Answer
Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
It is not allowed in Islam to have a relation with a girl out of the wedlock. Also, marriage must be built on consent between a man and a woman. The consent of parents, though not a must, should be taken in consideration in order not to endanger kinship ties and to maintain stability of the marriage.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Islam does not allow us to form an illicit liaison with a woman. However, there is nothing wrong if you did have a natural attraction and a feeling of love for someone, as long as you did not trespass the limits of Allah.
Therefore, if you did go beyond the limits in marinating the relationship with her, you need to ask forgiveness of Allah.
After having done so, you may marry her, if her parents give consent, and she agrees to it. If she changes her mind, then the marriage cannot be valid.
The mutual consent (of both the man and the woman) is an essential requirement of marriage in Islam.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.