5-Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle - Hakikat Kitabevi

very hard in order to maintain his children and also to maintain
his new family. The wrong, depraved and uncanonical actions
of irreligious, lâ-madhhabî and ignorant people should not be
exploited as grounds for censuring Islam].
For an Islamic marriage to be sahîh (valid), both the groom
and the bride have to be Muslims. That is, they have to know
and believe the tenets of belief (îmân) and Islam. If there is
doubt concerning their îmân, the person who will perform the
nîkâh, after saying the Basmala, the (prayers of) hamd and
salawât, mentions the six tenets of îmân and the five principles
of Islam one by one and has the groom and the bride say them,
too. Then he states the Sifât-i-dhâtiyya and the Sifât-ithubûtiyya
of Allâhu ta’âlâ, the important attributes of Prophets
and angels, the teachings pertaining to grave and the Hereafter,
respectively, and has them repeat. He has them say, “We
believe, we have îmân,” “I am a Believer, I am a Muslim.” Then
he must perform the nikâh, beginning with the groom or his
wakîl. It is stated as follows in Radd-ul-mukhtâr: “When both
the woman and the man are present, it is not permissible for
them to perform the nikâh by writing. When they are not
together, it is permissible for one of them to send a letter and
the other read the letter in the presence of two witnesses and
accept it orally. It is not permissible if both parties state their
parts in written form. The woman reads or explains the letter
she has received from the man to two witnesses and says, ‘Be
my witnesses! I have accepted to be his wife.’ The woman’s
reading the letter to the witnesses is equivalent to the man’s
proposing orally in the presence of the witnesses.”
Ibni Âbidîn ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ aleyh’ makes the following
explanation in his depiction of the witnesses for a nikâh: “Like in
all sorts of contracts, presence of two witnesses is not
necessary as you appoint someone your wakîl (proxy) for a
nikâh. However, it is mustahab there to be two witnesses during
any kind of contract. And their presence during the performance
of a nikâh is a condition, a must. It has been stated (by some
scholars) that it is wâjib to have two witnesses during a lending
contract. Although it is not a condition to prepare a written
document in commercial proceedings, in proxy authorizations or
in any other contracts, it is necessary during a lending contract
and mustahab during the nikâh. In proxy authorization and in
nikâh, it is necessary for the witnesses [or for the person to be
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