People sometimes jokingly ask, why is it that driving requires a license, but you can have children without a license or any kind of certification? It’s often a lighthearted remark, but, when you think about it, it’s a legitimate question. If driving or teaching at a school, practicing medicine or law, or even being a plumber requires certification, then what about something that is far more sensitive, far more significant like having children and raising them? After all, children are our future and the state of our society as a whole depends on how children are brought up — their morals, their sense of responsibility, their character, and so on. It’s no secret that children who grow up without proper parental influence are far more likely to become involved in drugs and crime, to face unemployment, to fail to become productive members of society and upright human beings. This, then, has a toll on all of us, on all members of society.

Given these high stakes, one has to wonder how any civilized nation could allow its people to have children without having some kind of regulations to ensure that all children have competent parents. Isn’t it a child’s right to have a stable household and parents who are capable of properly raising him? Isn’t it our right as members of society to make sure incompetent, irresponsible people in our midst aren’t having children that they will neglect, children who will be more likely to become burdens on society?

Islam, of course, does require just such a license — a nikah. Properly done, according to Prophetic guidance, a nikah ensures that a couple is in the best position to raise a family, with the full support of the extended family and the community at large.