Muslim, Christian make history

2006-05-22 21:20

Khartoum - A Muslim Sudanese girl has married a Christian Ethiopian man in a ceremony backed by a controversial religious edict allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men.

It was reported that the marriage of the Muslim woman and the Christian man, a mix prohibited by orthodox Islam, was recently sanctioned by a fatwa issued by contentious religious scholar Hassan Abdullah al-Turabi.

Al-Turabi was also the secretary-general of the opposition Sudanese Popular Congress.

The marriage ceremony was conducted in a church in al-Qadarif town on Sudan's eastern border with Ethiopia.

Bride's relatives divided

It was reported that participants in the marriage festivities said the bride was "happy with her marriage to a Christian man and was convinced of the legitimacy of the idea that was backed by the fatwa of Dr al-Turabi".

The relatives of the bride were divided over such a step, that would render the woman an apostate under Islamic tradition.

Almost all Muslim scholars shared the understanding that Islam prohibited Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men, but allowed Muslim men to take non-Muslim wives since children in both cases followed the religion of the father.

Abdul Fattah Idris, professor of comparative religious laws at the Azhar University, said: "Muslim women are prohibited by the sharia law [Muslim law] from marrying people of the book [Jews and Christians]."

- SAPA