I have a couple of questions regarding relationships. I am sure this would get a bit detail so please bear with me. I recently married (8 months back) and have been blessed by Allaah who gave me such a loving wife. She is all good with me. I have maintained a very friendly relationship with her. She is the best friend of mine. And the same is true for my part. She is extremely happy with me. I just can't explain the feelings that she has for me. Up till now every thing looks fine. But here comes the sad part.
I am glad and blessed by Allaah that I have both mother and father. Father is retired and resting. The truth about my father is that he is quite religious by nature. In my whole life I have never seen him stops praying. He is very good with the relationship with Allaah. But he has an extremely bad tamper rather I can say that he is an extremist. And this made me a bit ill physiologically. His behavior with other people and the family is not good (But he is good with my mother). I just don’t like to go into details.
My mother is a nice person. Highly influenced with primitive Indo-Pak culture. Not that much educated but has sense of what is wrong and what is right. The issues started with my marriage. The problem is they want me to behave with my wife in a certain manner. Like they say that woman are such a person who need to be controlled and whom we cannot give liberty. They must be controlled. I have a very serious dialog with them regarding this controlled term.
They define controlled behavior as:
- I should not be friendly with my wife. This way she could get liberty and ultimately would not listen to me.
- She should also have a little bit of fear of me as a husband.
- She must not tell me any thing (including feelings) whatever happened to her in my mother's home.
- I should not take her outside frequently.
- I should tell my mother if I be leaving with her or not and should come by 12:00 mid night.
- I can’t sit with my wife side by side in front of my family.
- She cannot dial phone calls willingly, etc., etc.
These are among other things that they called controlled behavior. My mother continuously trying to influence my wife by her thoughts. I like to tell you that how my mother is behaving with her.
- Just a couple of days latter when we get married my mother told her that it is not wise for a wife to visit her mother frequently. This dialog hurt her, she came to me asking won't I let her go to her mother place?
- My mother said we don’t like prawn so you can’t eat it and if you like to eat it then you should eat it at your mother place(s). My father added that he couldn’t afford to eat prawn so you should not ask for it. (For past 4 years I am wholly supporting my family).
- She does not have right to do chat with my sister in-law's husband. (Please keep in mind that my father has a habit to chat with his brother in-law's wife in a bit sexual way in front of the family and us and I feel shamed about it).
- My mother expects from her to do light work of the house. (My wife is 2 months pregnant and she has vomiting these days and she is unable to eat).
Two weeks later an incident happened. (Please keep in mind that my wife is 2 months pregnant) I have got light injury in my back. My wife mostly hesitant to ask favor from my mother. So she asked me to get bread from outside. I did so. And this made my father and mother frantic. My mother said to my wife that you have done a mistake as I am sick. I should be resting. Dialogs have been made between my mother and her. My father gets angry and finally he has lost tamper, He shouted on my wife and said to me that I should leave her to her mother for 6 months or more. My mother called my wife's mother to come and when she came she said every bit of details to her. Finally I leaved her to her mother place for a month (her mother's home is a flat and on 4th floor, you can understand how dangerous it could be for my wife to step over the ladder in such condition).
This made my peaceful life miserable. I really understand my mothers and fathers right. I don’t want to do any thing that could slightly hurt them. But I also like to be even with my wife.
Sorry for such a letter but this is the problem that most of Pakistani husbands have. We don’t have a clear idea what to do in these circumstances. Father and mother are everything for us but they are discriminating. Please help me with a clear guideline that could help my life a little bit easier.

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.

There is no doubt that your parents have a great right on you, and it is an obligation on you to be kind and dutiful to them. There is no doubt as well that you are the guardian of your wife and it is incumbent on her to obey you within reasonable and permissible limits. But it is not permissible for your parents to interfere in your private life with your wife in such a manner that leads to separation. The first thing we can advise you to, is to sit with your parents and explain to them with good admonition and soft words that their behaviour towards you and your wife is not permissible in Islam. Explain to them that their behaviour caused bad consequences on you and your wife. For this purpose, you can seek the help of knowledgeable and righteous people in general or seek the help of wise men from your family.

You have to know as well that it is the right of your wife on you to provide her with a separate dwelling. So if you can do this and think that it will solve the problem, then do so. You made a mistake by obeying your mother when she ordered you to send your wife to her family in a manner that could cause harm. But if you think that you did well, then there is no harm (on you). However, we advise you to provide your wife with her right, like providing her with food and spending the night with her, and the like.

Lastly, we seize this opportunity to advise all fathers and mothers to fear Allaah regarding their children and not cause any hardship to them. They would not accept this behaviour from others to be done to them, so why do they act like this toward others.

Allaah knows best.