Is Husband Liable to Pay Mu’akhir If the Wife Divorces Him?

Answered by Shaykh Salman Younas

Question

Please tell me about mu’akhir. Does a man have to pay mu’akhir if the woman divorces him?

Answer

I am assuming that by mu’akhir, you mean the dowry (mahr) that the husband and wife agreed was to be paid later in the marriage. If so, this is a debt upon the husband. In divorce cases, he would have to pay whatever of the mahr remains on him.

If, however, you mean by ‘the woman divorces him a khul‘, the husband would not have to pay the remaining dowry if it is stipulated that the woman will return/waive it for the khul‘. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

[Ustadh] Salman Younas
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Born and raised in New York, Ustadh Salman Younas graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Political Science and Religious Studies. After studying the Islamic sciences online and with local scholars in New York, Ustadh Salman moved to Amman. There he studied Islamic law, legal methodology, belief, hadith methodology, logic, Arabic, and tafsir. He is now in his final year of his PhD at Oxford University, looking at the early evolution of the Hanafi madhab.

His teachers include: Shaykh Faraz Rabbani, Shaykh Salah Abu’l Hajj, Shaykh Ashraf Muneeb, Shaykh Ahmad Hasanat, Shaykh Hamza Karamali, Shaykh Ahmad Snobar, Shaykh Ali Hani, Shaykh Hamza Bakri, Ustadh Rajab Harun and others.
Ustadh Salman’s personal interests include research into the fields of law/legal methodology, hadith, theology, as well as political theory, government, media, and ethics. He is also an avid traveler and book collector. He currently resides in the UK with his wife.