What are the rules on interfaith marriage — can a Muslim man marry a Christian or Jewish woman, and what about other combinations?

The Quran explicitly permits a Muslim man to marry a chaste woman from the People of the Book, meaning Christian or Jewish women, recognizing a shared scriptural heritage even while affirming Islam as the complete guidance. This permission is generally treated as an exception rather than a default recommendation; many scholars and Islamic authorities note practical concerns — raising children's religious identity, differing personal-status laws, and family harmony — and some contemporary scholars have urged caution or even discouraged it in minority-Muslim contexts for these reasons, though they stop short of calling it forbidden. Marriage to women who are not from the People of the Book, meaning who hold no scriptural monotheistic tradition at all, is not permitted for a Muslim man. For Muslim women, the ruling differs: the overwhelming majority of scholars, across all major schools, hold that a Muslim woman may only marry a Muslim man, reasoning partly from the general Quranic prohibition on marrying disbelievers and partly from the traditional expectation that the husband, as head of household, should share the wife's religious framework so the family's faith identity is protected. A small number of modern voices have questioned this, but it remains the mainstream position.

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