Advice

Marital problems

Q: I was engaged to a boy for 4 months and then in order to avoid any sin we decided to do nikaah without telling our parents as they decided to wait for both of us to complete our education before getting us married. However, both families had pure and hearty intentions to get us married without any objection. Now it has been a year since we have done our nikaah in presence of two witnesses who were his friends. The disputes between us have been increased to unbearable limits now. My family has also found some unignorable facts about his family due to which they are having second thoughts. This guy who is my husband has abused me mentally so much that I have completely lost my self respect, my personality, my life goals and now he has also started to disrespect my family. I changed my complete self to keep him happy and yet he is still not satisfied at all with me. He fights with me and goes away for months, doesn't talk to me for months and I never know where he is and what he is doing. At this point my family has seen me depressed all the time and they, including myself has decided to get separated from him and his family. Now when I decided to get khula from him I started studying how it is done. It looks simple but we didn't register our nikaah nor we did any paper work. How should I proceed? Please guide me. And also I've been reading contradicting articles, some says nikaah is not valid without the girl's parents presence and some say in Hanafi mazhab it is valid if the girl is sane and adult. Please guide me through this issue as soon as possible.

Maintaining family ties with people who don't follow a mazhab

Q: I have a few relatives. They are born and brought up in a Muslim family like us. However at present, they have converted into La Madhabi theology like Dr. Zakir Naik, Ahmad Deedat, etc. by refusing madhab theory.

My question is how do I maintain my relationship with them? Are we allowed/permitted to share non-veg food with them? Can we consume chicken or other non-veg whenever they invite us over for a meal? Are we allowed to perform Salat and Janaza together with them? While reading Namaz under our Imaam they pronounce aameen loudly after the Alhamdu....? Will it affect our namaz in anyway?

Consulting one's family regarding a proposal

Q: My family had got a proposal for me and I was interested but with no solid reason my father refused. He said things like, the boy's family were living far away, and also he is 10 years older then me. I did istikhara many times and I got no negative signs. I do pray daily to turn my heart away from this but it is uncontrollable now. I want advice whether I should ask my family to consider it. I'm afraid that once it mustn't get refused for a reason that is not valid.

الخيانة من الزوجة

س: السلام عليكم و رحمة الله . سيدي العزيز . أنا رجل قد تعرضت للخيانة من زوجتي و صديقي و إكتشفت ذلك مؤخراً بعد أن رأيت صور لها على الكمبيوتر الخاص به و إعتراف منه و هي قد كذبت عندما واجهتها بالحقيقة ومع الحلفان بالله كذباً و هي مستمرة بالكذب في هذا الموضوع و هي ليست عندي الآن و لي منها طفلان و قد حرمتني من رؤيتهم أو حتى التكلم معهم هاتفياً و طبعاً هذه العلاقة بينهم حرام من عند الله و أفعالهم قد دمرتني مادياً و نفسياً و معنوياً و بكل الأمور و الله يعلم كيف أصبح حالي الآن و المشكلة أنني أسكن في دولة أوروبية ألمانيا و قد أصابني الهم و الغم و الحزن فأنا بلا طعام منذ ايام فقط الماء و ملعقة من العسل صغيرة و ضاق صدري و لا أدري ماذا أعمل ؟أرجو توجيهي لأي شيء فأنا أريد أطفالي و مع أنني شهدت خيانة زوجتي لكن في قلبي بعض الحب لها و هي تعتبرني عدو بالطبع لتحقيق أهداف في رأسها تضعها و غالباً لكي تبقى دون حسيب او رقيب مع العلم ليس لديها أقارب لها في هذه الدولة . فيا شيخي الكريم أكرمنا و أكرمك الله وحهني ماذا أفعل و هل يجوز إن تابت أن أعيدها إلى بيتي و ماذا عن حرماني من أطفالي ؟؟ و شكرا لك و السلام عليكم و رحمه الله

Doubting whether to marry a person

Q: I have a difficult situation that I am dealing with right now, and I really need some advice. I'm not sure where to go to with this question because I do not have a local masjid, therefore nobody who could advise me. I am a revert who lives in the U.S. I met a guy who lives in the UK, and we have planned on getting married for about three years now. We have been waiting for the right time to get married and are now planning to this summer in Sha Allah. When we get married, I'll be leaving the U.S. and going to the UK to live with him and his parents. We've discussed this several times before, and he tried to make sure I was okay with living with his parents or trying to decide if we should get our own place. I'm very close with his family, so of course I said I didn't mind living with them. Recently an issue came up that we can't seem to settle. He and his mother are both saying that after we get married, I am not allowed to come back to the U.S. for any reason even to visit my family. They also said at first that I couldn't have any contact with them either, but after a discussion about it, they have agreed that I can still talk to them just not go see them. My family doesn't agree with my choice of religion and they don't support me, but at the end of the day they are still my parents and I still love them. He claims that they are scared my parents may harm me (or my children if I take them with me), but I don't think my parents would do that. I've been trying to be very optimistic and hope that once they see my lifestyle and what being a Muslim woman is really like instead of what they have always heard, they will come to accept my choice even if they don't fully agree with it. I also have a sister who I am very close to. It's heartbreaking to me to think about not ever seeing them again. It's going to be hard moving to a new country and being so far from them at first, but that doesn't really upset me as long as I know I can see them again. When I think about leaving here and how when I tell them bye it may be goodbye for life... It kills me inside. I've tried to explain my side of things and ask the guy to picture himself in my shoes. He said he saw my point and doesn't mind me coming back to visit him. However, he had a private conversation with his mother again and now he is taking her side and doesn't want to change his mind. I've tried to tell him that I mean no disrespect to her. I love her like she's my own mother too, but I just don't think it is fair and I can't understand why she won't change her mind. She has two daughters as well, wouldn't she be upset if their husbands or mother in laws prevented them from seeing her again? He's gotten really stressed out over this issue and thought we shouldn't get married after all. He feels like he's having to take a side, which he is, but it makes me feel bad. I think there will be many times in life where the husband will have to take either his wife's side or his mother's about certain issues (hopefully not all as big as this one) and I don't expect him to always take mine. However, this is an issue that I feel very strongly about, and we are both worried that it could cause a lot of problems down the road. We are in her house so she makes the rules. I don't want to go against his mother and I do still want to get married to him, but my family is important to me even if they don't agree with my lifestyle. There's events like my sisters graduation and the births of her children that I don't want to miss. Can him and his mother really keep me from seeing them or do I have a right to still see them even if it's against his mother's wish?

Also, if the mother is so strongly against this, do you think that we should still get married?

Mocking someone's beard

Q:

1. I have one uncle whose beard has only few hairs. I had made fun of his beard saying that his beard has few strands of thread... I was actually making fun of his beard, not the sunnah... Also I did not know at that time that we should not make fun of beard... Did I do kufr? If yes, what should I do?

2. Some people call him chinese... did they also do kufr?