A Second Nikah Without a Divorce

Question

A girl was married. Six or seven months after the wedding the young man left for the city of Calcutta. The girl’s father lives in Calcutta; the girl’s father asked him: “Why have you come away?” He said: “It is hard for me to make a living; I will not go.” Then the girl’s father married her off a second time, to a second husband, without a divorce. The one who recited the nikah was the imam of the settlement.

Answer

This nikah is not valid according to the Shari‘a. All who took part in this nikah are sinful; repentance is binding (lazim) on all of them, and it is necessary to separate the two. Let them take the girl to her husband in Calcutta or obtain a divorce from the husband; when he gives the divorce and the ‘idda has passed, then let them contract nikah elsewhere, and not before…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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