I am a divorced Christian woman with two children from my first marriage. I have been seeing a Muslim man who wants to marry me and has told me he wants me to give him two children of his own seed. He has also told me his children will be raised as Muslims. I do love him and I think he is a wonderful man. If I am raising the two children I already have as Christians and I take them to church regularly, how can I have two children who are Christians and two who are Muslim? He has not said anything in particular about the religion of my two kids, and he knows about my church involvement. Should I turn down this marriage offer, or could this work? How would this work in a home?

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

First of all, we thank you for trusting our site and for sending this question to us.

As regards your question, it is permissible in Islam for a Muslim man to marry a chaste Christian woman; Allaah Says (what means): {This day [all] good foods have been made lawful, and the food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you and your food is lawful for them. And [lawful in marriage are] chaste women from among the believers and chaste women from among those who were given the Scripture before you.}[Quran 5:5]

As regards your children, then you are their mother and you are the one who is responsible for them. Nonetheless, we do not think that this man is willing to oblige you to nurture them according to Islam, however, since he thinks that the good is in embracing Islam, he would wish to bring them up according to Islam, and his religion orders him to invite you in particular to Islam and call other people to it as well.

As regards having two Christian children and two Muslim children, then there is no problem in this and if it is predestined that you will have two children from a Muslim husband, then they will follow him in religion (i.e. they will be Muslims).

In any case, if you see that this will be a problem for you, then you may refrain from marrying this Muslim man, but the fact remains that Islam is the religion of the truth by which Allaah abrogated all previous religions. After the advent of Islam, Allaah will not accept from anyone a religion other than it. Hence, we seize this opportunity to invite you to read about Islam. It appears from your question that you are rational and this will enable you to read about it without being biased or prejudiced. For more benefit on an introduction about Islam, please refer to Fataawa 88051, 88906, 81979, 111063, 86091 and 102075.

On the other hand, Christianity includes much falsehood and deviated beliefs in addition to the irrefutable contradictions between the Gospels. In this regard, please refer to Fataawa 90986 and 85307.

Allaah Knows best.