Father of his wife's child maintains contact with her and causes problems

20-7-2004 | IslamWeb

Question:

I have a wife who had previous relationships with men before me and they had children and I don't have any. I told her before we got married that this will be a problem for me, but she insisted on marrying me; she even made me promise to marry her. My biggest problem is the father of one child is still keeping in contact with her and this is making me extremely jealous. When I explain this to her, she tells me she can't do any thing about it because they have court order that both the parents should see the child, i don't mind, but the husband is not a Muslim and I am afraid he will have more influence over the child than I will and loose the chance of teaching him about Islam. Please help!

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Answer:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds; and may His blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions.

It is not permissible for your wife to let this man enter her home, as he is alien to her. You have to forbid her to do so and remind her about Allah and tell her that this is forbidden in Shariah.

The coming of this man to visit his child is not an excuse for that. It is not permissible for him to see the child if he transgresses the limits of Shariah. For instance if the child is old enough, he can get out of the house to see his father. Or that can be done in your presence or one of your wife's Mahrams, if the child is still too young.

As regards teaching him the Islamic rulings and bringing him up according to the teachings of Islam, then this can be done by the mother as the child is with her most of the time.

However, if you do your best and he turns out to be non-Muslim, then you are not sinful. But you have to help your wife give him a good education, may Allah enable you to do so, and you will get a great reward from Allah for doing so.

Allah knows best.