Is a marriage without a written contract and a late dowry valid?

Question

One year ago i married my lovely husband without a marriage contract but in front of about 20-30 witnesses from my husbands family in morocco and a lovely iman who came and blessed our marriage.

Since then his sisters and parents are very jealous of us both and picking holes in our marriage. Firstly they say its not valid because we did not have a dowry. I am 47 years old and married before but my husband died. My husband is a little younger at 34. We recently had our first baby still born and this was the start of all this nonsense. We are extremely happy and in love and we did not commit any haram acts before our marriage. My husband gave me a dowry to stop them going on nasty to me but now this is paid they find something else to complain about. This time it is that we did not have a written contract. As far as we are concerned we married with love and great intentions with all his family there and happy and agreeing. Just after we lose our baby does all this nasty behaviour start. I feel they are picking at any point to say our marriage is not valid so they can tell him to leave me. We are in love and married and whether our son died or not we still have a son. He will never never leave me and i will not leave him.

Are they right our marriage is not valid please???

Answer 1

First for details on the conditions of a valid nikah refer to fatwa islamqa #2127 summarized what you need is assuming both of you are halal to marry each other:

1. Your guardian (wali, see Who can be wali, and in what order?) must agree to this marriage (so he must be present). In your post it is unclear who played this role and it is unclear what faith you have so there are three possibilities:

• You are a convert in this case only a Muslim can play this role (maybe the imam did so?).
• You are from among the people of the book and considered as chaste (a widow for example) in that case your guardian should be your father or brother or even your son if he is mature ... as long as he has the same faith. (See also As a Christian can I marry a Muslim in an Islamic Nikah w/o first having 'secular' legal wedding? and Will this certain nikah be valid and free from sin?)
• You are neither of that in this case this marriage is not valid and not halal for your husband.

2. You need at least two male witnesses for this marriage who witnessed the agreements of your guardian, of your husband and yours and maybe that of the conditions of this marriage (marriage contract).
In Morocco by law two professional male witnesses and/or scribes -which are assigned by a (family) court- do this part they are called 'Udul (See When being a witness/scribe was established as an official job? and Is my marriage valid?). it still happens that people don't call them and do marriage by "fatihah" (Islamic marriage without civil status) this gets more and more an illegal status in Morocco due to the chaos this may cause (Many men in rural area have got married and left their wives -in cases pregnant- and as no legal paper exists they don't acclaim their children or may at the end been married to more than four wives).

3. Once the marriage was consummated a mahr or dowry is a due on the husband (see also Is our marriage valid given that my husband has not paid me mahr yet?).
If this mahr was not named at the 'aqd an-Nikah (the marriage which was witnessed by the witnesses and in presence of your guardian) there's at least an equal mahr that must be paid this is usually based on the local customs or based on the mahr a husband has paid his other wives if he was already married.

Note that unlike the Moroccan civil law -which certainly is considering the benefit of all parties- in Islam a marriage contract must not necessarily been written (See fatwa islamqa #116994).
Usually -in Morocco- the two witnesses do write down the 'aqd an-Nikah so they write down all the conditions made by the two parties and the amount of the mahr.

If all of what I described above applies to your case your marriage is valid. Depending on the deviation it might be still valid or invalid. But from the few information presented it is hard to judge.

For evidences on the major points you may also refer to Perform Nikah yourself?