Is the Marriage Broken by Refusing to Pray?

Question

Zayd and his wife were lying together; Zayd had a seminal discharge in his sleep, by which the wife’s clothes were also soiled. In the morning Zayd told his wife, “Go and pray”; she stayed silent. Zayd said it again, and the wife said in anger, “I won’t pray; go away — whenever one looks, you have soiled the clothes.” Does the marriage break by this?

Answer

The wife did not deny the obligatoriness of prayer; rather, because of the soiled clothes, angered at that moment, she said this sentence as a rebuke so that he would not soil the clothes in future. Although saying even this is not permissible and she must repent, by it she neither went out of Islam nor did the marriage end.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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