#663: Ruling an Expiation for a Wife Who referred to Her Husband as Her Father?
QUESTION:
“Assallam alaykum wa rahmatullah. As it is wrong for a man to refer to his wife as his mother or even make such comparison. What is the sharia stand on a married woman who refer to the husband as ‘our daddy/father? Does she have to pay same price as the man who commits similar sin. I hope my question meet your understanding. Assallam alaykum”
ANSWER:
Wa ‘Alaykum Salām Warahmatullāh Wabarakātuh.
Alhamdulillāh.
Know, may Allāh Grant you sound understanding, that what the Sharī’ah has frowned at, and which Allāh has referred to as Munkaran Min Al-Qawli Wa Zūrah (Repugnant Statement and Falsehood) is the Jahili Arab method of Divorce known as the Dhihār.
In this from of divorce, a man says to his wife You are as Harām for me as my mother is or You are to me like is my mother and sister and statements to that regard.
Which implies his committing himself to refrain from getting close to her intimately and thinly referring to her as that by way of alluding to divorce.
In the Qur’ān, Allāh referred to this form of divorce as wrong and obligated upon the man who says that to expiate for it, as mentioned in Sūratu Al-Mujādilah.
Does the Dhihār and the expiation for it occur if such statements come from the wife?
The answer is ‘No’ and that is because the wife was not obligated by Allāh in the Qur’ān with same.
Rather, if she makes a statement like ‘You are to me today like my father and intimacy with you today is Harām upon me like it is with my father’, it becomes obligatory upon her to make the Kaffārah (expiation) of Yamīn (Oath) and Allāh knows best.
The Hanafī Imām Ibn Humām referred to this in Fat’hu Al-Qadīr
Then, know, may Allāh rectify our affairs, that if a woman refers to her husband as Our Daddy by way of respect and of making other people realise who she is speaking about, and this does not in any way bring about ambiguity as it is traditional in some communities, we do not see any wrong in this, and Allāh knows best.
Bārakallāhu Fīkum
Jazākumullāhu Khayran.
📚IslamNode
