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Is the daughter of his former wife, an foreign Christian, entitled to rights from her stepfather, such as him contacting her and checking on her or financially supporting her, especially since she lived with him in the same house and used to call him "father"? And is a stepdaughter forbidden to her stepfather merely by her living with him in the same house without him having "entered" her mother, and what is meant by "entering" that makes her forbidden: is it sexual intercourse or lawful privacy?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The stepdaughter (wife's daughter) is forbidden to the husband if he has consummated the marriage with her mother, due to the Almighty's saying: "And your stepdaughters who are in your guardianship, [born] of your wives with whom you have consummated marriage." The phrase "who are in your guardianship" has no implication according to the majority of scholars. Scholars have differed on the type of consummation that forbids the stepdaughter: The well-known position of the Hanbali school is that she is only forbidden by sexual intercourse, while the majority of scholars hold that she is forbidden by privacy (khalwah) without sexual intercourse. They also differed on the type of consummation that forbids stepdaughters. Some said it is sexual intercourse, some said it is touching with desire, and some said it is looking with desire. The stepdaughter has no specific right obligatory upon her mother's husband.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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