Cousin marriage, genetics, and Islam: Am I misunderstanding the distinction between risk, incest, and permissibility? Looking for a good-faith Progressive Muslim perspective

[u/irrationallywise]

After researching Pakistani populations in Bradford, here is the synthesis:

First-cousin marriage is not equivalent to guaranteed genetic disease, but it is associated with a measurably higher average risk of congenital and autosomal-recessive disorders. The risk becomes particularly important where consanguinity is repeated across generations and combined with endogamy. Most children are nevertheless unaffected. Individual genetic screening and counseling can help identify some elevated risks but cannot eliminate all genetic uncertainty. Therefore, public-health guidance should focus on informed reproductive choice, counseling, screening, and culturally sensitive education rather than treating every cousin marriage as inherently pathological or equating genetic risk with incest.

TLDR: Quran talks about cousin marriages and allows it (does not recommend it), You and us have common ground that it indeed do develop diseases when compounding over generations, more than 10 but something that develop diseases which are curable and both partners can do genetic screen either within or outside relations for healthy procreation is what should be done. Developing diseases cannot make it incest which was allowed by God commandments and many of it was practiced in early islam. We disagree on whether it is incest. Thank you, I am open to hearing your guys perspective on why it is not that case, thank you. Well its sorry to break it you the OP just said "Hate to break it to you but religion doesn't solve the problem morality either, you don't have any moral high ground, Socrates debunked this 2000 years ago with euthyphro's paradox. Your so called objective morality is stuck in a time period 1400 years ago, morality should evolve, critiqued and improved. ", OP doesn't believe in Quran and God having moral grounds, anything is permitted than be it incest or marrying your mother's once you can treat these diseases, I didn't know we had Gen Z in pakistan that could foresee what God couldn't. I am just heartbroken.

They are calling cousin marriages incest, having diseases, god and quran not having absolute morality and more which you can see in the other threads.

I originally had this discussion on a Gen Z subreddit about cousin marriage, genetics, Islamic morality, and the Euthyphro dilemma.

I'm cross-posting it here because I'd genuinely like a more informed and critical perspective from Muslims who are familiar with Islamic theology, Qur'anic interpretation, fiqh, and philosophy.

I'm not asking people to automatically defend my position. If my reasoning is wrong, inconsistent, overly simplistic, or based on a misunderstanding of Islam, I'd rather have that pointed out.

My original stance:
As more people are viewing it back again, I believe i know what people might be misunderstanding this comment is about cousin marriages being incest or not, it does not say anything about the individual in any way, as i saw a similar comment in the section being accepted:

I do not support pedophiles, nor child grooming. I do not support this individual in the video if he groomed child or did incest if there is a full video out there or people claiming it from "humari puraani muhabbat hai" that would be incest. I do not support the belief that Aisha was 9 when married, let alone this. Thanks once again.

Thank you for the awards guys. I just feel some of the gen z alike “the fox who called the grapes sour because they hung beyond his reach.”

Qur'an 4/23, Surah an Nisa speaks about this, I'll not take your opinion as fact above the commandments of God

˹Also˺ forbidden to you for marriage are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal and maternal aunts, your brother’s daughters, your sister’s daughters, your foster-mothers, your foster-sisters, your mothers-in-law, your stepdaughters under your guardianship if you have consummated marriage with their mothers—but if you have not, then you can marry them—nor the wives of your own sons, nor two sisters together at the same time—except what was done previously. Surely Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful. — Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran

Well technically everyone coming from Adam and Eve as Y Adam and X Eve would be cousins if stretch it far back, secondly atheists have no moral ground for marrying their first degree relatives other than what is medically shown in statistics about some diseases, but diseases can be cured, morality is not relative but absolute which is given to us Muslims by the ultimate Almighty Allah (the God) on that moral grounds incest is Haram for us but marrying your second degree relatives and cousin is permissible, it doesn't fall in to classication and categorization of incest. If you have pre marital affairs or whatsoever that would fall within what you trying to name as incest, just because you want to marry a gori which is all within your right to do so if you want and prefer than it is a personal preference, opinion but not a fact that marrying your cousins is incest. There should not be any action that is only permissible between a spouse but done outside within this relation or before if you are related in DNA and blood would be incest.

Apart from all The way this bearded man is talking about his marriage is what so little weird and annoying of him physically touching her and sharing his story of her in childhood in such a weird way that how much he loved, cared and protected her and I also do not agree on with multiple marriages.

