Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
If a couple would like to relax and be far away from the distractions of family and friends and go on honeymoon, there is no harm.
Focusing more on the question in point, we’d cite the following fatwa issued by the late Sheikh Sayyed Mutawalli Ad-Darsh, former Chairman of the UK Shari`ah Council:
Islam is a practical religion; it does not float in the stratosphere of imaginary ideals but remains with the human being on the ground of realities and day-to-day concerns. It does not regard people as angels but accepts them as mortals who eat food and walk in the marketplace.
Islam does not require of Muslims that their speech should consist entirely of religious utterances, that their silence should be a meditation, that they should listen to nothing except the recitation of the Qur’an, nor that they should spend all their leisure time in the mosque.
Rather, it recognizes that Allah has created human beings with needs and desires, so that, as they need to eat and drink, they also need to relax, and to enjoy themselves.
We should not expect the Glorious Qur’an to be a prescription for every detail of things that happen in our day-to-day life. The Glorious Qur’an deals essentially with Allah’s attributes and our relationship with Him.
As it sets universal moral precepts that regulate life affairs, it also guides us to what will grant us salvation in the life to come. So, the Glorious Qur’an is mainly for the moral enhancement of society. The Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) takes care of so many things.
There are many practices, customs and habits in Muslim societies, which change from time to time. As long as they don’t encroach into the area which is unlawful, there is no restriction on them and we say they are subject to the changing requirements of society.
Things invented shortly after the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) include soap, new methods of sifting flour, the table and towels. These weren’t considered bad because they are dealing with our ordinary day-to-day affairs.
As regards honeymooning, if a couple would like to relax and be far away from the distractions of family and friends, there is no harm. In fact, we can say that Western society is aping the Muslims on this, for we have a basis for honeymooning. It is Sunnah for the newly-married couple to spend seven days together, and it is beneficial for them to go out and enjoy this period of their life together to build a basis for all the trials and difficulties they will experience later on.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.