Is it valid to marry over the phone? And marriage through transfer of agency (tawkil)

Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

It is not valid to conduct marriages over the phone, because it is a condition for the validity of marriage that the witnesses be present in the same place the marriage offer and acceptance take place. Though other contracts can be valid over the phone, the top contemporary scholars who have studied this (including Shaykh Adib al-Kallas of Damascus, and top Indo-Pak scholars) have said that given the sensitivity of marriages, they cannot be conducted over the phone.

The solution is through agency. See answer below for details.

Wassalam,
Faraz Rabbani