Magazine Articles

= written by Amr Khaled =

2 * The Orfi Marriage 

The Unregistered ‘orfi’ Marriage is Forbidden ‘Haram’

We all know that and we all have memorized it!!  Therefore Mr. Amr Khaled will not stop today at renouncing that type of marriage in terms of the social and esthetical aspects only, but he will also present practical and religious solutions to quickly avoid this problem immediately!!

In an interview conducted with him by Mr. Isam Al-Gazi for 'Kul Al-Nass' magazine on Wednesday 22.10.2003.

Here is the text of the interview:

The phenomenon of orfi marriage among the young people and even school students, despite all its destructive effects, yet you can still find some people who defend it or at least justify it and think the youths can be excused as they have no other alternative!

Mr. Amr Khaled the Islamic figure responds sternly to these people and emphasizes that this phenomenon is socially, esthetically and even religiously rejected because a marriage without a guardian for the bride, or a declaration is haram 'forbidden'. Mr. Amr Khaled does not only denounce such a marriage but also suggests some solutions to help the youths to marry without going against the will of their families or demeaning women or disobeying the Laws of Allah.

((The Paper Does not commit me to anything….))

I asked Amr Khaled, “It has become a phenomenon for some university students (males and females) to marry themselves to each other without the knowledge of their families or declaring such undocumented marriage, known as 'orfi' marriage. What do you think of this type of marriage?”

Amr Khaled, “I have a social response and a religious one.”

The first: The logic of the young man or student says, “She loves me and I love her, so we have no option but to marry. Our financial situation does not allow us to have a home of our own; we marry secretly because we have desires and we'll have long years to wait before we can marry. When we graduate we will tell our families and declare our marriage. But for now, we will invite two of our friends to bear witness for our 'orfi' marriage certificate. We marry like then, only to avoid anything haram”.  But this is only half the story.  The other half goes like this: After 4 months he will tell the girl, “I am sorry, but my family will never approve our marriage”. Then he will start to mistreat her, and may even tell her that the paper of the marriage is of no value and it does not entail any obligations.

What I'm saying happens always and is repeated to the letter every time. All similar stories have this same ending. I present this ending to the girls to remember and not fall victims and then feel lost!

((She, who gives herself freely, will have no one to marry her….))

Why did the young man resort to such an ending even if the girl loved him?  He is either a bad person or he is not. If he is bad, then he just wanted to enjoy himself and he did; as for you, my girl, you have degraded yourself.  But if that boy was a good person, he would leave her simply because he can't marry a girl who gave herself so freely. She degraded herself. Yes you have degraded yourself, my girl.

That is why marriages call for celebrations, a dowry, an engagement gift and dinners. All these are confirmation of the marriage. The bridegroom having to go to ask for the girl's hand from her father, and her family taking their time to think it over and ask for Allah's guidance, and then reply to the bridegroom, all this is meant to give the girl high value.  It must be understood that when a man finds a girl who gives herself freely, he will think of her as cheap.

This is the basic point: A man who finds an easy girlfriend; marries an 'orfi' marriage without any obligations behind the back of the girl's family, will find that girl cheap, and if he considers her cheap he will never marry her as he should.

((Absence of Awareness….))

Question: There are some youths who insist that they had pure intentions when they married their girlfriends, and they got married in this way (orfi) only to avoid falling into sin … How do you see that?

Answer: I would respond by saying: No, these were not true feelings, only evil temptations. Satan has his ways to make you believe that your intentions are pure. The proof that these are but evil temptations is in the fact that not a single case of (orfi) marriage has ended in a valid marriage, and having a family and children.

The religious response to this phenomenon is that (orfi) marriage among students is haram 'forbidden'… because some of the basics of the legal marriage contract are the declaration of the marriage and the presence of fair witnesses who are trustworthy and honest.  Thus, I would like to advise the girls who are in secondary school level up to the third year of university or who are 16 to 19 years old, that they are at the adolescence age where a girl cannot realize the seriousness of her actions. Many people think that a girl with such an experience is bad, but I say that a large number of the girls who married orfi were not aware of what they did. I repeat my advice to the girls in such an age: Please do not fall into this disaster.

((Spinsterhood and Unemployment….))

Question: After graduation from the university, a young man may not find a job, and will be getting older, and the girl also would stay at home because she could not find a job… getting an apartment for marriage is not easy, and can take a long time. So there are two monsters lurking for the youths: spinsterhood and unemployment, that’s why they decide to marry orfi marriage to escape the responsibility of having to find an apartment, paying the dowry and furnishing the marriage home… What do you say in such a case?

Answer: There is a question: Can we marry without the consent of our families? I ask the girls in particular.  A father may die if he discovered that his daughter did such a thing, and the same goes to the mother.

Question: But, Mr. Amr, the girl says she is now 30 years old and soon will be 35 without getting married?

Answer: There are two points: The first is I can not marry without the consent of my family because if I did I will have no blessing, and without blessing the marriage will certainly fail. And if the parents knew about it they would invoke Allah against their daughter, which will bring the wrath of Allah upon her.

