What is your advice to women regarding their refusal of plural marriage?

The questioner : Shaykh, I would like, while you are speaking about the Algerians, to clarify a point we have been discussing for a while, if Allah wills, regarding plural marriage in Algeria. The youth, meaning if we look at the Algerian population comprehensively, we see that about seventy percent or more are young people, and the girls far outnumber the men...

The Shaykh : in number.

The questioner : I mean in number.

The Shaykh : I mean the girls outnumber the young men in number?

The questioner : I mean the young people in Algeria, meaning they make up 70% of the Algerian population, and we have many girls compared to the young men, meaning the men.

The Shaykh : I mean more than the young men?

The questioner : And the issue of plural marriage that you are speaking about, plural marriage, one woman out of three, meaning she does not want it, and she does not want a second wife for her husband, and she prefers to be outside, meaning she gets divorced, or she does not get married at all. So what do you advise us, O Shaykh, so that we may benefit our youth there from your advice?

The Shaykh : Do I understand from you that the youth do not turn to marriage, and the young women as well, or what?

The questioner : The youth in our country, even if we did not have a housing crisis, the crisis exists in our country, and even if there is no job crisis, jobs in Algeria, even if there is a job and no housing crisis, the youth are not possible, except if the number of wives, meaning for all the girls to get married, there must be plural marriage. And when we speak to our daughter and tell her: It is obligatory for you to be satisfied, to be content with another wife for your husband, she says no, I do not accept it, I prefer to remain single or get divorced if I see that my husband is going to change and bring in a second one. This is common talk in Algeria, so what is your opinion, O Shaykh?

The Shaykh : This is in all the lands of Islam, not just with you, the problem is general, and we have it here and in Syria as well; because this is part of the Western intellectual invasion of the lands of Islam; because the disbelievers take issue with Muslims about many things, including plural marriage, and perhaps you know that many Islamic writers were confused by the propaganda of the disbelievers, and this propaganda reached strongly with some Egyptian men who lived in France, and returned from there to Egypt, so they spread there what relates to women's freedom and limited the issue of marrying more than one woman to what relates to dire necessity. And so we have heard on the Egyptian radio repeatedly and over and over that Islam does not encourage plural marriage, but rather that is for dire necessity, and they interpret the verse that says: , that they combine the two verses, and they claim that the verse which states that it is not possible to be just between them, negates the permissibility of plural marriage except for dire necessity, and this is a distortion of the divine speech from its place. And the reality is that Allah Mighty and Majestic permitted plural marriage, indeed He encouraged it; because His saying the Exalted in the famous verse: this verse was clarified by the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that it is not only for permission and allowance, but for indicating the virtue, when he said, may the prayer and peace be upon him: So increasing the number of the Ummah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) has only one cause, which is that a man increases his women wives by the number that the Noble Qur'an permitted him, which is four women. And upon that proceeded the Sunnah of the Salaf, so many of the Companions had more than one wife, like Abu Bakr for example, and Ali, and others. So increasing the number is achieved by this means, and decreasing the number is achieved by restricting Muslims from marrying more than one. So upon that, the Muslim girls who take that position, which is not accepting to be a wife to a married husband, or remaining as you said a spinster, or if she is married and her husband wants to marry over her, she chooses divorce, this is without doubt from the inspiration of Western upbringing. And without doubt that the Islamic lands were invaded intellectually in their own homes by some disbelievers since about a century ago, or less or more depending on the difference of the countries that were colonized. And so when the French withdrew from your land Algeria, or from our land Syria, or from elsewhere, they withdrew with their armies, but they left behind their ideas and their customs. And among the customs of the French and others is to walk in the streets bareheaded, and to shave their beards, and this is a custom widespread in the lands of Islam to this day. The French custom is to shave their mustaches with the beard, the British shave their beards and keep their mustaches, and so on. And this is a phenomenon we have seen embodied in the Syrian people, because they were colonized by France for many years, and then at the end of the withdrawal of the French army came the Vichy army and with it a British army, so the custom changed. The youth used to shave their beards with their mustaches in the time of the French, and when the British settled, they did not stay but a year, less or more, I do not remember, and the youth continued to shave the beards, but they grew the mustaches. The French used to shave their heads up to here, and everything around it was clean, and then when the British came they changed the picture. And so on. The point is: that the idea of Muslim girls refusing plural marriage, this is a very dangerous idea, and contrary to the Islamic Shari'ah. And they must cast aside personal desires and submit themselves to the rulings of the Shari'ah, otherwise they will not be truly righteous Muslim women as some of them may claim to be committed, but when she is confronted with such a ruling of the Shari'ah, she is offended. And Allah Mighty and Majestic says in the clear Qur'an: So we advise the young women, indeed the youth, to remove from their ideas the issue of the impermissibility of plural marriage except for dire necessity, but rather it is permissible without dire necessity, and that is better for the Muslim youth, even from the aspect of desire, that he satisfies his desire by the lawful, by the second wife, is better for him than that he satisfies his desire by the unlawful by taking concubines and companions by the unlawful. And Allah is the Helper.