The wife of an impotent man (‘innin): the procedure of separation

Question

Question: About four years have passed since a certain woman was married. During the days of the wedding the woman stayed with her husband for fifteen days, and then, a year after the wedding, she went to him again and that time too returned after staying about a month and a half. But her husband keeps no relations of any kind with the woman, and now the woman has been living in her own parents’ house for about three years.

Answer

This woman should file a case in the court of a Muslim ruler. The ruler asks the husband; if he admits: “I have not been able to have intercourse,” the ruler gives him one year’s respite for treatment. If during this period he is treated and becomes capable of intercourse (jima‘)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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