Musakana: Freedom or Avoiding Responsibility?
Musakana — I keep seeing people defend relationships without marriage as “freedom,” but I honestly don't understand the logic.
If one partner explicitly wants a relationship without marriage or commitment, doesn't that at least raise a red flag?
Marriage isn't just a romantic label. It's a legal framework that creates rights, responsibilities, financial obligations, inheritance rules, and protections for both partners.
So why spend years arguing that society needs laws to protect partners—especially women—and then deliberately avoid the framework that creates those protections, and call avoiding it freedom?
I think there are actually two different situations here.
1. If we're talking about a religious marriage
If you're Muslim, you can't simply redefine marriage according to your personal preferences.
In Islam, a Muslim cannot validly marry an atheist, whether the Muslim is male or female. The separate ruling concerning a Muslim man marrying a woman from the People of the Book is a different matter—an atheist isn't People of the Book.
And simply doing a civil marriage doesn't change the Islamic ruling. A civil registration can document a marriage, but it doesn't automatically make an otherwise invalid Islamic marriage valid.
So from the Islamic perspective, if the marriage requirements aren't met, you can't just say “I have a different point of view on what Islam says.”
Religion is naql—we receive and follow what Allah and His Messenger ﷺ legislated. We don't invent our own rules and then call them another interpretation of Islam.
So I don't need to explain that Musakana is out of the question else its زنا
2. If we're talking about atheist + atheist (since we've already established that Muslim + atheist isn't a valid Islamic marriage)
Then obviously the religious framework isn't relevant.
But I'd still ask: why does one partner specifically want to avoid marriage?
If someone knows that marriage creates legal responsibilities and protections, but deliberately convinces their partner to stay outside that framework, shouldn't you at least ask who benefits from that arrangement?
Maybe the person understands the rules perfectly well and is simply smart enough to realize that avoiding marriage protects himself from obligations while leaving the other partner with fewer protections.
And if his worldview is that this life is all there is—no divine judgment, no afterlife, no ultimate accountability—then why wouldn't maximizing present freedom and comfort sometimes take priority over long-term obligations, family responsibility, or legacy?
I'm not saying every atheist thinks this way.
I'm asking a simpler question:
If someone is actively trying to keep the relationship outside the framework that creates obligations and protections, why shouldn't that be considered a red flag?
At some point, “freedom” shouldn't automatically mean avoiding every framework that creates responsibilities while still expecting society to protect you from the consequences.