I have a question regarding people who practice Reiki. Is it permissible in Islam to marry someone who practices Reiki, which includes Chinese words chanting and drawing Chinese symbols on body? What should a husband do if he finds out that his wife practices and believes Reiki feverishly and does it even after she prays Salat?

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. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.

We have already issued Fatwa 89819 clarifying that it is not permissible to practise this spiritual sport called ''Reiki'', and that it is based on disbelief. However, this does not mean that every person who does this sport goes out of the fold of Islam. Some Muslims may practise it while not knowing that it is linked to some un-Islamic ideologies, so one has to inform them about this, then if they stop practising it, they are Muslims, and they have the same rights and obligations like all other Muslims. In this case it is permissible to marry their women and marry off Muslim women to them. However, if they insist on this after the people who have enough knowledge clarify the truth to them and establish the evidence against them, then it is not permissible give Muslim women to them in marriage or marry their women. The same thing applies to the wife, if she believes in these un-Islamic ideologies which this spiritual sport involves, and did not repent from them after establishing the evidence against her, then it is not permissible to keep her as a wife. Allaah Says (what means): {Likewise, hold not the disbelieving women as wives.}[Quran 60:10].

Nonetheless, it appears that this description does not apply to the wife in question as she performs the prayer, because she might be from the first category of people who do not know that this sport involves disbelief. So, one should explain to her the matter, then if she is not convinced with what her husband tells her, she may ask the scholars whom she trusts to rid her misconceptions.

For more benefit on a Muslim who does some acts of disbelief, please refer to Fatwa 84943. 

Allaah Knows best.