The second point is a word I would like to direct to the parents of these boys and girls. Those young men and women are growing in front of your eyes and they have their desires that should be satisfied and emotions that should be appeased, so why don’t those parents attempt to help their children?

((The Family’s Responsibility….))

We want to give practical solutions to this problem. If a young man who has no money to start a family asks to marry your daughter, and he is a man in the real sense of the word, why don’t you marry them and help him until he can stand on his own feet? If he was an opportunist do not accept him even if he has money. The Prophet (PBUH) has helped Ali Bin Abi-Talib in getting the house in which he married Fatema. So instead of crying because your daughter has married an orfi marriage behind your back, help her to marry the man she deserves before she gets old, despairs and resorts to desperate solutions.

Where are the friendly father and the friendly mother we keep talking about? The two families can cooperate to help the couple have their home.

Another practical solution: Where are the marriage funds established by the government? In some countries the governments have established marriage funds to help their youths to get married and even encourage them to do so.  There are even advertisements we see at the airports of some Muslim countries that say: Participate with us to marry a couple, and the people would happily contribute and donate to have the marriage completed.  Why can’t this be generalized in all Muslim countries? What obstacles are there to prevent the application of such an idea at the level of the family, the company, the corporation, the clubs and the private societies? Facilitating the opening of Halal doors will close the Haram ones.

((Marriage Funds….))

Question: Some youths say that the documented marriage contract is only 100 years old, while the in the remaining 1400 years of Islam, there was no documentation of contracts. They say, “what did we do? We only applied what was happening before the last 100 years!”

Answer: Yes actually there were no documented contracts in the 1400 years, and this type of contract was only introduced later as the number of people increased, and the distances got further. People no longer knew each other, so the written contract played the role of the society in the 1400 years prior to the last 100 years.  If you do not want to sign a contract, at least declare your marriage like in the days of the Prophet (PBUH). Announce in a widely spread newspaper that such man married such girl. This is to protect the girl and preserve her rights. But if a man does not do so, I warn the girl who is about to marry him to be aware of this man because he is not trustworthy.

Back to the solutions then, I say the solution is in the marriage fund that is established by the government or the eldest person in the family.  I, through your magazine, call upon the ministries of social affairs to adopt and announce this project, I also call upon the government agencies, the companies, clubs, businessmen and the large families to establish such funds which will strengthen the family relations and the care for each other. Why don’t the boards of directors in social and sport clubs encourage the establishment of such fund? And where is the media from disseminating this idea? These are practical initiatives and solutions that will save our children from falling into the trap of orfi marriage or even fornication both of which have started to spread alarmingly in our societies and which can lead to their collapse.

((No justification for Deception….))

Question: There is a third form of orfi marriage, where those who do it think their marriage is valid. It is in a case where the wife is getting the pension of her dead husband, and where she to marry she would lose that pension which she needs, so she is forced to marry orfi?

Answer: This is another story altogether, we do not accept deceiving the government because our religion and our ethics prevent us from doing it.  But the laws of the country should also consider the people's requirements.  The woman here resorts to orfi marriage because she does not want to lose the pension, the government then should take that into consideration and set Laws which preserve the right of women as a citizens, and allow them to marry in the open without deceiving the government.  This will also prevent people from learning ways to deceive their governments.

((Civil Marriage….))

Question: Is the orfi marriage a form of a civilized marriage that is accepted in the whole world except the Islamic world, known as the civil marriage?

Answer: Does the definition of the word ‘civilized’ mean anything that is new regardless if it is of benefit or not? Or does civilized mean everything that meets with the human spirit and values? Does the definition of civilization mean that I eat hamburger sandwiches and smoke Shisha with a girl in a cafeteria in the street? If we understand civilization as such, then we are one thousand years backward, because civilization always meets with the values of the society. So does the orfi marriage, at its present form, meet with the values of the society? Or does it dissociate the family and leads to problems among the people, and to husbands who do not respect their wives after only a short period of time?

Just ask those who married in this way, how much they suffered!

A girl who has been disowned by her family has no value, and if she has a disagreement with her husband she cannot go back to her father’s house, as is usually the case. The girl will then feel humiliated twice, once by her husband, and a second time by her family. Is that a civilized way?  The concept of civilization is that it leads to happiness for people, but the orfi marriage leads only to misery and collapse. Civilization does not mean that we use mobiles and live in skyscrapers.  The definition of civilization for sociologists is that it leads to more benefit and happiness to the human beings!

((Marriage of Convenience…..))

There is another form of orfi marriage; it is when a very old manager marries his young pretty secretary an orfi marriage.  This is a marriage of convenience for both, where the secretary wants a better financial post and the employer wants enjoyment with a young girl. This is the same whether the marriage was an orfi or a valid marriage. Such a marriage will not last because a home must be built by a couple that want to start a family that will play a role in the advancement of the society.

Question: What, then, can a person do who has already married an (orfi) marriage?

Answer:

First: he should repent from this forbidden form of marriage. The conditions of repentance are:

1-     Regretting the sin.

2-     Discontinuing the sin.

3-     Determination not to go back to the sin.

If a person does that, his repentance is complete and Allah Will forgive him ISA.

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