—take effect; but if he returns to Islam, he may marry her.
Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn also said: When the wife of a disbeliever embraces Islam, there are several opinions on the matter. One view is that once her waiting period has elapsed she is free to marry; yet if her husband accepts Islam before she remarries, she is returned to him. The hadiths support this position, among them the report concerning Zaynab, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, for the authentic narration states that he reinstated her on the basis of the original marriage contract six years later. Another proof is the narration recorded by al-Bukhārī from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās who said: “When a woman from the people of war emigrated, no proposal was made to her until she had menstruated and purified herself; once she had purified herself she was permitted to marry. If her husband also emigrated before she had married, she was returned to him.”
Decision of the Islamic Fiqh Council concerning the marriage of a non-Muslim man to a Muslim woman and of a Muslim man to a non-Muslim woman:
The Council of the Islamic Fiqh Council, after examining the objections raised by the Islamic associations in Singapore—
(a) the Singapore Islamic Missionary Society,
(b) Berains,
(c) Muhammadiyah,
(d) Bertas,
(e) Pertapis—
regarding the provisions of the Women’s Charter that allow a Muslim man or woman to marry someone who is not of the Islamic faith, and having deliberated on the matter, unanimously decides the following:
First: It is prohibited for a non-Muslim man to marry a Muslim woman. This is impermissible by the unanimous agreement of the scholars, and there is no doubt about it given the scriptural evidence. Allah the Exalted says, “Do not marry off your women to polytheists until they believe” (Qur’an 2:221); and He says, “If you ascertain that they are believers, then do not return them to the disbelievers; they are not lawful for them, nor are the disbelievers lawful for them; and give them what they have spent” (Qur’an 60:10); and the repetition in His statement—