Aslam

Praise be to Allah.Basically the righteous wife should be obedient to her Lord and not

disobedient to her husband. There is no better deed than a woman obeying her husband as

Allaah has commanded, at the time when he is disobeying Him with regard to her.

The husband has the right to stop his wife from visiting her family

– if he thinks that doing so will serve some shar’i purpose, for example, if she

is rebellious towards him every time she comes back from visiting them. But if he is doing

them wrong and they are not disobedient towards Allaah and they do not try to turn his

wife against him, then the husband is a sinner if he cuts their daughter off from them.

She also has to obey him with regard to not going out.

The husband has the right to relocate his family wherever he thinks will

be good for them, and his wife does not have the right to disobey him with regard to that,

unless it was made a condition in the marriage contract that he would not make her move.

If this condition was not stipulated, then she has no right to object.

Good treatment of wives is a duty enjoined upon husbands by Allaah, when

He said (interpretation of the meaning): “… and live with them

honourably…” [al-Nisa’ 4:19]. The husband does not have the right to

treat his wife badly. If he sees her doing something that goes against the sharee’ah,

he should follow the steps laid down by sharee’ah to put the matter right. Firstly,

he should exhort her in a good manner, and if that does not work, he should adopt the

method of forsaking her (i.e., not having marital relations with her). If that does not

work, then he may strike her, in a manner that does not cause pain or injury.

If the husband does treat his wife badly, that does not mean that she

should disobey him or go against what Allaah has commanded her to do with regard to him.

We advise the sister to do the following:

strive hard to do things that will please her husband such as speaking

nicely and treating him well.

To deal with him not on the basis that she is his opponent and his equal

with regard to commanding and forbidding, but on the basis that she is obedient to him and

is at his beck and call, because this will make a decent man feel shy, and will make

matters easier for her and help her to convince him. But he is the one who is in charge of

her (he is qawwaam over her), not the other way round.

She should offer lots of du’aa’ for her husband to be reformed

and for things to be made easy for her. She should put things right between herself and

her Lord so that Allaah will put things right between her and other people.

There is nothing wrong with asking someone whose religious commitment

she trusts and who is wise to intervene between her and her husband, to convince him to

change his mind about moving, if she thinks that this would have a bad effect on her

religious commitment or that it would make matters between them worse. Otherwise, she

should accept what Allaah has decreed for her.

We ask Allaah to make things easy for her and to choose for her whatever

is better for her spiritual and worldly interests.

And Allaah knows best.