Are the wife's relatives considered kin for the husband?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : A final question, may Allah reward you with good, O Shaykh. Are the wife's relatives considered kin for the husband, such as her mother or her sisters, for example?
The Shaykh : In the opinion that all of the father's relatives are considered kin, and this is what Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani mentioned in Fath al-Bari. But without a doubt, among these relatives there may be daughters, and there may be women. Therefore, when maintaining ties with them, the limits of the Shari'ah must be observed: there must be no seclusion with a non-mahram, there must be no exposure of the 'awrah, and so on. There is no problem with expanding this circle; because there is a hadith in Sahih Muslim in which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said:Jami` at-Tirmidhi 1903Sahih (Darussalam) So, the father's friends after the father's death should be maintained by the son. But this maintenance must be within the limits of the Shari'ah. For example, if there is a friend of the deceased father who wants to go visit him in his house, but he has daughters, for example, and he has a wife, the wife may appear in Shari'ah-compliant clothing, and there is no objection to that, but seclusion is not permissible, and conversation that is left and right and the like of what happens in many mixed gatherings is not permissible. In any case, the issue, like every issue, is not taken in its absolute form, but rather with its restrictions and conditions. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.
The questioner : I meant the opposite, O our Shaykh.
The Shaykh : You meant the opposite, what?
The questioner : That is, are the wife's relatives, her mother, her sister, are they kin for her husband?
The Shaykh : No, these are strangers.
The questioner : What about the wife's mother?
The Shaykh : The wife's mother, who becomes his mother-in-law, is a mahram. The mother-in-law is a mahram.
The Shaykh : In the opinion that all of the father's relatives are considered kin, and this is what Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani mentioned in Fath al-Bari. But without a doubt, among these relatives there may be daughters, and there may be women. Therefore, when maintaining ties with them, the limits of the Shari'ah must be observed: there must be no seclusion with a non-mahram, there must be no exposure of the 'awrah, and so on. There is no problem with expanding this circle; because there is a hadith in Sahih Muslim in which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
the Prophet said: "Among the most dutiful of deeds is that a man nurture relations with the people his father was friends with."
إن من أبر البر أن يصل الرجل أهل ود أبيهThe questioner : I meant the opposite, O our Shaykh.
The Shaykh : You meant the opposite, what?
The questioner : That is, are the wife's relatives, her mother, her sister, are they kin for her husband?
The Shaykh : No, these are strangers.
The questioner : What about the wife's mother?
The Shaykh : The wife's mother, who becomes his mother-in-law, is a mahram. The mother-in-law is a mahram.
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.