Collective marriages

12-10-2003 | IslamWeb

Question:

Please guide us about the nature of collective marriages. These sort of marriages is being held in great numbers nowadays. These were the fashion of Christians. Have Muslims done it in times of Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) and companions, if not is it not Bida'h and how can we let Bida'h prevail.

---

Answer:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds; and may His blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions. The purpose of collective marriages is to share the expenses of the marriage to make the marriage easy for those who are getting married. No doubt, making marriage easy is one of the objectives of Islamic Shariah. There are many Ahadith proving this fact, for instance, the Hadith that the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) said: The most blessed marriage is the one with least expenditure. [ Ahmad ] Islamic jurists establish that the rulings of objectives apply to their means too. Therefore, the means of obedience are also considered as obedience and means of disobedience are considered as disobedience. As long as the system of collective marriages facilitates it to people to achieve a goal of Shariah so it is permissible and is not considered Bida'h, provided it is free from the prohibitions of Shariah such as mixing with opposite sex without proper Hijab, etc. As for your objection that the Christians are using the same system, it does not change the ruling since the prohibition of imitating non-Mulims means imitating them in their peculiar characteristics and in a matter that is neither recommended nor ordered by our Shariah. Allah knows best.