Should I Divorce My Wife Because My Parents Don’t Approve of Her?


Answered by Ustadha Shazia Ahmad

 

Question

I am 22 years old and married a girl without my parents’ permission. I tried everything to convince them, but they wouldn’t listen, so I married her because I was afraid of sinning. Now it’s been a month, and my parents are forcing me to divorce her because she is not from our city, caste, poor and that her family doesn’t have a good character. What should I do? I don’t want to divorce.

Answer

Assalamu alaykum,

Thank you for your follow-up question. May Allah reward you for your devotion to your wife and for preventing sin. May he help your parents find peace and tranquility with your decision.

Solemn covenant

Allah refers to marriage as a solemn covenant in His book. What does this mean? It means a formal agreement, pledge, commitment made between you and her, according to the mandates of Allah and His Messenger. Don’t take this lightly. Once you decided to marry, you made a commitment.

Here, Allah Most High speaks of taking back a bride’s marriage payment, but within this verse, we see the significance of this covenant: “And how could you take it back after having enjoyed each other intimately, and she has taken from you a firm commitment?“ [Qu’ran, 4:21]

And the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) has told us how our Creator feels about divorce: “The most hated of permissible things to Allah is divorce.“ [Ibn Majah]

Istikhara

You cannot make such a decision without praying istikhara, but I must tell you that you don’t need your parent’s permission to marry, and the reasons they give are not valid grounds for divorce. You have already entered into a weighty covenant, and you are happy with her, so my recommendation is that you keep working on your parents and build a happy, devoted life with your wife. Put Allah first in everything you do, seek obligatory knowledge, and things will fall into place by His grace.

See these tips as well:

My Wife Doesn’t Get Along With My Mother. What Do I Do?

I Am Stuck Between My Mother and My Wife. What Does Islam Say?

May Allah give you the best of this world and the next.

[Ustadha] Shazia Ahmad  

 

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Ustadha Shazia Ahmad lived in Damascus, Syria, for two years, where she studied aqidah, fiqh, tajweed, Tafseer, and Arabic. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed her Master’s in Arabic. Afterward, she moved to Amman, Jordan, where she studied fiqh, Arabic, and other sciences. She recently moved back to Mississauga, Canada, where she lives with her family.