Who Can You Never Marry in Islam? Understanding Permanent Marriage Barriers

Unbreakable Bonds: Permanent Restrictions on Marriage in Islam

Permanent impediments are prohibitions on marriage that are, by nature, unchangeable. In other words, they cannot be removed.

The subject of permanent restrictions to marriage in Islam is one where there are very few differences among the legal schools.

Permanent impediments to marriage include:

➤ Kinship by Blood

• Birth
• Breastfeeding

➤ Kinship by marriage through direct lineage

1 – Islamic Marriage Restriction Based on Birth (Blood Relatives You Cannot Marry)

There are 7 types of wives prohibited based on birth according to the Quran, namely verse 23, sura 4.

‘’Forbidden for you are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal aunts, your maternal aunts, your brother’s daughters, your sister’s daughters”(Quran 4:23)

For reasons of consanguinity, no man or woman can marry:

• Their mother or father;
• Their grandmother or ascendents, whether on the mother’s or the father’s side and their ascendants, regardless of their degree of relationship;
• Their daughter, son, granddaughter or grandson and descendants;

• Their sister or brother of the same parents, their sister or brother by the same father, and their sister or brother by the same mother;
• The daughter of their brother or sister, or the son of their brother or sister and descendants, regardless of their degree of relationship, by the brother or sister;
• Their aunt or uncle on the father’s side and ascendants;
• Their aunt or uncle on the mother’s side and ascendants.

2 – Islamic Marriage Restriction Based on Milk Kinship

Under Muslim law (fiqh), breastfeeding brings about true kinship and triggers the same impediments as connection and kinship by marriage.

This is affirmed in a Hadith:

‘’Breastfeeding makes unlawful what birth makes unlawful‘’
(Muslim Hadith 1444)

• Under Muslim law (fiqh), a breastfed infant is like the child of the woman who nursed the infant and of her husband. Only the breastfed child is like a child to the woman who nursed the infant and her husband, not the brothers and sisters of the breastfed child.

  Milk kinship is, therefore, like blood kinship.

  The idea differs slightly depending on the legal school.

  • The Maliki school believes that this kinship exists from the moment the child is breastfed. The breastfeeding must have occurred within 24 months of birth. The Hanafi school takes exactly the same position as the Maliki school.

   

  • The Shafi’i and Hanbali schools believe that milk kinship exists only if the child has been breastfed at least 5 times. The breastfeeding must have occurred within 24 months of birth.

Spouses’ Direct Ancestors and Descendants (Consummated Marriage)

Marriage is the bond that unites one of the spouses to the parents of his or her partner.

Direct lineage refers to all the ancestors (father, mother, grandfather, grandmother) and descendants (son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter) of the same person.

If the lineage by marriage is direct, the impediment is permanent, but if the lineage is indirect (brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts and their descendants, cousins), the impediment to marriage is only temporary.

Therefore, marriage is prohibited between a husband and the mother or daughter of his wife, for example. This prohibition remains intact even if the wife dies or is repudiated.

In-Laws’ Siblings, Uncles/Aunts, and Cousins: Temporary Impediment After Marriage Ends

Due to kinship by marriage, it is thus prohibited for the husband to marry his wife’s relatives in her ascending or descending lineage at any level, starting from the time they get married, provided that the marriage has been consummated (Quran 4:23).

As for wives, they are prohibited from marrying the father or son of their husbands after the marriage is dissolved, even if the marriage has not been consummated.