Stateless
An article on ArabNews.com talks about some of the problems Saudi women face when they marry non-Saudi men. My major point is that if couples (and their children) face trouble when the wife is Saudi, then how much more so for a couple (and the children) of both a non-Saudi man and woman trying to live in Saudi Arabia?
Marriages between Saudi women and non-Saudi men produce a number of problems. Questions relating to the success and advisability of such marriages are common all over the Kingdom. According to some, the children of those marriages are doomed to a bleak future. Many people question the kind of education and jobs available to such children and ask whether they can grow up as integrated citizens.
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Umm Muhammad was married to a non-Saudi Arab. In the case of a Saudi woman marrying a non-Saudi, the children take the father
Filed under: Race, The Culture of Denial and Pretense
Salaam ‘Alaikum
A little cultural bite in that article… that marriages b/t non Saudi men and Saudi women “always end tragically because of cultural differences.” It annoys me in a way I don’t want to bother with right now.
IMO, some of the Arab countries (I can’t say all b/c I don’t know that it is all of them, though I suspect as much) are sexist when it comes to one of the most basic rights in a modern nation-state and that is citizenship. This is an issue we (my family) have to sort out as well…
assalamu alikeum
I think this only tends to be in an issue primarly in the Gulf of the arabian pennuisula (im not sure about the other arab countries like iraq, iran, palestine, egypt etc..)
Anyhow, i don’t think its widespread across the muslim globe. I know my own country doesnt have such a law (and neither does any other african muslim nation i think). Either way i feel sorry for those women, cos their men are marrying out in large droves and the rate of umarried women (young and old) is pretty high. I heard misyar marriages are becoming pretty common now over there.
Interesting article. As you know I am married to a Saudi woman. There are lots of issues. My blog/e-mail has become sort of a “Dear Abby” for Saudi women wanting to marry non Saudi men. I have fielded more than a few e-mails and long running conversations about this issue.
Things have gotten slightly better. It used to be that Saudi women who married foreigners lost their Saudi citizenship. Now they can retain their citizenship, if they choose.
Saudi is no different than any country in the Middle East. To my knowledge not one of them allows female citizens to confer citizenship to the children of their marriages with foreigners. Queen Rania tried to pass such a law in Jordan but it was shot down. It was targeted at the children of Jordanian wives and Palestinian husbands.
We have worried about what will happen to our kids. We are lucky, Alhamdulillah, that we are not in the situation that these people are. We are in the USA and our kids have American citizenship, which in the long run is actually more benficial to them than a Saudi passport(can you think of any worse passport to have today?).
If we go to the Middle East, as we are thinking, it wouldnt be Saudi. We havent yet had our marriage recognised, as one must when you marry a foreigner, so living there would be next to impossible. More likely UAE.
This is going to become more and more of an issue. There are a lot of Arab women, and women from other “Muslim” countries that would love to marry Western men, for many reasons, top amoungst these I think is just the desire to be free from the cultural treatment that Arab/”born Muslim” men give them.
We know three other Saudi women married to American converts, all white(the reasons why this is is a blog post in itself), one white convert married to a Jordanian lady, and an African American brother married to a Pakistani lady.
All of them have had similiar issues, but since they have all choosen to stay in the USA for now, it doesnt matter too much.
Do I care if the Saudi government doesnt recognise our marriage? Not really, but it makes a difference in some items. If my wife wants a new Saudi passport she has to get a letter from her uncle to get permission, whereas I would be able to do it for her if our marriage was recognised. We cannot go to Saudi together, but that hasnt been an issue yet. Our children dont have Saudi passports, but I dont think that will hurt them. My wife would like to get a scholarship to get her Masters Degree, but getting it whilst being married to a foreigner without permission might be hard.
Misyar marriages are common in Saudi. This is sad because I view it as nothing more than legalised prostitution. But the culture makes it next to impossible to get married after you divorce, so women are given very few options. Dowry has had a cap put on it, I think it is like 20,000 Saudi Riyals, but no one pays attention to that. So many Saudi men go to Morocco, Lebanon and other places where basically they buy young brides for a few hundred dollars. That, in itself, is another haraam.
I could go on for ages about this. Maybe time for another article about this on my blog. So many haraams involved in this issue, so many ways this issue and those surrounding it are helping to destroy societies.
BTW, Muslim_Gal, I dont know about the rest of the Muslim world, but it is almost exactly the same for the Arab countries of the Middle East, I dont know about Iran.
I do not know of one Arab country where the children’s citizenship can pass through the mother. As to gaining permission to marry, I know it is the norm on the Gulf, dont know about outside of the Gulf.
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
Abu Sinan: I have read that if you’re a Shi’ite, you are entitled to Iranian citizenship.
Yusuf,
I dont know about that. I havent heard that and there is so much anti-Shi’a propaganda out there. Is this if you are born of one Iranian parent and are Shi’a, or is it that any Shi’a can get Iranian citizenship?
