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Fatwa CenterHusband asking wife to give back land he gifted her
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. My father and mother have not been together since 2005 after my mother found (in 2005) that her husband had married another lady (in 1994) in a foreign country (Kuwait), where he is still staying for his job. Mother has the view that my father had not been just all these years, and she can never forgive him. Hence she cannot stay with this person and is not going to accept his second marriage. A dispute started six years ago between the both of them on the properties that my father has in Pakistan. My mother has the opinion that she has been saving the money to get these properties here in Pakistan, while my father says that his second wife and the kids from second marriage also have rights in this property. This sounds right logically, but it sounds unjust when he says that my mother has no rights regarding his properties and money in Kuwait or regarding what he has already given to his second wife.Somewhere in 2009, my father gifted/transferred one property (land) to my mother to make her happy. This worked for a couple of months, and then father started demanding this property back in his name. Mother's stance is that since he has gifted it, then according to the Quran he cannot take this back, while father has the view that according to the Quran you are not allowed to take back the bridal gift and and that the Quran does not talk about other gifts. Please highlight whether the gifts that have been mention in the Quran from the husband to the wife mean the bridal gift only or if there are other meanings too. May Allaah reward you. Wassalaam.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
Perhaps you are referring in the question to the saying of Allah (which means): {...and you have given one of them a great amount [in gifts], do not take [back] from it anything. Would you take it in injustice and manifest sin?} [Quran 4:20]
If this is the case, then this verse is related to the money that the husband gives to his wife as a bridal gift at the time of the marriage contract; this includes the gifts that he gives her at the time of the contract, as these take the ruling of the bridal gift. Al-Baghawi 
said in his Tafseer (exegesis), when interpreting this verse, “It refers to a lot of money as a bridal gift.”
As regards other gifts that the husband gives to his wife and that are not related to the marriage contract, then their ruling is the same; it is not permissible for the husband to take them back after his wife has taken possession of them and she became their owner by him taking his hands off them and her disposing of them as she wishes.
There is another evidence in the Sunnah about this ruling; Ibn ‘Umar and Ibn ‘Abbaas, may Allah be pleased with them, narrated that the Prophet said, “It is not permissible for a man to gift something and then take it back, with the exception of a father in what he gives to his son… ” [Ahmad, Abu Daawood and Ibn Maajah]
We would like to point out to the following matters:
1- In Islam, the husband has the right to marry up to four wives, provided that he is just between them; Allah says (what means): {…then marry those that please you of [other] women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then [marry only] one.} [Quran 4:3] It is an obligation that the husband is just between his two wives, even if they are in two different countries, as has been stated by the scholars. For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 90663.
2- Your mother has the right to demand that your father be just between her and his second wife, but she has no right to object to his marriage to a second wife. She is obliged to obey him in what is permissible, and she is not allowed to desert him or refuse to accept his call to bed just because he married a second wife.
3- If the husband fulfills the rights of each of his wives, then after this he may give whatever gifts to whomever he wishes of them. For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 287074.
Allah knows best.
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