Is marriage an obstacle to seeking knowledge?
It depends on your circumstances: on what you have by way of provision, on the nature of your study, and on whether a spouse helps you toward it or occupies you away from it. Marriage is not in itself an obstacle; it can be an aid to knowledge, through the settledness and sufficiency in it. It becomes an obstacle when it loads a person with expenses he cannot carry alongside study.
The honest answer turns on your circumstances. What it hinges on is below.
The question is usually put as a choice between two things, and they are not opposites to begin with.
Marriage is encouraged, and among the evidences of this is that poverty was not made an impediment to it: “And marry the unmarried among you and the righteous among your male slaves and female slaves. If they should be poor, Allah will enrich them from His bounty, and Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.” (Qur’an 24:32)
What makes it an obstacle or an aid are matters particular to you:
1. Provision. If you have enough for yourself and your household, there is no conflict. If marriage loads you with debt and work that cuts you off from study, that is the point to examine. 2. The nature of the study. A student devoted full-time to memorising in a country not his own is not in the position of someone studying in his own city while working. 3. The spouse herself. Some help toward knowledge, guard the time and make the house ready for it; with others the matter goes otherwise. This weighs more than is generally supposed. 4. Age and state. Whoever fears for himself, marriage takes precedence in his case, because preserving one's religion comes before acquiring a question.
And the governing principle: “Allah does not charge a soul except with that within its capacity. It will have the consequence of what good it has gained, and it will bear the consequence of what evil it has earned. "Our Lord, do not impose blame upon us if we have forgotten or erred. Our Lord, and lay not upon us a burden like that which You laid upon those before us. Our Lord, and burden us not with that which we have no ability to bear. And pardon us; and forgive us; and have mercy upon us. You are our protector, so give us victory over the disbelieving people."” (Qur’an 2:286)
So you are not charged with joining two things you cannot join, nor with deferring marriage to a distant point out of fear for your study.
As for the common notion that knowledge is attained only by complete devotion to it, this is not so without qualification; many of the people of knowledge married early and their study bore fruit. The rule is rather that each matter is given its due: if marriage now would cut you off, defer it a little and arrange your affairs; if it would settle you and assist you, put it first. And put the detail of your situation to someone who knows you.
- Qur’anQur’an 24:32
- Qur’anQur’an 2:286