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He threatened to give his wife Khul’ if she returned to her country

Question

asalam, my question is, me & my wife stayed togetther in saudi for a period of 7 months, very offten we use to quarrel each other becouse of family indifferences, in there family her sister, her aunt are of bad character. i was not allowing her to talk to them.one day my wife decided to leave me alone in saudi & left me alone. infact i tried to keep her with me but she refused to stay with me,atlast i told her to write a khulanama letter and then you can go by the intention of warning. but she did not care for my warning and given khula nama letter,then i also decided to leave her. i told her on the same sitting that, if you leave me and go to india i have given khula to you. after around 20 days she left me and gone to india with out my consent, during these 20 days i did sex with her. now in the above case is it khula accur between me and my wife?

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

The question is not very clear to us as we did not understand what you meant by the letter of Khul’, but if what happened is that you conditioned the Khul’ of your wife upon her going to India while intending by this to divorce her and you did not mention any compensation, then the answer is that if a husband utters Khul’ without compensation, then it is a metaphor of divorce as stated by Ibn Qudaamah in “Al-Mughni” as he said: “If he [the husband] utters it [Khul’] without compensation and he intended divorce, then it is a revocable divorce as this can be a metaphor of divorce but if he did not intend divorce with it, then it does not lead to anything. This is the view of Imaams Abu Haneefa and Ash-Shaafi’i, because if the Khul’ is an invalidation of the marriage contract, then the husband has no right to invalidate the marriage contract except in case she [the wife] has a defect that affects the marriage contract.

Therefore, if you had intended to initiate divorce if she left (to her home country) without your permission, then divorce takes place if what you conditioned divorce on happens, but if you did not intend divorce with it, then divorce does not take place.

If we presume that divorce took place, then if this is not the third divorce, the divorce is revocable and you can take her back as long as she is in her waiting period. If you had sexual intercourse with her while she is in her waiting period, then this is a valid taking back of a wife after divorce. This is because some scholars are of the view that having sexual intercourse with one’s wife in her waiting period is considered as having taken her back.

In any case, since there is some ambiguity in the question, then it should be mentioned that the answer may not be in conformity with the question, so you should not rely on this answer unless you make sure that this Fatwa exactly applies to your situation.

Also, it should be noted that it is not permissible for a wife to leave her husband’s home without his permission and if she left it without him giving her permission, then she is a disobedient wife.

Indeed, the Sharee’ah clarified the steps to undertake in dealing with a disobedient wife; in this regard please refer to Fatwa 85402.

Allaah Knows best.

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