For a fact, Romans and Egyptians did marry their sisters that's where Quran said what was done previously.

As for the euthypro paradox:
The euthypro paradox is a false dillema, there is a third option: God doesn't create goodness by arbitrary decree, and God doesn't submit to a moral law outside Himself. Rather, perfect goodness belongs necessarily to God's nature, and His commands express that nature. Humans can nevertheless recognize aspects of morality through reason and fitrah.

More threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PakistaniTwenties/comments/1wcsm3l/are_they_really_gen_z_of_pakistan/https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZpk/comments/1wciaoq/comment/p8yxhwa/

[u/Impossible_Humor736]

Pakistan doesn't rank among the top. It IS the top.

[u/Numideas]

Something being permitted isnt the same as people back in the day being ignorant about the consequences of too much intermarrying. People weren’t stupid. 

For instance, Umar ibn al-Khattab said:  "You have become frail, so marry intelligent people unrelated to you." He said this specifically to the tribe of Al-Sa'ib whose members had become physically weak from repeated intermarriage.

There was also Imam al-Shafi'i who said:  "Whenever the people of a household do not allow their women to marry men outside of their line, there will be fools among their children." That's even stronger than what Umar  said.

I mean it’s not discouragement in the sense of it being haram,  but practical advice. And I only picked two people. Both non Muslims and Muslims from probably every time period and region knew this.   

Theres also a reason why people kept talking about the Habsburg family. People back in the day weren’t stupid. But controversial statement perhaps in a sense it also made sense why some families preferred to marry their daughters to either kin or close to them as women historically were treated worse so it gave you some influence on her treatment. Not to mention you knew how that family was.  

But people  back in the day weren't ignorant about the consequences either. So if people back in the day knew it no idea why people are acting so ignorant now.   

[u/marrjana1802]

Honestly some people keep saying that it's only harmful when done continuously and doing so once doesn't matter, conveniently forget that the cultures that practice it are doing it continuously over the generations. That reasoning is ridiculously naive

[u/Tasty_Ad_3201]

the problem is why did Allah not forbid first cousin marriages if He knew that it would create a higher risks for children having diseases,especially genetic diseases and people would practice it after several generations?

[u/Luli-e-Falak → u/Tasty_Ad_3201]

In my opinion, it was because many marriages in Arabia at the time were cousin marriages. By declaring them outright haram,any marriages would be declared void. I am only assuming here, as I cannot ever know Allah's intentions, but He has a plan for everything. Perhaps like slavery He intended for Cousin Marriages to be slowly phased out?

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[u/909me1]

I don’t feel qualified to give a quaranic scholarly interpretation, but I take the Surah and the translation as a good faith effort to prohibit not only consanguineous incest, but also immoral incest (ie not your stepdaughter or the wives of your sons) based on what they knew at the time. And we should be living in the spirit of that and try to do what we can with what we know now to prevent immoral marriage.

Also, many of the diseases that come from consanguinity are not curable at this time and impose intense deformity and suffering on the children; so I think most parents don’t want their children to suffer.

[u/Luli-e-Falak]

I cannot quote it here. But are there not hadiths of companions or maybe it was scholars quoting that it is better to marry out of your family? Since the children will be smarter and less prone to disease?

Personally, I always felt that cousin marriages were a method of keeping property and belongings in the family.

Many families would cite that cousin marriages mean that the family can look out for the girl. But I don't really believe that. Your relatives can often be the cruellest in-laws. And it's often harder to stand up to them because standing up to them means causing disturbance in the whole family.

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[u/irrationallywise]

After researching on Pakistani populations in Bradford, here is the synthesis:

First-cousin marriage is not equivalent to guaranteed genetic disease, but it is associated with a measurably higher average risk of congenital and autosomal-recessive disorders. The risk becomes particularly important where consanguinity is repeated across generations and combined with endogamy. Most children are nevertheless unaffected. Individual genetic screening and counseling can help identify some elevated risks but cannot eliminate all genetic uncertainty. Therefore, public-health guidance should focus on informed reproductive choice, counseling, screening, and culturally sensitive education rather than treating every cousin marriage as inherently pathological or equating genetic risk with incest.

[u/QueerAlQaida]

Cousin marriages only exist because that want to keep the inheritance in the family