All of these laws are not based on religion, rather others things, mainly culture. My children should have the right to Saudi and or American citizenship, based on my American citizenship and my wife’s Saudi citizenship.
I am not calling for the Middle East to do what we do in America and give citizenship to anyone who is born here, simply anyone who has a parent who is a citizen.
Abu Sinan:
as-salaam alaykum,
I think that people should be able to apply for citizenship or go through some fair process so that they do not remain stateless like many of those of Pakistani and Bengali origin who in reality know no other home. There has to be some mechanism for individuals like this to gain equal rights.
Do you mean misyar or zawaj al-’urfi? Although it is obviously less than perhaps ideal, misyar marriages are permissable because they fufil all the shuroot of the contract (at least according to the Hanbali madhab). The fact that the woman chooses to give up some of her rights doesn’t negate the contract nor does the fact that these women may end up, by choice, settling for a lot less than the first or second wives.
Zawal al-’Urfi, as is commonly practiced in Egypt and elsewhere, is another matter though and I would tend to agree with your assessment.
In Sudan for a while all Muslims were eligible for citezenship, now in Iraq, a woman can pass it to a man.
[...] Stateless in Saudi [...]
Misyar I believe is used, more often than not, as legalised prostitution. Kind of what we here in the West call a f**K buddy.
Who do I put the blame on for this? Mostly to the men in the culture who refuse to marry divorced women, women with children. They expect them to live alone, maybe from aged 21 with multiple children, whilst the divorced man runs out and gets married again and again.
Even in Misyar the women are used as sexual object. The man can have sex with the women, does not have to support her or any children that might arise. Again, the woman gets the short end of the stick.
I find it unbelievable how many Sunnis castigate the Shia for allowing mu’ta (where, at least, a man must pay a woman a dowry), but then proceed to allow misyar. The Qu’ran is very clear that a man must support his wife, and cannot take multiple wives if he cannot treat all equally. If anyone has evidence of exception to this, I’d like to see it. I’ve seen some scholars’ opinions allowing it, but they brought little or no dalil to support their opinions, which struck me as more intellectual bankruptcy designed to allow arab men to keep treating women like slaves.
The difference between mut’a and misyar is that in a mut’a contract, the time frame is specified and agreed. A misyar contract is the same as any other marriage contract, except that the wife has agreed to give up some of her rights. The fact that some people might abuse it — as with normal marriage contracts or any other contract — doesn’t make the entire class of contract haram.
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
Who do I put the blame on for this? Mostly to the men in the culture who refuse to marry divorced women, women with children. They expect them to live alone, maybe from aged 21 with multiple children, whilst the divorced man runs out and gets married again and again.
And the men who ought to be doing this are the older men who need a wife, rather than expecting young men who are just starting out to marry a widow or divorcee who already has several children. I’ve had people attempt to guilt-trip me into such marriages on more than one occasion.
There is really no difference between mut
I think you guys are confusing Misyar with “Marriage with the intent to divorce” another vile form of marriage these days.
There are obvious contractual differences between Muta’ and Misyar, but with misyar there are obvious social defects as well.
Abu Sinan: I don’t agree with the abuses of misyar (obviously) but it does have its place in society. For example, it can provide opportunities for older women (who may be financially independent) to marry in a ‘market’ where the number of women outnumber men. It enables these older women — who may be widows or divorcees — to compete with young women who have never been married before, by offering prospective husbands a reduced ‘cost’ of marriage. A husband who might take a younger woman as as second wife, might be persuaded to take an older divorcee as a second wife if he knows that he doesn’t need to provide her with a home (she may already have one) or the like. Such marriage contracts may also be useful to the poor who might otherwise not be able to marry: the girl stays with her family until such time as her husband is able to afford to have a ‘normal marriage’ whilst, at the same time, preventing both from falling into zina.
That said, I understand your criticisms as I was only yesterday told about people in Indonesia who act as brokers for women wanting to enter into short-term marriage contracts with visiting foreigners. The ‘mahr’ is always cash and is split between the agent, the girl and her wali. The whole thing is pretty dodgy.
Some people Allah has favored with the ability to enter into a traditional marriage with a woman of their choice. Others, such as myself, are not as fortunate, and do not have the means for such a marriage. I am seriously considering Nikah Misyar as an alternative. It is Halal and you cannot make Haram what Allah makes Halal. As for those critics who do not suffer from poverty and celibacy because they have wives, to them I say: Get off your high horse, and dont be self righteous. Some of us are not so fortunate as you, and cannot afford what you can, so do not call this mercy from Allah “legalized prostitution.” Salam.
I would like to clarify that not all countries in the middle east or gulf are all the same when it comes to laws, regulations, or practices. It was stated that it is the norm in the gulf to require permission in order to get married (to a non citizen). I am not sure about all countries, but at least in Kuwait that is not true. It is possible for a man or a woman to marry a non-Kuwaiti without government permission. But citizenship is only passed down from the father.