The Return of the Missing Husband after His Wife Has Remarried

Question

Zayd, who follows no school, says that the nikah of the wife of a missing person (mafqud) will remain valid when the missing person returns and will not be broken, because the Shari‘a permitted her the second nikah; therefore she will remain the wife of the second husband. But a Hanafi says that the second will be annulled, because the first husband did not divorce her (talaq), so his nikah remains, and two nikahs for one wife are not valid. Which of the two is right?

Answer

If the woman, in the proper manner, after filing a case and an investigation, waited for the fixed period by order of the qadi, and then, on account of the qadi’s ruling that the missing person had died, observed the ‘idda of death and entered into a second nikah, and consummation has also taken place, and after that the missing person returned, then according to the Hanafis…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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