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I am a young man aged 21 years. I want to get married but I have two older brothers who have not got married yet. Is it permissible for me to get married before them?

Praise be to Allah.This question was put to

Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him), who said:

I say to the brother who

is asking the question, you are not too young to get married. ‘Amr ibn

al-‘Aas got married when he was 11 years old, and he had a child. Hence

it was said that that there was only thirteen years between him and

his son ‘Abd-Allaah.

I say to the brother who

is asking the question, put your trust in Allaah and get married, and

when it is easy for your two older brothers to get married they will

get married too.

This is one of the grievous

mistakes that some people make, when they do not let the younger daughter

marry so longer as there is an older sibling. This is a shame.

If someone whose character and religious

commitment are suitable proposes marriage to her, then they should let

her get married to him. Maybe there is something preventing the older

sister from getting married. Often what happens is that it is decreed

that the younger sister will marry first, so if the younger sister is

not allowed to marry first, the older sister is prevented from marrying.

Then when the younger sister gets married, Allaah opens the door for

the older sister (to get married). This is something which is well known

from experience, i.e., that not letting one daughter get married may

prevent another from getting married. The same may apply to having children.

We have heard more than one story of a man who gets married and remains

childless for fifteen years, then he takes a second wife and the second

wife gets pregnant from the first night of marriage, and then the first

wife get pregnant at the same time.

So we say to the one who

is asking: get married and do not think that this means you are disobeying

your parents or severing your ties of kinship with your brothers.

Source: IslamQA (Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid)
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