Answer
Wa alaikum ussalam Sister,
Thank you for sending in your question to our website.
My heart goes out to you, and I ask Allah to grant you ease and a way out from this distressing trial that you are in.
Sister, for now, please try to be patient, so that you can contemplate with wisdom and discretion upon how to decide the correct future course of action for yourself.
In my view, there are 3 possibilities in your particular case:
1- The first possibility is that, at the time when you got married to this person, he believed in one God, Allah, and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as Allah’s messenger.
In that case, he was a Muslim, and your marriage to him was valid (of course, only Allah knows best). It is possible that in his heart, he is still a believer.
And the shocking things about God that he says to you now are merely verbal expressions of the doubts that Shaitan is putting in his mind due to his weakness of faith.
Sometimes, those Muslims whose faith is very weak and teetering on the edge- due to a serious lack of Islamic knowledge and chronic abandonment of their performance of righteous obligations- tend to express, rather vehemently, their doubts about the existence of God in front of religiously practicing Muslims.
This is in fact a desperate plea on their part, to be convinced by more religious Muslims that there is indeed a God, and that He is mercifully there for them. They actually want to come back to Islam, to be convinced about God, and this is their way of asking for help to be convinced of God’s existence.
Such Muslims need our help, along with an attitude of mercy, compassion, and gentleness. In their case, we should consult the already present resources prepared by Islamic scholars, which provide fool-proof rebuttals of atheistic criticisms of Islam, to do our best to prove to them that Islam is indeed a true religion, and to gently invite them back to it.
2- The second possibility is that your husband was a already a staunch disbeliever i.e. an atheist, at the time you married to him. That is, he did not believe in the existence of Allah, and also denied that Muhammad is Allah’s Prophet. In this case, your marriage to him was void and invalid from the start.
If you can find out what his beliefs were at the time that you got married, then you can bring your case to a religious scholar for further advice.
3- The third possibility is that your husband has a deep psychological problem, which affects his faith, and causes him to harbor doubts about the existence of God. Whether or not he is mentally ill, and to what extent, is something which will be difficult for you to decipher alone, without conclusive evidence based on a professional evaluation.
For this, a proper, professional evaluation by a psychiatrist and/or a psychologist will be required, in order to discover whether he really does mean what he says, or if he is merely under the influence of an innate, as of yet un-diagnosed medical condition.
Mental illness, combined with the possible effects of sihr (magic) can make a person say things that are shocking, unexpected, and blasphemous.
If he does have a mental illness, if you decide to be patient and wise and give him another chance, by counseling him, working on improving his mental health, and facilitating his eventual return to Islam, then you will be greatly rewarded by Allah, insha’Allah.
Conversely, if he is discovered (hopefully with the arbitrative help of a religious elder, counselor, or psychiatrist) to not be mentally ill, and the truth emerges that he really is lacking so much in faith that it has put him beyond the pale of Islam, then this situation warrants you to bring your question to a religious scholar or Ask the Scholar for scholarly advice.
So I hope that you will find out the truth and reality behind his lack of faith viz. exactly when he became a disbeliever in God, or if he did at all.
- Try to find out the truth about his beliefs through open, candid conversations with him (not arguments or fights, but mature discussions).
- For this purpose, take the help of a professional Muslim psychiatrist or psychologist; righteous, older, close relatives; as well as religious elders.
- Throughout, try to have ruqyah done upon your husband as well, by a righteous Muslim. This should cure any magic, by the will of Allah.
After following the multifaceted strategy outlined above, you will be in a better position to decide the route that you should take, based on the results of your findings. I pray that Allah decrees what is best for you. Ameen.
And Allah knows best. I hope that this answers your question.
Salam. Please stay in touch.
Please continue feeding your curiosity, and find more info in the following links:
https://aboutislam.net/reading-islam/research-studies/what-triggers-people-to-accept-islam/
https://aboutislam.net/reading-islam/understanding-islam/a-conversation-with-an-atheist/