About Muslim Marriage or Nikaah 

Muslim Marriage or Nikah is held as a legal civil contract between a man and a woman carried out on the basis of ijab-o-qabool. Ijab is a proposal from one party and Qubool is acceptance from other.  According to Sharia law, this contract is considered as integral to a religiously valid Islamic marriage that legalises sexual relation between man and woman to produce children. The contract is never permanent and can be broken at the will of husband and wife.

• Marriage in Islam is not considered as sacrament (sacred) but a social contract of obligation between a man and woman to live together and to procreate children.
• This contract is legitimate only when there are two male or one male & two female witnesses and accepted by both the parties in single sitting.
• This contract is not permanent. Couple are not assumed to live together till death. The contract can be broken by seeking divorce by the either party.
• The husband has to pay ‘Mahr’ a payment to the bride before entering in a contract which she can spend as per her will.
• Islam does not allow celibacy as it believes that this leads to all sorts of psychological and physical tensions and problems; though sexual relationship outside marriage is crime in Islam.
• The key difference in marriages between Islam and other faiths is that, to this day, a man may have four wives simultaneously.
• Polyandry is not allowed in Islam, Muslim women are supposed to have only one husband at a time.