Civil Marriage in The Light of Fiqh Al-Maqaasid, Nigeria as a Case Study

Abstract

Islam has laid a lot of emphases on marriage with regards to its importance, it is not just a platonic relationship between husband and wife, nor is it solely for procreation, but it’s also an obligatory act and it’s so important that it is declared to be half of single Muslim’s faith. Islam has laid extensive ground rules and regulation for marriage and as well assigned different roles to both husband and wife in order to establish peace, happiness, love, tranquillity and security in the family.Despite all the above reasons of marriage in Islam, there are still many families in Nigeria who are been deprived of enjoying their marital life, due to the fact that the contract of marriage was done through what is called civil marriage. When marriage is been done in civil way, the husband has no right to marry another wife with the presence of his wife, it is regarded as one of the fundamental conditions of civil marriage, if he does, such husband would be liable for the offence of bigamy, a punishable offence with 5 years’ imprisonment. Based on this reason, this article wants to centre its study on the validation of this kind of condition in marriage under the Islamic jurisprudent and with regards to fiqh al-maqasid.