Is marriage for the sake of benefit permissible?

Al-Halabi : Is marriage for the sake of benefit permissible?

The Shaykh : This is a new expression, and this new expression cannot be answered until its content is clarified. For example, what comes to my mind is that a Muslim wants to reside in the lands of disbelief and wants to acquire the nationality of the disbelievers, which is not permissible. So he marries an American woman because this marriage, under that law of the disbelievers, justifies for this married man to obtain the nationality of the disbelievers. And there is no pride in that; it is darkness upon darkness. What is built upon what is defective is defective, and what is built upon what is forbidden is forbidden. However, if it is asked, "What is the ruling on the marriage of a Muslim to a woman from the People of the Book?" we say that even if that hidden benefit mentioned in that question just now did not exist,

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Yes, I say that this marriage today, without regard for that alleged benefit, I do not see it as permissible. This is a point that many of those who take the lead in issuing rulings to people on what is forbidden and what is lawful, and what is permissible and what is not, overlook. This is because the basis upon which the well-known ruling of the permissibility of a Muslim marrying a woman from the People of the Book, whether she is Jewish or Christian, is established, is based on the saying of Allah the Exalted: And from here, as will become apparent, the great difference appears between traditional jurisprudence, which is confined to texts that do not rely on the legal evidence from the Book and the Sunnah, and jurisprudence derived from the Book and the Sunnah. The Qur'an restricts marriage to women from the People of the Book with the word "chaste." Jurisprudence does not restrict it; it says marriage to women from the People of the Book is permissible. So if we return to the text upon which this jurisprudence is based, despite its brevity in expression, the text is understood by every Arab, and indeed by every non-Arab who has become Arabized like me, to mean that marriage to a woman from the People of the Book is conditional upon her being chaste. And the meaning of "chaste" is one who is modest and has guarded her private parts. To the extent that we hear, and may Allah spare us from living in those polluted lands, it is enough of evil, as they say, to hear about it. We hear from those who have been afflicted with residing in those lands that it is very, very rare, or perhaps it is completely nonexistent, for a girl to reach the age of fifteen or twenty and be, what, chaste and guarded? This is almost nonexistent, if not actually nonexistent. Therefore, it is not permissible for a Muslim to allow himself to marry such women from the People of the Book. And as they say, if I forget, I will not forget a man from the Turkish officers who arrived in their wars in Europe with the Ottoman armies that reached some countries like Bulgaria and Austria. This man told me, and I was of course in Damascus and in my youth, that there is a custom in some of those lands—I have forgotten now whether he named Austria or Bulgaria. He said: When a pregnant woman gives birth, if it is a girl, the midwife, if you use that Syrian term, "tub'isaha," meaning she inserts her finger into her private part and breaks her virginity in advance. Why? So that when she reaches the age of women and associates with young men and they enjoy her through what is forbidden, and then her husband marries her, they claim, he finds her virginity broken. They say, "No, this one has not been a woman of two husbands since she was born." So the matter reached this point in those lands. Therefore, marriage to a woman from the People of the Book is not permissible today in such an environment, even if it were to guard himself or guard her, unless she has embraced Islam and repented to Allah the Mighty and Majestic, in which case it has a different ruling.