What is the ruling on the marriage of a Muslim man and a girl who embraced Islam a week before the marriage, knowing that they committed fornication before marriage and did not repent until after it? Are their children considered illegitimate? Are they considered in the status of fornicators throughout their marriage? Are they excused by their ignorance? And what about the fate of the children in this case?

First: It is not permissible for an adulterer to marry an adulteress except after repentance, based on the Almighty’s saying: (The fornicator does not marry except a fornicatress or an idolatress, and as for the fornicatress, none marries her except a fornicator or an idolater. And that has been forbidden to the believers). The correct view is the obligation to renew the marriage contract, and divorce is not necessary. The guardian for the woman is her Muslim father, or her brother, or any other Muslim male relative (asabah), or the imam of the Islamic center if no Muslim guardian is available. It is not necessary to inform the person officiating the contract of the true situation; using allusive language (tawriya) is permissible.

Second: The children born from the previous marriage are attributed to the husband because they were born from a marriage that the spouses believed to be valid.