Q. 1. It is ruled that a husband who leaves his wife so as she does not know his whereabouts, the marriage is terminated after 4 years. What happens in this situation, if the woman gets married to a second man, but her first husband reappears after 2 or more years? What is her status vis-à-vis both marriages? What is the situation if the wife is the one who is absent?
Q. 2. A relative of mine works for a company which provides incentives in the form of free holidays. Employees have recently been told that they may choose their place where they want to take their free holiday, including foreign travel. If an employee chooses to avail himself of this offer and do the pilgrimage or the Umrah under this scheme, is that acceptable? Is it acceptable for the obligatory pilgrimage?
Q. 3. A relative of mine attends to her religious duties except for prayer. She says that she cannot concentrate on her prayer. She says that she knows that she is doing wrong but hopes to be forgiven by God, because He knows her heart. No amount of advice and admonition has been enough to make her change her mind. Please advise.
Abdulmajid, Riyadh
A.1. A long absence by itself is no ground for the dissolution of the marriage. What Umar ruled on was an absence without any trace. In old times, there was no way of knowing whether a person who traveled to a far away place was dead or alive. If he had a wife and family, he would be expected either to send word of his whereabouts, or to come and visit them. If he did neither, then there was no way of establishing whether he was still alive. Hence, Umar ruled, and none of the Prophet’s companions disagreed with him, that a four-year period was enough to declare the marriage nullified. Even though the man might be alive, such an absence was deemed detrimental to his wife and her welfare. Hence, the ground for nullification of the marriage.
Whether this ruling of Umar is applicable today or not is questionable. Certainly it does not apply to any long absence, when the wife or the husband’s family are aware of his whereabouts. With communication made so easy through letter, fax, telephone, e-mail, etc. and travel being so easy, it is difficult to imagine a situation where a person is lost without trace, unless he has come to a serious misfortune. It is often the case that a person lost without trace is later found dead in an accident or a crime. Moreover, it is much easier today to establish this than it used to be at the time of Umar.
If the husband remains absent for no valid reason, the family law of some Muslim countries permit nullification of the marriage if the wife applies for it after one year. There are certain conditions for that. This is in accordance with the Hanbali and Maliki schools of law. If the husband’s place of residence abroad is known, it is necessary to notify him of his wife’s application for a nullification of the marriage before the case is heard.
If a marriage is nullified on grounds of a long absence by the husband, after all measures to establish his whereabouts fail, then the marriage is over. That is a decision of an Islamic court based on the husband’s failure to fulfill his marital duties, thereby causing harm to his wife. If the wife marries someone else, her marriage is valid. Should the first husband reappear after such a long absence, he has no claim over her, and he cannot seek a reunion with her merely on the basis of his reappearance.
In the case that the wife is the one who is absent, the situation is totally different. There is nothing to stop her husband to divorce her or to marry a second wife. Should she reappear after that, she is still his wife.
A.2. There is nothing wrong with benefiting by such an incentive to fulfill the duty of pilgrimage or Umrah. The company is obviously offering it for hard work, and if one deserves it, he or she has certainly earned it. If the paid travel and holiday cover all the expenses of the pilgrimage, that does not affect the validity of the pilgrimage. It counts as fulfillment of the obligatory pilgrimage if the person concerned is doing it for the first time. Otherwise it counts as a Sunnah.
Even if a person is paying nothing of his pilgrimage expenses out of his own pocket, the pilgrimage is valid, whether it is the obligatory pilgrimage or a voluntary one. A person may be invited, or someone offers him a gift, or he may win a prize offered in a legitimate way. All that is acceptable.
A.3. No one should consider it his duty to make this young woman pray. Even her parents are required to do no more than to advise and remind her. The duty is hers to fulfill. If she fails to do it, she bears the consequences. Having said that, I should add that her relatives and friends should continue to remind her of her duty, but they should take a different approach. They should clarify her misconceptions. A prayer is not only acceptable when the worshipper fully concentrates on it, without any distractions. It is acceptable, and rewarded by God, even when the worshipper experiences much distraction. If distraction were to nullify prayers, then none of us would be able to claim to offer more than a few prayers a year. All of us may be distracted. The Prophet himself was on some occasions. Moreover, God would not have legislated for forgetfulness in prayer if that would have rendered it invalid.
On women’s zakah
Q. Am I responsible for my wife’s zakah? She has only her jewelry and no income. Suppose that she finds a job and starts working, should I continue to pay her zakah?
S. S. Ahmad, Dammam
A. Zakah is a personal duty, just like prayer. Each one is responsible for their own zakah. However, in zakah a person may offer another a gift to pay his dues, as in the case of a husband or a father offering his wife or daughter to pay zakah on her behalf. Of course, this cannot be done in prayer or fasting. This means that even if the husband was very rich and his wife is of moderate means, she may not ask him to pay her zakah, unless he is willing to do so. Zakah remains her personal duty. If she gets a job, she may be required to pay zakah once she owns over the threshold of zakah, which is the equivalent of 85 grams of gold, or about 3500 Riyals. When she owns that amount, she makes a mark of the date, and the following year on the same date she calculates what she owns. If it is still above the threshold of zakah, she pays zakah for the amount she has at the rate of 2.5 percent. However, on the basis of the information supplied, neither he nor his wife is liable to zakah.
As for the other question, the practices mentioned are permissible between man and wife. Sex foreplay is also permissible. What is strictly forbidden between man and wife is anal sex.
