Cousin Marriages

[Iftikhar]

Cousin Marriages
Cousin marriage is common in all Muslim countries. It is in accordance with the teaching of the Holy Quran and our Prophet had married his daughter with his uncle son. There were no defects in the children. Cousin marriage is thought to generate more stable relationship. Children are born with defects whether it is cousin marriage or not. Among migrant Muslim communities the defects are due to many factors. The pressure of moving to a different cultural environment and moving from their families, problems of racism and employment are responsible for the defects during pregnancies. The defects are nothing to do with cousin marriages. The hidden agenda is that British society does not want Muslims to bring their spouses from Muslim countries. A man/woman has the right to marry anybody from anywhere. It is a question of human right and the right given to Muslims by the Holy Quran and the sayings of the Holy Prophet.

I would like to see each and every Pakistani parent should marry their sons and daughters in Pakistan so that their offsprings could speak, read and write Urdu language and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry. The racist British education system has produced only notoriously monolingual Pakistani Brits. Pakistani parents would like their children to be well versed in Standard English, Arabic and Urdu languages and to be part of the British society as well as keeping in touch with their cultural roots.
Marrying cousin is and has always been legal in the UK. It is not only migrant communities who have children with their cousins, rural communities have their fair share…truly… and lets not even look at the inbreeding within royalty and the aristocracy. How else do you think the aristocracy held onto 90% of the land for so long? Muslim community is an easy target to wag the fingure at. There is no hard evidence that married to cousin causes birth defects. Before picking on Pakistanis just remember that Queen and Prince Phillip are third cousins. Glass houses…stone…. I do not think fingers should be pointed at Pakistani culture; it is another witch hunt against Muslim community. Native English people marry their cousins as well and have done for centuries. British society is ignorant regarding UK law. Henry V111 changed the law so he could marry his cousin. And it still remains legal to marry your cousin in UK today. In Britain, every Pakistani is not a Muslim and neither do they all get married to their cousins. I am sick of British media and politicians like Baroness Ruth Deech and Keighly MP Ann Cryer bashing Muslim communities every day. The hatred towards Muslim communities has grown to a level that defies all logic and even affront to British values. The problem is that Britain has never made communities feel part of British identity and people lives “parallel lives”. Faith schools are part and parcel of British education system but Muslim schools are being discouraged and regarded as “Osama bib Laden Academies.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

[Abdullah the Sheikh]

Here in America, when i was in highschool, cousin marriages were looked as disghusting matter. i myself was in that position. but when i started to think and c the reality, i did not find this matter any bad, infact i now prefer to marry someone within a family (cousin, or far away cousins). but i disagree with the fact that we should pick our husband/wife from pakistan or from our native country. i think wherevr we find pious muslim or muslimah, wether its from USA or outside, we should consider them. especially these days, when pakistan has so much influence of indian bollywood, and how our sisters dress and do fashion over there, i have to say ashtaghfirullah.

[omerhayat]

Assalam O Alaikum.
There is no problem in cousin marriages. Doctors only advise refraining from marrying 'first cousins'. First cousins are 'only' paternal cousins.

Ma3assalamah.

[Iftikhar]

My daughter was married to her first cousin, has two grown up young children
without any defects. My eldest brother was married to his first cousin with
seven children. Four of them are medical doctors and not a single child has
any defects. Million of Muslims through out the world are married to their
first cousins. Some of them have defective children. I know a family with
three defective children. They have no relation with each other. My cousin
married a Hindu girl in canada and they have a girl with some sorts of
defects. Doctor has advised them not to have any more children. My nephew in
Pakistan was married to his first cousin. They have three highly educated
children.

The ground reality is that British society does not want Muslim parents to
get marry their children back home so that their grand children could learn their mother tongues. Human being is a product of his culture,
language and faith. There is a positive co-relation between language and culture. If Muslims become notoriously monolingual Brits than there is a likely hood that they will adopt English culture. They will still be the underdogs of the British society. In the past they were victim of Paki-bashing in all walks of life by the British society in every walks of life becuae majority of them were not well versed in local accents. Now Muslim youths born and educated by British education sysytm are being victim of terrorism by British establishment. Thousands of them are being searched by Police in streets and many of them are behind the bar without any trial. A lot of Muslim youths are imprisoned by British courts on the slightest excuses. The number of Muslim prisoners is on the increase in British jails. When they come out of jail they will become real criminals and terrorists while British foreign minister has said that Muslims are law abiding and committed citizens.

Majority of Muslims
are from Pakistan. Their culture and language is differnt from Bengali or
Gujrati or Turkish and Arabs. They have only faith in common. They only marry
among their own communities because
of culture and language. This is the ground reality.

