Mahrams and Wali’s

format_quote Originally Posted by happymuslim

Bismillahiramaniraheem, Asalamualaikum brothers and sisters,

I have searched as much as I can for an answer to this question but google is a kafir site and has a bias and few resources which make it difficult to find the Islamic perspective.

Question:
if your mahram or wali is abusive can you leave them?

This happens too often to not be addressed in our religion. I personally don’t have much a struggle with this, but most females will at some point. Most abusers turn out to be someone we know, so this makes it far more likely to happen. This is also come into debate with the male guardianship laws in Saudi Arabia.

What does a daughter do when her father won’t let her marry unless it is someone of his choice regardless of wether she agrees or not, and regularly abuses the daughter? What if the father or some other mahram sexually abuses the daughter (unfortunately this does occur). From an Islamic perspective can she leave this situation? And how?

What does a wife do if the husband is psychologically and physically abusive?
Can she leave this situation? And how to go about it, again, from an Islamic perspective.

There are many different cases where the male figure (wali, or mahram) who is suppose to protect is the one the woman should be protected against, but sometimes the woman has no other mahrams and is trapped in the situation. This begs the question, how islamically does one get out of this, and how can other Muslims help?

there are people unfortunately amongst the muslims who use the shariah regarding mahrams and wali’s to excuse their abusive behaviour, and this has nothing to do with islam, it’s just bad people who could have taken advantage of any system, and their simply doing that with our system of belief.

The truth is, and what’s happening more often is that muslim women will turn to feminism if they feel like Islam more specifically Muslims, can’t address this issue. This has nothing to do with ideology but with what real people go through and the oppression that’s too prevalent in society.

We have an obligation to speak out on oppression, and give dawah and so, I as a Muslimah, believe that islam is the perfect way of life and has the ability to address all issues with an objective moral lense and thus I seek to understand this issue from that lenses since it is a very real problem that cannot be left unaddressed by Muslims.

I don’t have the answers, and I know this is a heavy question to ask, but please if any of my fellow Muslim brothers and sisters do, I would really appreciate for you to share that knowledge with me.

Asalaamualaykum:

You are correct to say that Islam does not promote any type of abuse.

The complexity in this topic is "leave and go where?"

This ruling will change as per the demographics, Civil Law & Islamic Law and if leaving might put the person at greater risk. By greater risk here it would mean even more abuse either in harshness or frequency OR possible death.

Sometimes it might be possible that a person might have no other options. There will be no standard answer for these type of questions as the theoretically, its easy to say Yes Leave !! however other variables need to be considered.

You are fully correct in saying that more awareness and education is needed.