The Rights of Wives and Husbands in Islam

My brother asked me to elaborate a little bit on the respective rights between husband and wife in Islam because the standard view is that husbands have been given the advantage over their wives. So thank you for the question, brother, and inshallah, I'll do my best. Wives in Islam have been given a number of specific and articulated rights, and a great deal of emphasis had been placed upon their rights. A great deal of emphasis more than has been placed upon the rights of the husband. Of course, there's the mahr.

There's the right to be provided for financially regardless of her own personal wealth or income. Whatever wealth or income that she has, it's it's hers, and she's under no obligation whatsoever to share it with the husband or to help in supporting their expenses. She has the right even to be the first person upon whom the husband spends before orphans or the needy or anyone else. She has a right to even take money from the husband if he doesn't give her enough for her needs. She has the right, obviously, to be treated equitably if he has more than one wife.

She has the right to be treated with leniency, with patience, with kindness. And these are things that have been emphasized over and over again in the hadiths. I mean, cautioned all Muslim husbands collectively in saying fear Allah with regards to your wives. Wives were not told that about the husbands. They weren't told to fear Allah with regards to their treatment of us.

And wives were not told that the best people of this ummah are the women who treat their husbands the best, But we were told that with regards to our wives. So, you know, again, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the rights of wives and the fair treatment and the good treatment and the kind treatment of of wives. She has the right to not be overburdened in domestic work and the right to expect her husband to help her with that work. She has the right even to be satisfied sexually before the husband satisfies himself sexually with her. The husband has only a few rights, and I've mentioned those before.

But again, they come with considerable power and control. The rights of the husband, for example, that the wife isn't to leave the house without his permission, isn't allowed to have someone into the house without his permission. These are two rights, but they have enormous power. And this is why compared wives to captives because of the extent of theoretical control that those rights grant the husband. Basically, it gives him complete control over her social interactions, her freedom of movement, her communication, her ability even to maintain the ties of kinship with her family.

But what husband actually treats his wife like a captive? And this is one of the reasons also why Rasulullah, you know, there's the hadith about that if he was going to order anyone to make sajdah to a human being, it would be the wife to the husband. And other hadiths that indicate the almost impossibility of a wife showing adequate sufficient gratitude to her husband and appreciation. It's almost impossible. Because, look, theoretically, a wife could be in a situation where she never gets to leave the home, she never gets to have visitors, she never gets to see her family and friends, she's never able to see or talk to anyone at all.

What wife lives like that? None. So, theoretically, that's the baseline. And anything above and beyond that scenario is something extra being granted by the husband. Obviously, no husband is going to treat his wife like that.

Most of our rights are granted on a precautionary basis. It's like a state having something in the constitution that gives them the right to declare martial law in extreme situations. So Allah granted husbands these rights knowing that they would not exercise these rights frivolously and accompanied that with many, many cautions by Rasulullah about the kind treatment of wives so that husbands would be circumspect in exercising those tremendous rights. But those rights had to be granted so that if necessary, the husband would have the legal authority in the Sharia to impose restrictions that were justified. Because if we're going to be responsible, if we're going to be, we have to have some authority that gives us a certain level of license in fulfilling our role.

The rights that we have been given, they were granted to us as a function of our duty, not as a means of our own satisfaction or self aggrandizement. The rights of the wife are there basically to make her life comfortable and happy. Maybe the one right that that that husbands have that is for their own pleasure and satisfaction is the right to intimacy on demand. The rest of their rights are completely intertwined with their responsibilities and duties. Women were not cautioned to be kind to us.

They weren't cautioned to be tender to us, to be gentle, to be loving, to be affectionate, to be patient, to be any of those things. They were not told that they had to be that way. We were. Women have been incentivized by Allah's reward to be obedient. They've been encouraged to be appreciative.

All of these are not within the husband's rights. These are things that the wife will be rewarded for if she does them, but she's not obliged. So, again, the responsibilities of the husband are much more than the wife. His rights are fewer and less emphasized, and his rights are completely inextricably linked to his ability to fulfill his duty. Most of our rights are rarely exercised or if so, are exercised with, great restraint.

However, our duties must be fulfilled. Our responsibilities must be fulfilled. The responsibilities of the wife are much less, and her rights are more no matter how you look at it because women are vulnerable, And Islam puts great priority in protecting the vulnerable, and that task has been assigned to us. And whatever rights we have, they have been granted to us to enable us to fulfill that task effectively. So I hope that helps clarify the issue.