salam aleikum i want advise as to what is the right thing to do if my main and olny concern is to obey Allah, my husband has another wife he married before me and now he wants to bring her live with me in the same house. But this may meen we may need to divoce legaly because she needs visa to come. I trust Allah to provide me with everything but by my knowlwedge is limited and I need advise as to what is the best thing to do in this situation. Other wife is not keen on comming to stay with me and that worries me because i do not wan to upset anyone. And my husband is suffering so much because of this. in deed my main concern is his welfare - he is sick from all this mess. And that is why I keep wondering if I should leave him to make it easy with only one wife. I do not know if Allah allows it. Can you advise me please. Jazzak Alah

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 do not understand what you mean by your statement ‘if Allaah allows it’; it might be that you mean what you mentioned at the end of the question that you want to leave your husband so that he might live with his first wife. So if you mean by this asking for divorce, then a wife is not allowed to ask for divorce unless she has a sound reason. But if you fear any harm by him keeping both of you in the same house, then you are permitted to ask for divorce due to the harm. For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 88408.

However, if you can be patient with him and stay with him, then you should do so because the benefit might not be in divorce.

As regards the legal [fake] divorce, then we have already clarified that one should not resort to it due to some prohibitions; for more benefit in this regard, please refer to Fataawa 89514 and 105113.

As regards him keeping both of you in one house, then this is not permissible except with the consent of both of you. However, if the house is big in a way that he can allocate a part of it with its separate amenities to each one of you, then he is allowed to do so.

For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 86818, 90132 and 91150.

Allaah Knows best.