Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

Society Religion & Philosophy
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islam allows cousin marriage but this is causing so much trouble from health standpoint. Get this…Pakistani-Britons produce 33% of the nation’s children with genetic illnesses, even though they account for only 3% of the births. (55% of Pakistani-Britons marry first cousins.) 10% of these newborns either die in infancy, or endure a serious disability. Pakistani-Britons who are first cousins are, claimed the report, **13X more likely to have children with recessive disorders than the general population.

isnt this time for our religious scholars to do ijithad and then use Ijamh/Qiyas to ban the cousin marriage?

second, if islam is only meant for our betterment (which i am sure it is), why did it allow the cousin marriage the first place? i am puzzled by this question. maybe it is a not a bad thing and science has not able to solve the puzzle yet? because otherwise…

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Cousin Marriage - 70% in Pakistan - Should it be Prohibited?

Warning over cousin marriages: Unions between blood relatives in Pakistani community account for third of birth defects in their children | Mail Online

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

Oh DailyMail.

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

and many other serious newspapers as well...

dont derail the thread, please

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....


Sorry about that.I don't think the scholars will ban it because if they do, it'll be a massive crapstorm. the in Ku thing they can do is just tell people on what happens and can happen.

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Britain has problems bcos they have generation upon generation of cousin marriages. If one generation of cousins marry and produce children...the risk of genetic deformities is not significantly raised. The problem with this population of British Pakistanis is the unwillingness to marry outsiders...due to money issues, culture...whatever it is.

Islam allows cousin marriages but anything is excess is always frowned upon...so really it's just common sense, IMO.

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

i agree that our today's religious leadership (if we can call it leadership) is completely devoid of both intellectual and moral fabric ....so no expectations from them but my fundamental question is that if science is correct about serious health issues emerging from cousin marriage, then why did islam allow it at first place? why did our religion open a door which would cause so many health issues in coming generations?

we don't eat pork or drink alcohol because our religion banned them based on health issues but then why didn't islam ban the cousin marriage?

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

wow...what an easy interpretation...common sense!

ok, so we can start drinking alcohol in moderation as well? right? just common sense

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

....

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

and by the way, pakistan, india, middle east are flooded with cousin marriages...it is not UK only!

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and by the way, pakistan, india, middle east are flooded with cousin marriages…it is not UK only!
[/quote]
Yes, and these countries have birth defect rates comparable to the reat of the world…i don’t get ur point? There is no significant difference. Not due to cousin marriages anyways.

Nor do i see why you have a problem with this. Alcohol is haram…there is no point in debating that. Cousim marriages are allowed in Islam…but there is no stipulation to only marry your cousins…so yes, this is about common sense - marry a good Muslim. Doesn’t matter where he/she is from. If we let go of our cultural notions (which is where generational cousin marriages primarily come from) then Islam lays out a perfectly clear path.

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

hey alcohol is haram, so no debate
but can we consume it moderately?
NO way...
but why?
because religion said so..so no question of moderation or any question..just shut up!

cousin marriage.... no problem it is halal, so u can do it....
but it is detrimental for generations, so can we please ban it?
NO, but hey we can talk abt it....how abt practicing it moderately...
but why cant we ban it because no one knows how to practice it "moderately"?
NO we cant ban it
but why
because religion said so!!!

I got it...thanks!

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

Islam allows it for so many reasons, but that detail is not the centerpoint here.

If there are genetically inherited diseases that are haunting so many families that are marrying first cousins, then there is no need to get a fatwa or ruling to have it banned.
There is no compulsion in Islam. Islam allows water and prohibit wine. If water is contaminated, we need to use our brain and find clear water.
Honey is not only allowed but highly liked and recommended by Prophet Muhammad SAW. But if a diabetic person ignores the glucose nature of it an keep using it multiple times a day, it is against the nature and wisdom.
We have been taught to use our judgement according to the circumstances, even in halal matters.

Same with the polio vaccine issue. Since it has been cleared by Ulema and doctors, why people believe in rumours.

What we can do in Western countries is to use Islamic centers for awareness of this kind. This might not be an appropriate topic for Jummah Khutbah, but the special sessions on Weekend by a local community doctor or learned person will do.

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Re: Cousin Marriage … Islam Allows it but…

This topic is posted many times already. Here is the link for the recent one:
http://www.paklinks.com/gs/life-and-relationships/630603-cousin-marriages-yay-or-nay-in-this-day-and-age-2.html

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hey alcohol is haram, so no debate
but can we consume it moderately?
NO way…
but why?
because religion said so..so no question of moderation or any question..just shut up!

cousin marriage… no problem it is halal, so u can do it…
but it is detrimental for generations, so can we please ban it?
NO, but hey we can talk abt it…how abt practicing it moderately…
but why cant we ban it because no one knows how to practice it “moderately”?
NO we cant ban it
but why
because religion said so!!!

I got it…thanks!
[/quote]
Are you putting on some form of sarcasm/comedy? I’m genuinely confused…please clear it up for me. I have replied to this thread quite straightforward so the manner of your responses is kind of odd.

I will repeat…multi-generational couson marriages are detrimental…meaning continuously every generation is marrying ONLY their cousins…for 3, 4, 5 generations or more. Do you get it?

Like the guy previously stated with the honey example…it’s lovely and great…eat too much and u’ll be in bed comatose/brain-dead diabetic. If no one knows how to practice it moderately then stop following backwards cultural ideas, get proper Islamic knowledge out into communities and educate so people know. Simple. We cannot make haram that which is halal, and we cannot make halal that which is haram. End of story. Just bcos cultures that claim to be Muslim follow this flawed practice…doesn’t mean that Islam is flawed. People ruin religion.

