Is forced marriage allowed in Islam?

If you are being pressured into a marriage you do not want and you fear for your safety, call your local emergency number. In the UK, the government’s Forced Marriage Unit answers on +44 (0)20 7008 0151; in the US, the Tahirih Justice Center’s Forced Marriage Initiative offers help.

Forced marriage is haram in Islam. Marriage in the sharia is a contract, and a contract needs the free agreement of the people who make it. When a young woman of Medina told the Prophet ﷺ that her father had married her to a man she did not want, he annulled the marriage. Parents may advise, introduce, and pray for their children. They may not choose a spouse for an adult son or daughter against their will.

What does the Quran say about forced marriage?

The Quran addresses women’s consent in the same passage of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ that sets out the duties of marriage. Before Islam, a dead man’s heirs could take his widow as part of the estate. The Quran ended the practice:

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ لَا يَحِلُّ لَكُمۡ أَن تَرِثُواْ ٱلنِّسَآءَ كَرۡهٗا

“You who believe, it is unlawful for you to take possession of women against their will.”

Quran 4:19

The key word is karhan (كَرۡهًا), “against their will.” A woman is a person who makes her own choices, and no relative may pass her from hand to hand. The same verse commands husbands to live with their wives “in kindness” (bil-maʿrūf), and two verses later the Quran calls marriage a “solemn covenant” (mīthāqan ghalīẓan) that the wife herself takes from her husband (Quran 4:21). A covenant is something a person enters with open eyes.

Did the Prophet ﷺ let fathers force their daughters to marry?

He did the opposite. Khansāʾ bint Khidhām of the Anṣār (may Allah be pleased with her) had been married before. Her father married her to a man without her agreement, she objected, and she went to the Prophet ﷺ. He annulled the marriage (Sahih al-Bukhari 5138), and she later married Abū Lubāba (Sunan Ibn Majah 1873). Imam al-Bukhari placed this report under a chapter heading that states the ruling: “When a man marries off his daughter against her will, the marriage is rejected.”

The same mercy reached young women marrying for the first time. Ibn ʿAbbās reported that a virgin girl came to the Prophet ﷺ and said her father had married her off while she was unwilling, and the Prophet ﷺ gave her the choice to keep or end the marriage (Sunan Abi Dawud 2096, graded sahih by al-Albani). In a longer version of a similar story, the young woman accepts her father’s choice once it is placed in her hands, and then explains why she came: “I wanted women to know that fathers have no say in this matter.” That version’s chain was graded weak by al-Albani (Sunan Ibn Majah 1874), but its meaning matches the sound reports.

The Prophet ﷺ also set the rule in words:

«الأَيِّمُ أَحَقُّ بِنَفْسِهَا مِنْ وَلِيِّهَا وَالْبِكْرُ تُسْتَأْذَنُ فِي نَفْسِهَا وَإِذْنُهَا صُمَاتُهَا»

“A woman without a husband has more right over herself than her guardian. A young woman marrying for the first time is asked for her permission, and her silence is her permission.”

Sahih Muslim 1421a

When Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) pointed out that a shy young woman might find it hard to speak, the Prophet ﷺ accepted her silence as consent (Sahih al-Bukhari 5137). The concession protects a shy bride from having to announce her wishes in front of her family. It gives no cover to a family that frightens a daughter into silence: the women in these reports were heard when they objected, and their marriages were undone.

What do the schools of Islamic law say?

The scholars differed (ikhtalafa al-ʿulamāʾ) over a father’s power to marry off a virgin daughter. Many Maliki and Shafi’i jurists of the classical period gave the father a power of compulsion (ijbār) over a virgin daughter of any age, reasoning that a father’s love would guide his choice.

The Hanafi school took the view the hadiths support: guardianship that can conclude a marriage without consent applies only to children, and an adult woman cannot be married without her own agreement. Abu Hanifa held that an adult woman may even contract her own marriage (see Can a Muslim woman marry without a wali?). Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350), a Hanbali, argued forcefully in Zād al-Maʿād against compelling an adult virgin. A father, he observed, may not touch the smallest part of his grown daughter’s money without her consent, so how could he hand over her whole life without it? In Jaʿfari (Shia) fiqh, too, an adult woman’s own consent is required.

Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta follows the Hanafi view and rules that marrying off an adult woman without her consent is impermissible, even to a suitable match. Egypt’s Court of Cassation applied the same principle in 1994. This is the sound position (al-ṣaḥīḥ): it follows the Prophet’s own judgment in the case of Khansāʾ.

The consent of men matters equally. The groom’s acceptance (qabūl) is a pillar of the contract in every school, and pressuring a son into marriage carries the same wrong.

Is arranged marriage the same as forced marriage?

No. An arranged marriage, where families suggest a match and the couple freely decide, has a long and happy place in Muslim life. Parents know their children, and their advice is a gift. What turns an arrangement into a forced marriage is pressure: threats, emotional blackmail, confiscated passports, a trip abroad that turns into a wedding, or the warning that refusing will shame the family.

Marrying off children is a related wrong. Many Muslim-majority countries now set eighteen as the minimum age of marriage, and the objectives of the sharia (maqāṣid al-sharīʿa) protect children from contracts they cannot understand; the question of history is discussed in How old was Aisha when she married the Prophet?.

Some families push a gay son or daughter into marriage in the hope of a cure. That marriage wrongs two people at once, and the Islamic answer is mercy and honesty (Is it permissible to disown your child for being gay?).

What can I do if my family is forcing me to marry?

• Say no clearly, as early as you can. The Sunnah gives you the right to refuse, and kindness to parents never includes obeying them in wronging yourself (Do I have to obey my parents in everything?).
• Find someone you trust: an imam, a teacher, a relative, or a counselor who will speak for you.
• If a marriage has already been forced on you, you may seek its annulment (faskh) before a Muslim judge or an Islamic council, and through the civil courts. Ending a marriage you never chose carries no blame (Is divorce haram in Islam?).
• Use the law. Forcing someone to marry has been a criminal offence in England and Wales since 2014, and the Forced Marriage Unit helps British nationals at home and abroad. In the US, the Tahirih Justice Center’s Forced Marriage Initiative supports people at risk.

A marriage of love and mercy

The Quran describes the marriage Allah intends in a single verse:

وَمِنۡ ءَايَٰتِهِۦٓ أَنۡ خَلَقَ لَكُم مِّنۡ أَنفُسِكُمۡ أَزۡوَٰجٗا لِّتَسۡكُنُوٓاْ إِلَيۡهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيۡنَكُم مَّوَدَّةٗ وَرَحۡمَةً

“Among His signs is that He created for you, from among yourselves, spouses so that you might find rest in them, and He placed love and mercy between you.”

Quran 30:21

Rest, love, and mercy cannot be commanded into a heart. They grow between two people who chose each other. May Allah give every son and daughter a spouse they love, and give every parent the wisdom to bless a choice that is their child’s to make.