In the 70s, when I raised ithe issue of bilingualism and Muslim schools, I
was given the impression that British education system does not believe in
bilingualism. According to varities of studies, a child will suffer if
he/she finds himself cut off from his/her cultural and linguistic roots.
Arabic is our religious language and each and every Muslim must be well
versd in Quranic Arabic. Urdu is our social and emotional language and majority of Muslims from the sub-continet must learn and be well versed in Urdu to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry. This the main reason why I believe that Pakistani
parents must find marriage partners from Pakistan for their children.
Pakistani children and youths suffer more than others because they find
themselves cut off from the literature and poetry. Majority of them are not
even well versed in Standard English. This is the main rason why majority of
Pakistani children leave schools without goood qualification. English is
their economic language while Urdu is their social and emotional and Arabic
is their religious language.

I am concerned with the education of bilingual Muslim children. I set up the
first Muslim school in London in 1981 and now there are round about 140
Muslim schools and only 11 are state funded. I would like to see each and
every Muslim child to be in a Muslim school.

A study by Bristol University reveals that a high level of racial
segregation in Oldham schools and tension between communities resulted in
recent riots in 2001. The solution is that those schools where Muslim
children are majority, may be designated as Muslim community schools. The
native parents do not want their children to be educated along with migrant
chiildren. As soon as they find that the number of other children are on the
increase, they move their children to those schools where native children
are in majority.

There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim children are in majority.
In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community
schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models. There is no place for
a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.
Please visit www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk for more information on
this complicated and complicated issue.
Kind regards.
Iftikhar Ahmad

[UmHasan]

From a shari' point of view there is nothing concrete to suggest that cousin marriages are NOT discouraged in Islam. That is to say, nothing suggests that it is wrong for doctors, researchers etc. to imply this leads to defects. If research proves it does lead to defects, then it is possible for it to be true and it does not need to be refuted using Islamic evidence.

Sayyidina Ali was not the first cousin of Sayyiditina Fatimah . So this marriage, which is often quoted as evidence against, is inapplicable.

Mufti Zubair Butt of ITC is researching this topic. I’m not sure if he has completed it, but anyone who wants further details can question him on it.

[ahmad12]

What I have seen is that many people from Asian communities arrange a marriage for their child to someone from their family (such as their cousin), not because that particular person is pious, etc but because they are part of the family. Surely that must be wrong?

I am not negating that cousin marriages are halal or whatever, just that they should only be done for the right reasons, not merely for cultural or tribalistic reasons because I'm pretty sure that cousin marriages, generation after generation probably does have SOME effect on the child

Wasalam

[Dawud Israel]

Brozer! We should go out and seek the Bounty of Allah- women of all different sizes, races, cultures and mentalities. How else will you be able to celebrate the blessings of your Lord?

I can tell by looking at people if their parents were first cousins, and that if their family has a history of cousin marriages. It's VERY obvious in my opinion. Marrying your cousin is equated with marrying your biological sister/brother.

[habibati]

What I have seen is that many people from Asian communities arrange a marriage for their child to someone from their family (such as their cousin), not because that particular person is pious, etc but because they are part of the family. Surely that must be wrong?

I don't see what is wrong with this as preference is given to a group of people you know well. This way you have a sound mind knowing the type of people that your daughter has married into. It's harder if the marriage is completely outside the family, simply because you don't really know what they are like.

Generally speaking, first cousin marriages were also around in some parts of Europe, off the top of my head, countries like Ireland (I'm not sure if that exists in today). US has banned cousin marriages and many others parts are considering banning it like England, I think. I mean, they're literally controlling who you can and can't marry (this includes their ban on polygamy).

Defects usually arise because both the mother and father mights be carriers of a recessive allele and so the probability of the child getting each recessive allele becomes high, leading to diseases etc.
The truth is that it might happen or might not, and actually, in subsequent generations you can flush out the bad genes from the family. I think that first cousin marriages are totally fine, however, if its continuous between the two families, then it could be lead to a much higher probability of defects.

[happinessx100]

From a shari' point of view there is nothing concrete to suggest that cousin marriages are NOT discouraged in Islam. That is to say, nothing suggests that it is wrong for doctors, researchers etc. to imply this leads to defects. If research proves it does lead to defects, then it is possible for it to be true and it does not need to be refuted using Islamic evidence.

Sayyidina Ali was not the first cousin of Sayyiditina Fatimah . So this marriage, which is often quoted as evidence against, is inapplicable.

Mufti Zubair Butt of ITC is researching this topic. I’m not sure if he has completed it, but anyone who wants further details can question him on it.

Aapa soupy can you provide me with this research? It might help me to convince my family that Islam doesn't necesserily say marrying cousins is not harmful to future children.

[ahmad12]

I don't see what is wrong with this as preference is given to a group of people you know well. This way you have a sound mind knowing the type of people that your daughter has married into. It's harder if the marriage is completely outside the family, simply because you don't really know what they are like.

I'm sorry as I realise I didn't explain myself more clearly

What I meant was that people would get their child married off to someone from the family even if they are not practicing muslims e.g. no salah, no hijab, etc

Surely that's wrong? They often don't even consider looking for someone 'external'

Wasalam