim with a muslim. we are very happy living together, but no lawfully married.
Is it a sin for a muslim to be living together with his partner but not lawfully married?
Is it fine, if we go through civil marriage but not the MUSLIM MARRIAGE (Singapore)?
please advise, are these sins as a muslim ? will my partner be despised by others?
thank you.
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I think I now understand your point better, Admin. And thanks for clarifying why you are challenging me, I was beginning to think that you don’t like me anymore 🙂
Jokes aside, I really love reading the posts on this site (by you or others) because they come from a very diverse group of people with such different viewpoints. It really upsets me when anyone insults a religion here, whether it’s my own or Christianity/Hinduism…etc.
I consider myself a pluralist and even though I do follow Islam’s core teachings of belief in one God, charity…etc, since I am a pluralist and modern thinker (a reformer, like you said) I reject the dogmatic parts of what people do in the name
of Islam today.
And here is my personal viewpoint=> you quoted the following “On (fake)conversion to Islam, Muhammad said (Bukhari 9:84:57) to kill who change his Islamic faith. You don’t believe in Muhammad’s teaching?”
NO, I absolutely don’t.
I don’t believe this Hadith (I am sure it’s a weak one anyway, there is a whole methodology in ranking what is believeable and strong Hadith and what is weak tranmission) because:
A) it goes directly against Quranic verses which say that “There shall be no compulsion in religion” and “to you your religion, to me mine” (this second verse was used in the context of non-Muslims but it also applies because the message is similar: do not force anyone to follow Islam”
B) As a rational human being who believes in freedom to choose your own religion, I cannot in good conscience agree to anyone being killed on the basis of leaving a religion.
And I can tell you with confidence that many more Muslims out there would agree with me – they still believe in
God and Islam but they are not scared to question what doesn’t make
Sense or doesn’t apply in 21st century.
And we are the biggest threat to fundamentalist Muslims you mentioned because if we succeed with bringing the change our community needs, they will feel less empowered, and if some amongst them are abusing the religion to suit their own agenda, they would no longer be able to do so.
You know, Islam is a strict religion with many rules to many people but the way me and my friends see it, there are a billion ways to be Muslim (meaning that since there is no
Central Authority in Islam unlike the Vatican for Catholics) and you can be as liberal and open minded as a Sufi or
as conservative as a Wahhabi.
But when I look at this website, so many people are describing Muslims/Islam in such disgusting terms using vulgar language that you would think we were all one big cult following the same ideology. I sincerely hope this wrong view changes and people begin to see us and the human beings we are, each with our own unique practice and interpretation of our religion.
Rabia,
Personally we love to interact with you. There only a few who have such deep interest in religions and society. You are intelligent and bright. We hope we will meet you in person some day. Still personal matter is personal, and we could be debating here philosophically to almost like killing each other (not physically!!).
When we write to you or to any blogger, we are not writing to that person, but we are using this to communicate to the world. Likewise, when you write in your book, you are not writing to get that 10 Euro out of someone’s pocket but your goal should be some thing big and nobel.
Major problem we see with Islam is– it is 100 years behind. Hindus had untouchability and other issues, but starting with Gandhiji, India now almost removed untouchability (at least on surface; it is a progress). Actually many castes now wishes to be a part of untouchability because they get lots of extra benefit. Christianity killed millions in their crusades, but today European and American Christians (major part) are very tolerant. Europeans taking millions of Muslim migrant is the best example. Islam is still controlled by religions fanatics. The moderates like you have not guts to go to Mosques and stop teaching intolerant teachings. You moderates do lots of “out-reach” to tell others that Islam is a tolerant and peaceful religion, but don’t have daring to do “in-reach” and remove all fundamentalism. Do you have daring to go tell in your mosque loud and clear that you married to a “Hindu” and proud of it? We hope and count that you moderates will have more strength to clean up Islam. When that is done (and all Islamic barbaric bombing and trucking stops) automatically people will stop saying bad about Islam.
Have you heard people basing Buddhists? Why? Why only basing Islam? Do introspection to this question.
