Islamic law (shari`a) has traditionally upheld a gender-differentiated doctrine of marriage, whereby Muslim men are permitted to marry non-Muslim women, but Muslim women are prohibited from marrying non-Muslim men. This classical doctrine continues to be maintained in mainstream contemporary Muslim religious discourse. Yet, neither the scriptural foundations nor the rational arguments supporting this doctrine has received little sustained scholarly analysis. This dearth is consequential given the contemporary context, in which many Muslims live as minorities in Western societies, making intra-communal marriage more challenging. The classical juristic permission for Muslim males to “marry out” in these minority contexts leaves scores of observant Muslim women with only two viable options: to remain unmarried and forego the benefits of companionship, children and sexual intimacy, or to themselves “marry out” of the religion and face ostracization and/or moral anxiety. The gender-differentiated doctrine of marriage thus creates disproportionate hardship for Muslim women in minority or multi-religious contexts, and merits interrogation. The objective of this paper is to investigate the arguments used to support this gendered doctrine as presented primarily in contemporary religious advice texts that address marriage between Muslims and People of the Book (Jews or Christians). Key scriptural texts – relevant Qur’anic verses and Prophetic ?ad?ths – as well as the acts and opinions of early religious authorities may also be reviewed, as they are important both to contemporary traditionalist discourses that support this gendered doctrine, as well as to emerging Islamic feminist discourses that might seek to revise it. The primary research languages will be English and Arabic. Some of the texts and/or themes that I hope to address are the following: pertinent Qur’anic verses (such as 5:5 and 2:221) and interpretations of key concepts like mu’min, k?fir, mushrik, and ahl al-kit?b therein; legal and biographical reports of intercommunal marriage among the Prophetic and Companions; traditional assumptions of both religious hierarchy of Islam over other religions and gender hierarchy of husbands over wives; concerns for the religious identity and practice of Muslim wives and children in intercommunal marriages, versus that of Muslim men in the same; arguments based on gender-differentiated notions of sexuality and psychology, such that men’s need for men to marry is given greater weight that women’s.