Women's Issues

Where should a woman spend her iddat?

Q: If a woman's husband has pasted away, is her father-in-law her mahram? The wife stays with her in-laws mother/father in-law, brother in-law/wife. Can she make her iddat in her current home, or should she stay with her mother and do her iddat. (The distance between her home and her mothers is 300km) or should her mother stay with her at her in-laws?

Iddat of a woman whose husband passed away after childbirth

Q: What will be the "iddat" of a woman if her husband passes away and she has a 6 day old baby? It is in my knowledge that if the woman is pregnant then till delivery she is in iddat and in normal cases it would be 4 months and 10 days. But my question is this that just 6 days before the death of the husband she delivered. So is there no iddah and she will be "paak or tahira" in 40 days. Or she will complete 4 months?

Travelling without a mahram

Q: I live in China and I have to work here till February next year insha Allah. My wife is pregnant and its becoming difficult for her to manage here alone and she wants to go back to India for the delivery of the child, the reason being her loneliness and bepardagi (Hijaab) because of male doctors. Its expensive for me to go with her and then come back and join my job here in China. Is there any relaxation in sending her alone through some direct airline? I would take her to the airport in Burqah and she will be picked up by her relatives there in India. Can my wife travel alone?

Women attending Islamic talks at the Masjid

Q:

1. Is it permissible for women to attend Islamic talks at the local Masjid at night with their Mahrams where there are separate entrances and segregation, but at the time of departure, due to the large numbers there would be an inevitable intermingling of the sexes in the Masjid car park?

2. What would the ruling be in the same situation, but where the lady comes to the Masjid at night without her Mahram and not in niqaab?

3. If the speaker, who is an Alim, knows or should have reasonable cause to believe that women will be travelling to the Masjid on their own at night, without niqab, should he still give a talk or refuse to do so?

4. Would the scholar be complicit in sin if he were to give a talk in such a situation knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that ladies were attending a night talk without their Mahrams and not observing the rules of Hijab?