Reply at https://interfaithshaadi.org/?p=10981 to keep all discussion at one place, thanks.
If you are happy living together than why do you care about marriage? Your Muslim partner may already be despised, so does it matter? Many Muslims and Ethnic chinese have married in civil ceremonies, I know some.
Dear Emilia,
Are you out to please your partner and his community? If so, convert to Islam and be an obedient Muslim wife.
Are you going to be happy being 100% Muslim? Will your parents and community be happy with your conversion? Who are you looking to please, yours or his community? It is your life and you have to decide what is important for you.
Yes, this is funny but true, “Is it a sin for a muslim to be living together with his partner but not lawfully married?”
To your question, “Is it fine, if we go through civil marriage but not the MUSLIM MARRIAGE (Singapore)?”, answer is BIG YES!
To your question, “are these sins as a muslim?” he is not a Muslim (because he is living with you without marriage) so sin does not apply to him.
Let us know what else we can tell you?
Marrege is an important matter in life.Every one should take an independent decision for it.Her marrege is olready over[not by law , mentaly and phiscicaly].Eventhough she is doubtful.
[What is sin:
If your action makes others suffer,it is sin. What is done against the law is sin]
. If the decision affect in your life you
must rethink. So think careflly and make a decision. Dont make achance to rethink. May you not
suffer by our advices.I advice you to take an independent decision not as a result of advice.
*Wish you all the best*.
Just a quick correction to Admin’s otherwise great reply: we cannot say that’s someone is not a Muslim because they are living with someone else before/without marriage. Yes, they are clearly doing something “wrong” in the eyes of the religion but committing a sin (or many) is not something that makes you leave the religion.
There is only one way to declare someone a non-Muslim or confirm that they have left the religion and that is if they openly declare so.
Coming back to your questions:
– you asked: “is it a sin for a muslim to be living together with his partner but not lawfully married?” => Yes, it is considered sinful behavior. But of course the practical reality of today is quite different and even with Muslim-Muslim couples there are many people who choose to live together before marriage to get to know each other. So this is more and more a reality in today’s world. If your Muslim partner is secular minded or liberal Muslim, he probably doesn’t care and neither should you.
– “is it fine, if we go through civil marriage but not the MUSLIM MARRIAGE (Singapore)?” yes of course. This is all about the individuals’ decision. If they are religious they may want a religious wedding and if not, a civil court marriage should be enough. If he isn’t too religious he may not ask you for a Muslim marriage (Nikkah)
Religiously it is required. But like I said, practically things are different now and some people – even if both parties are muslims – choose not to do a religious ceremony simply because it isn’t important to them. In Singapore there shouldn’t be any problem, if it was another country then maybe there are different laws.
– “please advise, are these sins as a muslim ? will my partner be despised by others?”
This is a question only your partner can answer because whether or not he will be despised by others depends entirely on what kind of family he has and what kind of friends he had. If they are more religious and conservative kinds of people, then he may face criticism from them for being with you. If they are more open minded and accepting, there shouldn’t bear problem. There may be pressure from his conservative family for you to convert or “fake convert” for the Muslim ceremony. It’s a simple and fast ceremony where a Muslim religious leader will ask you three times if you accept him and ask him if he accepts you and you need two witnesses. Many people in interfaith relationships do this if they are marrying a Muslim, some truly converting and some not, the non-Muslim spouse may or may not be expected to truly follow Islam depending on what they agreed with their partner beforehand. Are you willing to do this? Make sure he is honest with you and doesn’t lead you on.
I know couples where this ceremony was just a formality for them to please their in laws or parents, so don’t be scared of it – but do make sure you know your partner well and know his true intentions. The important thing is to be honest with each other from the start.
Rabia,
Is this, “I know couples where this ceremony was just a formality for them to please their in laws or parents, so don’t be scared of it,” are you talking about not being scared of Shahadah and Nikaah and like others did accept Shahadah just as formality even he does not mean to be 100% Muslim? We are not clear what are you telling.
