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What is the ruling of Islamic law concerning a husband who abandons his wife, does not ask about her, then refuses to divorce her and give her her legal rights, marries another woman, and then asks her to wait?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The husband has wronged his wife by abandoning her and leaving her in suspense, and by neglecting her financial support without justification. We advise the wife to counsel him and remind him of Allah. If he wishes to keep her under his marital bond, he must act justly; otherwise, he should divorce her. She has the right to seek a divorce due to harm, and if he does not respond, she should escalate the matter to the Sharia court. We point out that marriage is not built on love alone; a husband may dislike a certain trait in his wife but be pleased with another. The wife is entitled to claim back from her husband what she spent on herself and her children with the intention of claiming it back from him.

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

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