Wa ’Alaikum Salaam wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu my dear brother in Islam,

You and your fiancé have the right to get married. In Islam, you are not supposed to talk to another person when you are already engaged to someone else, let alone marry him/her. If you want to talk to another person about marriage, you have to break off your engagement—which, in your case, has never happened, so she is not supposed to talk with anyone else about marriage.

To be engaged is a commitment in terms of loyalty to that person. Please write to the scholars on this website whom will give you a legal fatwa to this situation so you can show it to your fiancée and her family. You are in the right and her parents are in the wrong. You should take a fiqh ruling to them to show them that they are disobeying their religion.

Beyond that, it is very important that you two marry each other because you want to marry each other; she does not want to marry this other person. Her parents do not have the right to force her to marry someone who she does not want to marry. Again, please write to the scholars on this website to get the rulings for that regulation too to show to her and her parents.

It is common in many Muslim countries for parents to force their children to marry people that they do not want to marry. This practice is cultural and has nothing to do with Islam. It is a huge violation of the rules in the Deen of Allah (swt). It is a gross misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and misuse and abuse of the extent of the powers of the parents to dictate their children’s marriages and lives.

The parents have the right to refuse a suitor based on Islamic proofs against them. But they do not have the right to refuse someone based on their personal tastes. They don’t have the right either to insist on someone based on personal taste when it goes against the desires of the bride/their child. Nonetheless, it is a common practice in many Muslims countries to force their children to marry people who they do not want to marry and visa versa, i.e., not marry people they do want to marry based only on taste and personal preference, and not Islamic proofs against them. This is NOT Islam!

If these steps do not resolve your issue to your liking (in Allah’s laws and pleasure) and your depression, and you continue to suffer depression, ask Allah (swt) to help you by giving your heart the assurance that the injustices done to you in this life will benefit you in the Next when all wrongs will be righted, and in this life by making you a stronger person who can endure mistreatment. These are tests, brother.

If you still feel depressed, professional help with a Muslim therapist may help you process your feelings because s/he could bring to the table religious knowledge combined with knowledge of how our psychology works, In Sha’ Allah.

Please, feel comforted in the knowledge that Allah (swt) tests the most those He (swt) loves the most. Tests feel bad, but they are good for us because they teach us to be strong and to trust in Allah (swt). They keep us turning to Allah (swt). If our lives were easy, we would not feel any need to turn to Allah (swt) and we might forget about His role in our life of being our Creator and our Provider. We need to not only be grateful to Allah (swt) for His provision, but to ask Allah (swt) to help us increase our faith in Him (swt).

May Allah (swt) make it easy for you,

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