What is the ruling on marrying a woman from the People of the Book in the lands of disbelief?

The questioner : What is the ruling on marrying a Christian woman from the People of the Book in the lands of disbelief? For example, marrying a Russian Christian woman. Yes?

The Shaykh : We say today that it is not permissible for a Muslim to marry a woman from the People of the Book, whether she is Jewish or Christian, and especially in the lands of disbelief. We say this while remembering the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and the consensus of the Muslims that arose. I mean by the consensus of the Muslims that arose, the consensus on the permissibility of a Muslim marrying a woman from the People of the Book. I say "arose" because there was an old disagreement among the Companions regarding marriage to a non-Muslim woman from the People of the Book, but the consensus settled on permissibility afterwards due to the explicit statement of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) in the Qur'an: . I am saying what I said earlier while remembering this Qur'anic text and the consensus that the scholars reached later. However, this ruling does not imply more than the fact that it is permissible, just as it is permissible for a Muslim to marry a Muslim woman even if she is not committed to the rulings of her religion. But it is not prescribed for this Muslim to marry a Muslim woman whose open sinfulness and licentiousness he knows of, even though she is a Muslim and testifies that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and she may perform some of the pillars or obligations at times. So she is fine...

The questioner : It is not prescribed.

The Shaykh : It is not prescribed, I mean it is not prescribed in the sense that if he contracts the marriage, the contract is not invalid. No, it is not prescribed for him to propose marriage to her. This meaning is also part of the jurisprudence that a student of knowledge should pay attention to when he hears the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): , and in another wording: , to the end of the hadith. Do you not see that this address is to the guardian of the young man, not the young women? This address is to the guardian of the girl. Is it not said to the guardian of the young man that he should choose a Muslim girl for his son? If he does not do so, what will be the result? There will be corruption in the land. So there is no difference, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said on another occasion: . Just as it is obligatory for the young man to choose a believer based on his saying: , so it is said to the woman that she should follow this path. There is no difference between women and men in this regard or from this perspective. I said what I said earlier. If it is not prescribed for a Muslim to choose a Muslim woman who is not committed as his wife, then it is not prescribed for him in this time, due to what will be explained now, to marry a woman from the People of the Book. Why? And especially if you mention with me the previous condition, in the lands of disbelief. But the answer now in general is that the religious deterrent in men is weak in general, and this deterrent is confined to a small group of husbands. Therefore, we often hear complaints, whether from men or women, the cause of which is the imbalance between the spouses in terms of adherence to the religion. Either the husband is committed and she is not, or she is committed and he is not. Then disagreement and conflict arise between them, and problems occur, of which you must hear a lot. But the most common problem is as it came in some Western proverbs: when a problem occurs, they say "look for the woman." This is a Western proverb because the corruption there is known to be mostly from women. If the problem of marital discord is between Muslims, then a fortiori, the discord will be between a Muslim husband and a woman from the People of the Book. This is in an Islamic country, although we rarely hear of a Muslim marrying a woman from the People of the Book in a Muslim country; it is rare. But what we hear most is that this marriage takes place in the lands of disbelief. Here, this marriage is more problematic because there are systems and laws there that may cause great harm to the husband if he has children from this wife from the People of the Book, whether she is Russian, German, British, or American. We hear of many tragedies that occur because the man, for example, studied in that foreign country, then claimed he married to protect himself, and better than that, he intended to protect his wife as well. He married, but he did not look at the outcome. He did not think that when the time comes to return to his country, will the wife return with him, or is he guaranteed that the wife will return with him? He did not think about this at all. And even if he did think, did he think that if the wife refuses and does not agree to take the children with him, will it be permitted for him to have her? All of these are problems that occur in those lands. And so it becomes a cause for him to save his feathers, as they say, and leave the wife and children, because he did not think about the future of life, and he did not reflect on the proverb that says, "He who does not look at the consequences, the age is not his companion." Because of these problems, we do not advise the Muslim youth to marry a woman from the People of the Book in Islamic countries, let alone in foreign Western countries, because the outcome is very severe.