I have a friend who is Muslim and she is in love with a Muslim boy and they want to get married but her parents oppose it.
Can she make nikkah without the parents’ consent?
Answer
In this counseling answer:
-It would be wise for them to first try and get their parents on board to avoid any potential conflict.
-The boy should approach the girl’s family and arrange a meeting between the 2 families as a means to get to know one another.
-Get the families together a few times to get to know one another and develop relationships that moving forward with a marriage will be easier and more natural.
-The way forward is to begin by understanding their parents’ reasoning for not supporting their marriage and then use this understanding of their thoughts to work towards getting their support.
Wa alaikum salaam wa rahmatulahi wa barakatuh,
I can’t advise on the fiqhi matters here so I’d first advise you to seek scholarly advice regarding the permissibility of marrying without parental consent.
Regardless of the ruling on this, it is important that they take a good look into their situation and decide whether getting married is what is best for them. If it is indeed OK for them to wed without parental consent, they should be aware of the difficulties it may cause them to do this.
It is possible for a marriage to work with the support of parents, but it makes it so much easier and comfortable in both the short and long run if the parents and wider family support the marriage. If there is no support it could even cause difficulties in the marriage.
Regardless of whether it is permissible or not, it would be wise for them to first try and get their parents on board to avoid any potential conflict. Ideally, the boy should approach the girl’s family and arrange a meeting between the 2 families as a means to get to know one another.
Sometimes this alone can be helpful in getting the parents to agree. After all, who wants to marry their child to someone they barely know?
Get the families together a few times to get to know one another and develop relationships that moving forward with a marriage will be easier and more natural. If there is some particular reason why the parents don’t want the marriage to happen then this will be a good time to talk it out, or get rid of any stereotypes that may be held about the other family.
If they are still unable to convince their families then they need to think seriously about whether it is worth going against them. They should look to why it is that their parents aren’t keen?
It may be that they are not happy that they have possibly had a relationship before marriage and see the dangers in this and don’t feel they could endorse the marriage as a result. Perhaps there is something about the boy that they don’t like that she can’t see because she has developed such strong feelings for him.
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This is something for them both to be aware of if this is the case. If it is that they don’t like the family he comes from then the meetings addressed in the previous paragraph should help to fix this.
Alternatively, it may just be that the parents feel they are too young and are not ready for marriage yet, or they are afraid to let them get married and leave the family home. This is something that many parents go through as their children get older.
Essentially, the way forward is to begin by understanding their parents’ reasoning for not supporting their marriage and then use this understanding of their thoughts to work towards getting their support ideally as a good way to start a marriage and union between 2 families.
May Allah guide them to what is best and grant them, spouses, from Jannah who will be the coolness or their eyes in this life and the next.
Salam,
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