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What is the ruling regarding a wife who insults her husband, denies his paternity of their children, and refuses to share his bed without a valid excuse?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The woman who curses her husband, or refuses to come to his bed without a valid excuse, or tells her children that he is not their father; she is a disobedient (عاصية) and rebellious (ناناشز) woman. The Islamic law explains how to address a wife's rebellion.

Regarding her telling the children that he is not their father: if the intention is to disavow his bad actions, then there is no harm in that. However, if the intention is to deny paternity, then this is impermissible, because paternity is established by marriage, or by claiming paternity, or by evidence, or by expert tracing (al-qāfah). And whoever's paternity is established, it is not permissible to deny it, for a severe warning has been reported for anyone who disavows his child. Furthermore, denying paternity may involve admitting to adultery, which is one of the ways of establishing the Hadd punishment for adultery.

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

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