Day Questions

If a person’s life is threatened and is forced to give a divorce, is this divorce valid according to religious parameters?

If he was forced to divorce his wife solely because of the threat, then the divorce is invalid. If he decided to divorce her willingly because he was convinced that continuing the relation with his wife would lead to trouble as a result of the current circumstances of the marriage, then the divorce is valid.

It seems to me that most orientalists do not rely on hadiths at all and they seem to say most of it is fabrications. If the hadiths are fabricated or doubtful, then how can we rely on historical books or book of jurisprudence?

We cannot cover this issue in detail here, but we can draw your attention to the following points: First: Orientalists – in general – are not an honest source of opinion since they do not base their search in Islamic history on an objective view. They place their study on a prejudicial and religiously biased vision. There is no doubt that such a vision affects the conclusions they reach, and it their findings will therefore not be based on research that is objective and a sincere desire to search for the truth. Second: The existence of false narrations does not make all narrations fabricated. Scholars do not accept any narration, but they first verify the authenticity of the content of the narration in addition to the chain of narrators. They rely on the narration after it satisfies the conditions of being a religious evidence. Third: When we look at the movement of the Islamic history in general and when it written, we can reach a conclusion that the incidents and the events that took place were largely reported by a people who were not loyal to the Ahlulbait, and they were not written during the rule of governments that tolerated the teachings of the Ahlulbait (peace be upon them) or under circumstances that had such toleration.

I am a Shia Sayyid. Is it allowed for me to get married to a Sunni girl?

It is permissible for a Shia Sayyid man to marry a Sunni woman. It is better to have an expert in Shia religious rules to perform the marriage contract to make sure that it is legitimate and correct.