A woman divorced from a man who was upon shirk (associating partners with Allah) and married a righteous man, and now her first husband is asking for the children

The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, this is a woman asking, and she says that she was divorced from a man who was upon shirk (associating partners with Allah) and bid'ah (religious innovation), and she has children from him. She has now adopted the correct creed, praise be to Allah, and she has married another man who is upon the correct creed. Her question is: if her first husband is asking to take the children from her, does he have a right to that?

The Shaykh:
The first one is not her husband. She is a Muslim and he is a disbeliever, a mushrik (one who associates partners with Allah); he is not her husband. Therefore, the marriage contract is not invalidated; if she became a Muslim, she is separated from him. If she became a Muslim and he remained upon disbelief, she is separated from him. And if he contracted marriage with her while she was a Muslim, the contract is not valid.

The presenter:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success.

The Shaykh:
As for the matter of the children and the ruling on them, that is with the court. But there is no marriage between a Muslim woman and a disbeliever; it is not contracted anew, and it is not continued if it was contracted previously.