Her parents do not know about her secret marriage and want to marry her off Fatwa No: 92639
- Fatwa Date:12-12-2006
Assalamalaikum, I am 23 years old Girl who is Secretly Married with out my Parents/Guardian Permission, as the problem is I am working and did not wanted to do anything Illegal in the eyes of Allah, so I married a Married person who is Religiously committed who bought the Khazi and 2 witnesses and they asked my permission through Telephone without my Real Name, Recently I went to one Fatwa which is similar to mine – http://www.islamqa.com/index.php?ref=91688&ln=eng&txt=urfi%20marriage As even I do not know how long our marriage will work because my parents are searching a boy for me. I AM NOT ABLE TO TELL ANYTHING TO ANYONE
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.
If the matter is as you mentioned in the question, then the marriage contract is void for two reasons:
1- This marriage contract was conducted without the consent of your guardian, and the consent of the guardian is one of the conditions for the validity of the marriage contract, according to the most preponderant opinion of the scholars . For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 82262 and 83629.
2- Defining and specifying the two spouses, is also one of the conditions of a valid marriage contract, in order for the witnesses to be able to testify. The scholars stated that specifying the two spouses could either be by naming the couple, or by pointing at them, or by knowing their description. Since nothing of the above took place in specifying you, then the witnessing took place on something unknown, therefore the marriage contract is void. What is worse is that the matter took place through the phone; for more benefit in this regard, please refer to Fatwa 83780.
Therefore, this marriage contract must be invalidated, and you should stay away from this man and not allow him to have sexual intercourse with you since he is not a real husband. If he does not agree to this or you fear any harm from him, then take the matter to an institution which is specialized in looking into personal matters in that country so that they would separate between you. If there are any children from this marriage, they should be traced back to this man because he married you while believing that the marriage contract is valid.
If you are able to convince your guardian to renew your marriage contract with this man with the presence of two witnesses, without informing him about the invalid marriage contract which you conducted before, then do so. However, if this is not possible, then you are obliged to inform him about that marriage if he attempts to marry you off to another man while you are still in the waiting period from the first marriage. In this case, you may seek the help of some righteous people to solve the problem in a wise manner with your guardian.
For more benefit on the rulings of a waiting period from an invalid marriage, please refer to Fatwa 86301.
Finally, it should be noted that a Muslim should deal with care about things which he does not know the religious ruling for, so one should ask the scholars first of all, especially in matters which are related to marriage.
Allaah Knows best.