Further, you said “we cannot say that’s someone is not a Muslim because they are living with someone else before/without marriage,” So you are saying one can ignore Koran 24:30 but Koran 2:221 is important? We rather say follow Koran 100% and 24:30 and 2:221, or ignore both. How can one be selective in their self interest, and not for Allah? Is this not logical?
Admin,
Let me clarify since you seem confused.
1) What I meant by “don’t be scared” was that if the Nikkah ceremony is being done as a formality, it’s not something to be feared. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong to “fake convert”, I know that you as Admin are strongly against it but I think it should be left up to the individuals in love as everyone’s story and circumstances are different. It works for some and for some others it doesn’t. It’s not up to us to judge.
Now many people assume that marrying a Muslim means that they themselves will have to become Muslim and follow a strict life of conduct. While this is certainly the case with many people in more conservative countries like India, or Arab countries, or even conservative Muslims in the West, I personally know of at least 6-7 interfaith couples living in Germany and US where they married both in church and with an Islamic Nikkah and everyone has kept their own beliefs, even their families are aware of it, they just really wanted their children to have a religious ceremony and that was done to please them. So in their cases, it worked successfully. Hence my advice to be open and honest and discuss this with her partner.
Now to your other query: you said that according to you, one should either follow the Quran 100% or not. Not a single Muslim alive today can claim to be following the Quran 100% 🙂 I am not saying this because of any research into the subject or statistical knowledge; I am saying this because Allah tells us that “man was created weak”. It is not a question of picking and choosing what you like in the Quran and ignoring what doesn’t suit you: it is simply that we as humans have our faults and sins, but that doesn’t make us stop being a Christian/Muslim/Hindu because we have sinned and went against our holy teachings. It simply makes us sinners.
Why do Catholics go to confession regularly? why do Hindus keep vrat (fasts) and do pooja? Why do Muslims ask for their sins to be forgiven at every prayer but more so during Ramadan and in umrah or hajj pilgrimage? The answer is very simple: we are all flawed human beings and it’s almost impossible for us to be 100% strict followers of whatever faith we come from.
Do you actually know anyone who can say with pure confidence that they are following Geeta/Bible/Torah/Quran? I’d like to meet that person if they exist 🙂
Rabia,
We love interacting with you and hope you will incorporate some of these discussions into your book. You know well that we agree 100% to you (that no one follow their faith 100%) but our job is to challenge bloggers here to make you critical thinkers.
We disagree 100% of your view on “it’s (conversion) not something to be feared. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong to “fake convert”.” We want today’s youths to be bold and honest. A married life based on lies and deceptions will create major problems in life later. Might as well remove this “fake-conversion” business. Lets us repeat our clear position that this fake-conversion is WRONG. There is no need to fake-conversion when there are civil weddings option available.
On (fake)conversion to Islam, Muhammad said (Bukhari 9:84:57) to kill who change his Islamic faith. You don’t believe in Muhammad’s teaching? All Muslims take–leaving Islam–as a very serious matter. Most Islamic countries have severe punishment for apostasy. In countries like Bangla Desh and more, one will be axed if go against Islam. When Muslims and Islam are taking apostasy this seriously, why are you (silently) promoting/okaying fake-conversion? We hope you will take a clear position in your book–if you are oak with fake-conversion or not.
Rabia, we honor you and see what you are trying to do, i.e. to bring a reform. It is good to mix and match and do that is logical and not get stuck on the book; again this is our message. In an interfaith marriage, it is good to share faiths. However, we feel Islam is very strict religion and is being strictly followed literally today by many Muslim countries and Islamic fundamentalists, including in West. That is not a case with many other faiths. For example, if you go to a Buddhist temple and get purified (convert?) for marriage and later decide to be a Christian, there is nothing against you. In Gita, Lord Krishna said punishment to an atheist is “they will not have benefit of my knowledge” and no other punishment. Islam, as being followed today, should not be taken lightly (no fake-conversion). Does it make sense what we are saying? Please include these thoughts in your book.