Thu 16 رمضان 1447 (05 Mar 2026)
[Ruling on Marriage If the Husband Goes Insane After Some Time of Marriage]
Mufti:
Alsayyed Muhammad b. Abdallah Awad Al-Muayyady
Fatwa number: 18720
Number of views: 4
[Ruling on Marriage If the Husband Goes Insane After Some Time of Marriage]
Fatwa number: 18720
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Question: A man married a woman, and after three or four years insanity occurred to the husband. His family took him for treatment, and the wife hoped for his recovery; with treatment his insanity would lessen. His family took him a second time and it lessened somewhat, and his family continued treating him. The woman, in the hope of his recovery, did not leave him during that period; she helped his family in treating him, in calming him, easing his agitation, and reassuring him psychologically. Then, when she despaired of his recovery, she left her husband’s house for her family’s home. Today—after losing hope in his recovery—she seeks release from him, pressing for that either by annulment or by divorce if possible. What is the solution?
Answer—and Allah is the One who grants success: The scholars of the madhhab have said: the wife has the right to [seek] annulment due to insanity that occurred after the marriage in her husband, and such annulment is not invalidated by delay.
- This annulment is invalidated by the wife’s consent to remain with the insane husband. The consent that invalidates annulment is either a statement from the wife indicating consent—such as her saying, “I am content with him”—or an act indicating consent, such as allowing him conjugal access to herself.
If it be said: If the wife allowed her husband conjugal access at the beginning of his insanity, thinking that the insanity would pass with treatment, but after a time her expectation failed and she despaired of his recovery, then she refused him, left him, and sought annulment—does that count from her?
It is said: Yes, her annulment is valid if the matter is as described. Her consent at the onset of her husband’s insanity and her allowing him access does not invalidate her later annulment. That is because it later became clear to her of the defect in her husband what had not previously become clear to her when she first consented. Her initial consent at the onset of his insanity was consent to an accidental defect that had befallen her husband and would soon pass; when it later became apparent to her that it was a settled illness, she did not consent to it. That is like a buyer in whom a defect appears in what he purchased and he consents to it, but later another defect appears; he may annul on account of the second defect, for he had not consented to that.
If it be said: Insanity is a single genus; her consent to the initial insanity prevents annulment later, since it is one genus?
It is said: Yes, insanity is one genus; but consent to a certain measure of it does not entail consent to more than that measure. One who consents to twenty is not thereby bound to consent to thirty.
Source : Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.1
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