AN EVALUATION OF PRELIMINARY STEPS TO A MARRIAGE CONTRACT UNDER ISLAMIC LAW

Nigeria has a multi religious and multi-cultural diversity with various practices, as a result of minglings, making friends and study under one roof with other religious believers other than Islam has made overwhelming majority of the Muslims to be ignorant of their religious practices, especially Islamic Law of Marriage, where as it is the legal basis upon which the legalization of sexual relation, procreation and tranquility basically revolves. This makes Muslim to face difficulties in understanding and differentiating between applications of the rule of Islamic law proper, and the non-Islamic customary law. It is as a result of this problem that the topic of this thesis namely "An Evaluation of Preliminary Steps to a Marriage Contract Under Islamic Law” has been chosen. Marriage under Islamic is a highly and essentially important topic with a considerable value to assist Muslims who have intention to marry. Marriage in Islam is the basic unit of human civilization, and is the first solid foundation of the family. This work is consisting of five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction consisting of definition of marriage, sources of Islamic law, position of marriage according to other systems, other than Islamic forms of marriage; such as statutory marriage, Christian marriage, common law and customary law marriage, and marriage in Arabia before Islam. The chapter also convoys that marriage in Islam is obligatoiy compared with the practice of celibacy. Chapter two begins with the preliminary steps to marriage contract in Islam. The chapter went ahead with the discussion of selection of spouses. The Chapter also discussed guardianship of marriage in Islamic law condition of marriage guardian, classes of marriage guardian and who is entitle to guardianship. Chapter three is about formula i.e, the formation of marriage contract in Islam. It talks about offer and acceptance, the capacity of the parties and place of making the offer. The chapter also accommodates discussion on Khitba and its validity, the necessity of the witnesses and their position in the marriage contract. It is noted that there can be no valid marriage without dower (Mahr). This chapter equally discussed the concept, nature and classification of Mahr as to when to be paid and how. Chapter four is all about impediment. This is because Islam has drowned an effective legal line on marriage guideline on who to marry etc. There is permanent and temporary prohibition which Allah (SWT) has given reasons for that in the Glorious Quran and commented by Prophet Muhammad (SA W). Chapter five which is the last chapter draws the conclusion of this work and it consist a brief of all what has been discussed in this thesis. Some suggestion and observations were made which I hoped would help in addressing the problems associated with marriage in Islam, particularly of inadequate knowledge. viii