Interfaith marriage fatwa feeds debate in Egypt
An Islamic scholar has stated that the Quran does not forbid Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men as the endless debate on interfaith marriage continues in Egypt.
CAIRO — An Islamic scholar has stirred up major debates by backing the marriage of Muslim women and non-Muslim men, an issue always dealt with nervously by the religious establishment and pro-establishment scholars.
Amna Nosier, a professor of Islamic philosophy at Al-Azhar University and a member of the Egyptian Parliament, said there is no text in the Quran that bans the marriage of Muslim women and non-Muslim men. Islam permits Muslim men to marry non-Muslim women, provided that they do not prevent them from observing their faith.
There are many instances of Muslim men, including celebrities, who have married non-Muslim women. Egypt's former minister of religious endowments, Mahmud Hamdi Zakzouk, who died in April this year, was married to a German Christian woman.
Speaking on al-Hadath al-Youm TV Nov. 17, Nosier added that the question is especially clear if the men are Christians or Jews, which Islam calls “people of the book."
