Marriage to Catholics

Can I marry a Catholic girl? We are allowed to marry Christian girls; but are the Catholics real Christians? If it is permissible for me to marry a Spanish catholic, please explain to me how can I marry an idol-worshipper? Can I pray to Allah that she accepts Islam and marries me?

Bismillah Rahman Raheem. Alhamdulillah Rabb Al-Alamin Was-Salatu Was-Salamu ‘Ala Rasul Al-Karim. Allahu 'Alim:

Truly, it is Allah who has all Knowledge and we have only that which Allah bestows on us. The best that I know on this subject might be:

Allah has permitted the believing men to marry from the believing women and from the "believing, chaste women of the book."

Look closely to the two conditions; "believers" and "chaste." These are very important and they are not "options."

First: "believer" means that the lady has to really believe in her Bible and understand true Christianity and follow it every day. If she is not "religious" then she does not qualify in the first category, and the marriage is not permissible.

Second: "chaste" means that she has never had illegal sex and she knows that it is "Haram" (forbidden).
These are two important conditions are usually ignored by Muslims today, and as a result they find themselves in big problems very soon after entering into marriage with the non-Muslims.

I would like to quickly add that this is not going to work out in a non-Muslim environment, due to the lack of community support for the way of Islam. Legal matters, especially dealing with the rights of Muslim children would be the first consideration.

Naturally, we would prefer to see the believers marry from the believers and not put themselves and their future children in the way of danger and disbelief. For this reason, we have seen a number of very knowledgeable scholars forbid marriage to non-Muslims while living in non-Muslim countries.

Those who have chosen to ignore this wisdom have almost always wound up in horrible circumstances.

Again, Allah is the All-Knower. Any good is from Allah and the mistakes are from myself, may Allah forgive me, Ameen.

Sheikh Yusuf Estes