Who Is Responsible For Providing For a Widow?

Answered by Shaykh Abdul-Rahim Reasat

Question

If a woman with three brothers and a mature son becomes a widow, then who is obligatory to provide for her food, housing, clothes, and health? Her brothers or her son?

Answer

The obligation to provide for her rest with her children—male and female—is equal in this regard—as long as they are not poor or unemployed. If so, then her father, if he is alive and not poor or unemployed, and then her brothers.

‘Poor’ in the above ruling means they don’t have the equivalent of the nisab of zakat beyond their immediate needs. If they do not have this but have a stable income, the obligation does not pass on to another. [Maydani, Lubab]

May Allah facilitate all that is good for you.

[Shaykh] Abdul-Rahim Reasat
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Abdul-Rahim Reasat began studying Arabic Grammar and Morphology whilst studying for a degree in English and History. After graduating, He traveled to Damascus and studied Arabic, Hanafi Fiqh, Usul al-Fiqh, Theology, and Logic with Shaykh Adnan Darwish, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahman Arjan al-Binsawi, Shaykh Husayn Darwish, Shaykh Muhammad Darwish, the late Shaykh Rashad Shams, and others. He then moved to Amman to continue his studies in those fields, as well as in Tafsir, Quranic Sciences, Hadith Methodology and Commentary, Prophetic Biography, Prophetic Perfections and Traits, Rhetoric, Arabic Literature, and Tajwid. His teachers include Shaykh Ali Hani, Dr. Hamza al-Bakri, Dr Salah Abu al-Hajj, Dr Mansur Abu Zina, Shaykh Ahmad Hasanat, Shaykh Ahmad Jammal, and others.