Fatwa No. 48 — p. 79

Question:

Our Shaykh — may Allah preserve you. I ask Allah to grant you continued health and well-being and to perpetuate them upon you as a blessing and bounty from Him. Āmīn.

I have two questions that have caused me considerable confusion and were the reason for a serious problem between my husband and me. My father and sister were brought in to arbitrate between us — but I accept no judge other than Allah. I therefore hope that you will clarify this matter for us.

My first question: Shaykh, I acknowledge that I am a jealous woman — though, of course, I trust my husband, praise be to Allah. Due to the nature of his daʿwah work on the internet, through chat programmes and his lessons, my husband speaks with women. Sometimes this concerns the lesson itself; at other times they discuss peripheral matters. I told him that this upsets me and asked him to avoid it for my sake — but he refused, saying: “I answer their questions and this is my duty.” What is the Islamic ruling regarding my request that my husband not speak with women about peripheral matters, or even for the purpose of answering their questions?

My second question: My husband has a friend whom he visits from time to time. His friend’s wife sits with them, speaks with my husband, laughs and converses with him, and even jokes with him — as though my husband were one of her maḥārim or close relatives. I asked my husband if he could avoid this, but he became angry and said: “I will not give up my friend or stop visiting him.” Yet I did not ask him to stop visiting his friend — I only asked him to avoid interacting with his friend’s wife.

What is the Islamic ruling on what my husband is doing — whether intentionally or unintentionally? For Allah’s sake, Shaykh — advise me if I am mistaken or excessive in my request and have no right to make it; or advise my husband if he is in the wrong and is failing to consider my feelings as his wife. May Allah bless you and your knowledge.

Answer:

Al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabb al-ʿālamīn. To proceed:

Conversation between a man and a woman who is not among his maḥārim should be conducted within proper bounds (bi-l-maʿrūf) and limited to what need requires — not merely for the sake of socialising and passing time. Allah Most High said :“Do not be soft in speech, lest he in whose heart is disease should covet — but speak with appropriate and recognised words.” (1)

It is well known that there is no temptation (fitnah) more severe for men than women — and that the first temptation of the Children of Israel was concerning women. (2) Shayṭān has his steps and avenues of approach, his deceptions and enticements. My constant counsel to those engaged in daʿwah is that they exercise the utmost caution in two areas above all: financial matters and women — for those who spread malicious talk find their way to attack the honour of those in daʿwah through one of these two avenues. We ask Allah to grant us and you well-being (ʿāfiyah).

If your husband is among those who work in the field of calling to Allah — Exalted and Majestic — then you do not have the right to prevent him from conveying daʿwah to women or from answering their questions. You may, however, advise him to maintain seriousness and objectivity in his conversations with them, and to limit them to what need genuinely requires.

Know also that Allah dislikes jealousy (ghayrah) where there are no grounds for suspicion — and that excessive jealousy is a key that may open the door to divorce. For the Prophet (ﷺ) said: “There is a type of jealousy that Allah loves and a type that Allah dislikes. As for that which He loves — it is jealousy where there are grounds for suspicion. As for that which He dislikes — it is jealousy where there are no grounds for suspicion.” (3)

Do not, therefore, be excessive in this regard — lest you bring upon yourself and upon your relationship with your husband difficulties whose consequences may not be praiseworthy. We ask Allah to grant us and you well-being.

As for your husband’s visits to his friend — there is no objection to that. The objection lies in what accompanies those visits: the free mixing (khulṭah) and lowering of barriers with his friend’s wife. This is what requires that he be advised about — gently. Such mixing is among the steps of Shayṭān and the pathways to temptation. The fortunate one is he who takes admonition from the experience of others — not the one who becomes the cautionary example through his own.

We ask Allah to grant us and him well-being. Our counsel to him is that he reconsider his conduct in this matter — seeking thereby to please his Lord, preserve his marriage, and attain safety and protection.

We ask Allah to open his heart to this counsel, to avert evil from you both, and to protect you both from trials and temptations — those that are apparent and those that are hidden.

And Allah Most High knows best.

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Footnotes (Takhrīj):

(1) Sūrat al-Aḥzāb (33:32) .

(2) Recorded by Muslim in Kitāb al-Dhikr wa-l-Duʿāʾ wa-l-Tawbah wa-l-Istighfār, chapter “The Majority of the People of Paradise Are the Poor and the Majority of the People of the Fire Are Women, and the Clarification of the Trial Posed by Women,” ḥadīth no. 2742 — on the authority of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī (may Allah be pleased with him), with the wording: “Indeed, this world is sweet and verdant, and Allah has placed you as successors in it to observe how you conduct yourselves. So beware of this world and beware of women — for the first trial of the Children of Israel was concerning women.”

(3) Recorded by Ibn Mājah in Kitāb al-Nikāḥ, chapter “Jealousy (al-Ghayrah),” ḥadīth no. 1996 — on the authority of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him). Al-Albānī cited it in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ, ḥadīth no. 5905.