Russia: Ulema bans Muslim men from marrying non-Muslim women unless children are raised Muslim

[duluxe]

Islam has specific laws on marriage:

It is forbidden for a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man, but a Muslim man can indeed marry a non-Muslim woman from the “People of the Book” — a Christian or a Jew.

Sunni and Shia marital law allows Muslim men (in accord with Qur’an 4:3) to be married to up to four women. Again, this doesn’t apply the other way around. A Muslim woman can be part of a harem, but may not have more than one husband.

Laws governing interfaith marriage protect Islam and allow for the proliferation of Islam via child-bearing, especially in an era of immigration and of people of diverse cultures and religions living side by side in non-Islamic countries. This is because the children must be raised Muslim.

One must also remember that the male in Islam is superior over all — women and disbelievers.

Forced conversion and marriage (rape) of girls is also common in many Islamic regions which perpetrate the idea of the superiority of the Muslim male and the necessity to expand the Islamic religion.

Given these facts, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (DUM) still opted to “ban Muslim men in Russia from marrying non-Muslim women” because the intention to preserve Islamic tradition and law wasn’t quite working as planned. The ulema’s deputy chairman Ildar Alyautdinov stated that “there are many interfaith marriages in Russia,” but “practice shows that children don’t know what faith they belong to when growing up.”

The resulting ban led to a backlash from “senior Muslim clerics across the country,” who preferred to stick with traditional Islamic law, despite the risk of the children abandoning Islam or taking it lightly. The backlash pressured the DUM to alter its ruling. It decided instead to impose conditions on interfaith marriage. Non-Muslim women may now marry Muslim men in Russia after all, according to the amended ruling, as long as they “respect Islamic canon and don’t prevent husbands from raising children in Islamic traditions.”

The DUM has now sent the message that it is watching, and is willing to impose a fatwa to ban interfaith marriage in order to make sure that non-Muslim women submit to the rule that they can only marry Muslim men if they adhere to Islamic law.

 

[duluxe]

A religious ruling that bans Muslim men in Russia from marrying non-Muslim women sparked backlash from senior Muslim clerics across the country this week.

The ruling by the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (DUM)’s advisory council of scholars says that interfaith marriages between Muslim men and non-Muslim women are allowed “in isolated cases” that only local muftis can approve.

“Most interfaith marriages result in a number of problems,” the council of scholars known as the ulema said in the ruling, pointing to possible disagreements over raising children and “absolutely different worldviews, cultures and education.”

A number of high-level Russian Muslim figures disagreed with the legally nonbinding ruling when it was made public this week.

The regional DUM’s ulema in the republic of Tatarstan said it disagreed with the scholars’ “direct interpretation of the verses in the Holy Quran,” the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday.

The Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia, an association of regional Muslim organizations, said it “respects” the ruling but referred to the Quran’s express permission for Muslim men to marry Christian and Jewish women.

The DUM’s deputy chairman Damir Mukhetdinov admitted that “in this particular matter, the opinions differ and part of our clergy does not support or only partially supports the fatwa in question.”

The DUM scholars later clarified that non-Muslim women could marry Muslim men as long as they “respect Islamic canon and don’t prevent husbands from raising children in Islamic traditions.”

The ulema’s deputy chairman Ildar Alyautdinov, however, maintained that the controversial ruling was prompted by “increasing divorce rates, society’s weakening religious foundations and lack of spiritual education in families.”

“There are many interfaith marriages in Russia,” he said. “Practice shows that children don’t know what faith they belong to when growing up.”

“In most cases, interfaith marriages are dissolved due to frequent misunderstandings between the spouses and their relatives.”…