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Re: Cousin Marriage … Islam Allows it but…

Peace phoenixdesi

I studied the findings and made a spreadsheet as below, the reports are quite misleading:

To summarise:

The British-Pakistanis of Bradford are 3 times more likely to have children of congenital problems than the national all race average. (73% of the Bradford children with congenital problems were Pakistani in origin, 27% were others)

But the total number of children with congenital disorders is 386 out of 11396 … giving a percentage of 3.387% … So that is to say around 2% are of Pakistani origin and 1% are of Other origin.

Looking deeper still the 87 children born to Brit-Paks cousins (1922 of them) with congenital problems made up 4.5% of that number.

Surprisingly the rest 3205 children had among them 195 children who had congenital problems born of Brit-Paks who were not cousins, which is 6.1%.

So here the children of non-cousin parents had MORE problems than the children of cousin parents !!!

The problem of congenital diseases is more to do with race than it is to do with marrying cousins.

Also … the data set is skewed … Bradford has a very specific gene pool - containing lots of Pakistanis from a certain region in Pakistan. It is not fair to represent all Pakistanis with a sample set from Bradistan … I mean Bradford.

Also, about 50% of congenital problems are risks and the others are actual diseases … for example risk of heart disease, this is more to do with our make-up - bodily we are meant for hotter climates than the UK, so it means our eating fats is worse than the British Whites eating fats … And yet again … Our diseases are a result of our extreme intake of meat as well … We are among the biggest meat eaters in the UK and that will indeed affect our children.

Finally … coming to your point … about ijtihad … Rulings are applied in two instances:

  1. When a major issue is developing - let’s say more than 15% of the population is affected.
  2. When it is clear that the cause is x, y and z

As shown the concept of cousin marriages is being witch-hunted … and it is not really clear what is making the Pakistani population suffer more from congenital problems … And as can be seen although we may be several times more likely than others of having such diseases … the total numbers and percentages are still very low … 3% of the total population of children suffer from congenital diseases and around 2% of the total population of children born have congenital problems AND are of Pakistani origin. 1.7% of BritPak births result in congenital problems from cousin-marriages and a smacking 3.8% of BritPaks births result in congenital problems from non-cousin marriages. But still in total 5.5% of BritPak births are problematic …

There is greater evidence here to suggest that we should marry non-Pakistanis forget about cousins - so do you want the ulema to make a ruling that Pakistanis should no longer marry each other?

No as can be seen 1.7% or even if we take 5.5% - these are small numbers and rulings are made on majority cases - and even if we force the issue at least they must be more than 15 or 20% cases to really count.

Can you seriously see something made halal for us by Allah (SWT) and RasoolAllah (SAW) could harm us in any way?

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^ I can't like posts on my phone...but that is am excellent post.

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

^ thanks for your acknowledgment ...

To simplify the trickery of newspaper reporting one can look at the following scenario:

There are two races ... A and B ... A makes up 20% of the population and B makes up the rest.

Let's say for every one person in B who makes a friend with a person in A they both become corrupt.

Let's say 10% of A are corrupt and there are 12000 members of A race in the population. This means there is a total population of 12000/0.2 = 60000 making the population of B = 48000.

10% of A is 1200 ... which means B also has 1200 corrupt people.

We can say there are 2400/60000 = 4% of the population are corrupt, we can also say that 1200/12000 = 10% of A are corrupt and 1200/48000 = 2.5% of B are corrupt ...

We can then apply our interpretation and conclusion ... Since A are 10% corrupt and B are only 2.5% corrupt we can say that A are 4 times more corrupt than the B ... But really we know that 50% of those who are corrupt are from A and 50% from B.

In this instance we know that there is a 1 to 1 relationship between corruptness that only happens when a member of race A befriends a member of race B ... The papers have been comparing percentages against percentages to come up with more percentages and that makes it seem a lot more significant than it really is ...

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Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

I don't think it needs to be banned. That's an extreme. How would You even go about doing that in Weatern countries. In Canada they ask you if you are related because they don't allow cousin marriages (to what extent I'm not sure) but they made sure I wasn't marrying my cousin when we went for our paperwork. It's detrimental because people are uninformed. People have a problem with stepping out of their comfort zones and I don't mean to generalize at all but ignorance plays a part. We are so set in certain cultural ways, it may take the worst to happen for some families to realize the harm they could doing to themselves. Generational gaps are necessary but people just don't want to budge. It could be majboori, it could be ignorance but when something is a sensitive subject in our religion/cultures it tends to not ever get discussed. Telling people to not marry their cousins I imagine would offend a lot of people but it's one of those things that needs to discussed as it relates to our time. Sometimes it's hard to explain to people what they don't want to hear but unfortunately somebody needs to take the plunge. Start a small campaign if it has grown into such an issue within the Islamic communities.

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Re: Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

There is not enough evidence to suggest that cousin marriage is an issue. That is the point I am making. According to the data used by the above article writers there is more evidence to suggest that Pakistanis marrying other Pakistanis is worse than marrying cousins. But you will never hear the British papers advocating Pakistanis to marry more of their own Whites and intermix, will you?

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Cousin Marriage ... Islam Allows it but.....

Ahh, I see. Not until pigs can fly I imagine.
So even with families of multiple generations marrying within each other? The percentage I can assume on a grand scale is small but if there is a problem, what is the main cause?