Assalamualaikum, Dear Shaikh, I am married with 4 children for 10 years already. We have good relation, until now my husband is in-love with another woman but with my knowledge. I agree with him to the second married of my husband. But when it come to know by my parents they were not allow my husband to married the girl. My husband agreed to separate from her. I did a lot of investigation and I know that both of them love each other very much. They called each other as wife and husband. It make me have a lot of questions: Are they in sex relationship? do they have any thing beyond that?. I have asking him several time about this but my husband denied of having sex relationship with her. But I still feel uncomfortable and doubt about this. I always suspect him of having such and such relationship. Is it allow in Islam to suspect husband in this case.

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.

It is an established principle in the Islamic Sharee'ah that a Muslim is not sinful unless proven otherwise (by clear evidence). It is impermissible for you to accuse your husband of having a sexual relationship with this woman based on mere suspicion. This is because Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin…}[Quran 49:12] You made a mistake when you asked your husband if he was having a sexual relationship with this woman or not; please refer to Fatwa 174781.

On the other hand, it is impermissible for your husband to have an illegitimate relationship with a non-Mahram woman and the fact that they call one another ‘husband and wife’ is impermissible and unacceptable. He must repent from that and turn back to Allaah in obedience. The conditions of repentance are explained in Fatwa 86527.

He has two choices, either to marry this woman if possible and if he is able to treat you both equally; or to put an end to any relationship with her. He is obliged to end this relationship if he is unable to marry her. Your parents have no right to object to his marriage from another woman if he chooses to do so. The Islamic Sharee'ah allows polygyny; please refer to Fataawa 86818 and 81469.

Finally, we would like to point out that if your husband continues to have a relationship with this woman, then you should advise him and remind him of Allaah. If he repents, then praise be to Allaah; otherwise, you should consider asking for divorce because of his dissoluteness if you believe that divorce is better for you. The husband’s dissoluteness is one of the valid reasons for asking for divorce in Islam. Please refer to Fatwa 131953 about the acceptable reasons for asking for divorce.

Allaah Knows best.