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Fatwa CenterHis wife had a child from another marriage without getting divorce from him
Question
Asslamoallcum Brothers I got a question, very important and please advise asap. I should give background history. I am in Uk but origin from Pakistan. From 1988/89 i had pen friendship with a gril from Algeria. In 1991 i had arranged marriaage in pakistan and now i have 3 children. Later this girl moved from Algeria to paris where I visited her in 1997. We spend a month together and we both fell in love. We went to a local mosque in Paris for Nikah but later postponed for some times. After few months she visited me in pakistan and stayed for a month. We had simple Islamic nikkah there, by a loca Imam in presence of 7/8 adults. She accepted, signed happily and informed her family back home that she is married. She changed her surname and we lived as husband and wife foe some time. During all this long period I did not informed her tat i am already married. I lied to her all they way, for which I am extremly ashmed since that time. After a month she returned to paris. There she find out that about my previous marriage. She broke down with me all connections. I xplained, apology and nothing worked. To avoid her doing wrong, I later offered if she want a divorce but she said that Nikkah was fraud as well. Now I successful to contact her and find out she was marraied again to another man and have a daughter. Unfortunatly that marriage not worked and now she is a divorced. My question is status of our nikkah? and status of her second marriage? If our nikkah stands that whats better advise for her?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
First of all, you should know that it is not permissible for a man to establish an affectionate relationship with a non-Mahram woman, so you are obliged to repent to Allaah for doing so.
As regards your marriage to that woman, it seems that it was without the consent of her guardian, and the consent of the guardian is a condition for the validity of the marriage contract according to the view of the majority of the scholars 
. Therefore, your marriage to her is void, however, this marriage should be invalidated or that the husband [yourself] should divorce the wife. The wife signing the marriage paper has no effect on this marriage and its does not render it valid; for more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 92478.
If the second husband married her before the first marriage was invalidated, or before you divorced her, then this second marriage is void according to the consensus of the scholars . Therefore, she is obliged to observe a waiting period from this second marriage and then you may marry her with the consent of her guardian if both of you wish to continue the marital life; for more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 120395.
As regards the girl to whom she gave birth, she is not traced back to this second husband but she is traced back to you, because the children born of a controversial marriage (like yours) are traced back to the husband since it is a doubtful marriage (and the child is for the owner of the bed as clarified in Fatwa 84301).
However, it should be noted that it is not permissible for a wife to change the name of her family to the name of the family of the husband or else, because it is confirmed that the Prophet said: “Whoever attributes his fatherhood to anyone other than his (real) father or (a slave) takes someone else as his master other than his (real) master, will incur the curse of Allaah, angels and all the people.” [Ahmad and Ibn Maajah]
In addition to this, if a wife is traced back to the family of her husband then she is imitating the non-Muslims, and the Prophet said: "Whoever imitates a people is one of them." [Abu Daawood]
For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 85803 and 89932.
Allaah Knows best.
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