A man who said to his wife, “You are forbidden to me if you leave the house without my permission,” and then her brothers came and took her away without his knowledge: what is the ruling in this case?

The questioner : The honorable Shaykh, I am married and I have four children. I have a television in the house with a video player that I brought in, although I did not want to bring it in and I had prevented it. Once, the video player ended up in my home, and I found my three daughters all in front of the television watching an Egyptian film where a man and a woman were in love with each other. So I got up, broke the video player, and hit it. I said, “By Allah, if you leave the house without my permission, you are forbidden to me.” What is your opinion, O Shaykh? So her brothers came and took her from the house without my knowledge.

The Shaykh : We ask Allah to rectify her and to rectify things through her.
First: if her brothers took her against her will, she owes nothing. But if they took her with her consent, you must pay the expiation for an oath: feed ten poor people. She remains lawful to you as long as you only said, “You are forbidden to me,” and did not say, “You are to me as the back of my mother,” because Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, has clarified the ruling on this prohibition in His saying: Thus, Allah made the prohibition an oath. Do you understand? As for the television and the video player, if it is possible to keep them out of the house, that is certainly better. If it is not possible and preventing them would lead to great harms, let them remain in the house, but they should not be turned on except for news and beneficial things. Yes.