His wife believes in the Oneness of Allaah, but does not practice Islam
Fatwa No: 131691

Question

he has a wife who believes in oneness of ALLAH but never practise the obligatory acts of whorship shes converted thrue him they were officemate and behaves arrogantly towards his husband she is inconsistent and changeable mind they have a daughter he devorced her already twice and now he married other girl who practised his aim for a new marriages is to find peace and live honourably in accordance to islam.Its adds more troubles and fight to him till he said to other wife that when he go to abroad he will devorces her, right now there still together living.the other wife is already in abroad where he will join her insh whats the best solution to a wife thats continously misbehaves,none practising and always treaten him that she will take other man behaving like kafir drinks alcohol and smoke before she used to pray by his incouragement putting on veil now she turn to be like a kafir even a husband is a good practising muslim always give her dawah and humble his self to her just to bring her always to islam.There been 7yrs together till now

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 is His slave and Messenger.

 

First of all, we blame this husband for two matters: firstly, he stayed with this woman for all this long period of time and it is only now that he is asking for a solution; and secondly, he married her just because she believed in the Oneness of Allaah while she is not performing her religious obligations.

If a person does not abide by performing prayer, fasting and other religious rulings while having uttered the Two Testimonies of Faith, and while he/she is able to act according to the rites of Islam, then he/she is not ruled to be a Muslim because he/she is lacking one of the conditions for the validity of becoming a Muslim which is the performance of good deeds. So, such a person is not even considered as an apostate because, in principle, he/she was not ruled to be a Muslim.

In any case, if this woman is a chaste woman from the People of the Book, then the marriage contract with her is valid. However, if she is not following the religion of the People of the Book, then the marriage contract with her is void and it is an obligation on her husband to separate from her but the children from her should be traced back to him if he did not know that this matter (marrying her) is forbidden.

Moreover, if he knew that it is forbidden for him to marry her, and he did so transgressing this prohibition, then this is Zina (fornication or adultery), and in this case, the children should be traced back to their mother and not to him.

Finally, a wife who is arrogant towards her husband, mistreats him, threatens him to establish relationships with other men, drinks intoxicants and smokes, is a bad woman who commits many evil deeds. Also, she is disobedient and the Sharee’ah clarified the method of treating a disobedient wife in Fatwa 85402, so please refer to it.

Allaah Knows best.  

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