The Return of the Missing Person after His Wife’s Second Nikah

Question

The husband of a Hanafi woman has been a fugitive for 6 years. In such a situation, may the woman enter into a second nikah or not — as is written in Jami‘ al-Rumuz and al-Fatawa al-Bazzaziyya, namely that after four years the woman may enter into a second nikah, and that in the present time the fatwa is on the view of Imam Malik ﵀? If it so happens that after the second nikah her first husband comes back, then who will be entitled to the wife — the first husband or the husband of the second contract?

Answer

The detailed ruling concerning the wife of a missing person is this: if she can live with chastity and patience, well and good; otherwise she should bring a case before the court of an empowered Muslim ruler, stating: such-and-such a person is my husband; he has been missing for such-and-such a time; he neither left me maintenance (nafaqa)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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