The Return of the Missing Husband after the Second Nikah

Question

Zayd concluded a nikah with Hinda, and they lived together. After some days Zayd went abroad in search of a livelihood, while Hinda lived in her own house together with Zayd’s mother. After going abroad Zayd disappeared completely: he stopped all correspondence, and for about ten or eleven years he also entirely stopped sending expenses and the like, and gave no news of himself. Hinda made her helplessness and distress known to the biradari (kinship community)

Answer

For a woman whose husband has gone missing and cannot be traced, the Shari‘a ruling is this: she files a suit in the court of a Muslim ruler holding authority, proves her nikah with the missing man and states that he has been missing for such-and-such a time, has neither left her nafaqa (maintenance)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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