24 replies to this topic

[khadi1]

Assalamou aleikoum wa rahmatoullah wa barakatou

the mahr is the gift from the groom, solely for the bride. It is hers, and hers alone to choose to save or to spend (do not forget zakah on it if you save    it). The husband, the father, the in-laws have no business to ask her what she has done with it, even if she gave a third in charity . Obviously, she should be reasonnable in her demands and reasonnable in her spending but no one has the right to ask her where it is gone.

Muslimahsister, the mahr is for you. You take it, and then , you choose to give it to your grandmother. But as far as I know, you have to have it first,( otherwise you cannot classify it as a mahr but as any gift from husband, or you can make it a condition in your marriage contract if he agrees to it)  and then give it away. It might be there are some difference of opinions that I am (of course) not aware of.


The mahr is a debt owed from the groom to the bride. Should he die, this debt should be included within all his other debts and still be paid.

If the bride chooses, she can remits part or the totally of the mahr to her husband, and there is no sin on him if he accepts as she is doing it from the goodness of her heart (sometimes, for example, some families exaggerate and ask for too much and the bride then remits what she consider over the top back to her husband.)

Let me find the Ayah in Surah Al Baqarah Inshallah about the permissibility for the husband to accept the mahr or part of it if the bride wants to give it back.

but sisters, please consider this :

the mahr is not something frivolous. It is A duty upon the groom to the bride (not to confuse it with the marriage contracts where the bride and grooms write down their conditions if accepted) and the groom HAS to pay it , regardless of what it is, and if he does not, he is transgressing the bondaries set by Allah (unless the wife has agreed to forgive the debt from the goodness of her heart).

Also, if you do not stipulte a time limit for the mahr to be paid, then you cannot say he does not want to pay it if he does not , unless he says it or acts it clearly.

In case of talaq and the mahr was not paid yet, the husband has to pay it at the time of divorce.
He cannot force his wife to ask for khula in order to get his mahr back nor push her to it .(some men do and they are transgressors)

If you give me just until tomorrow Inshallah, I will dig out for you all what I know and the daleel for the mahr.

I agree that learning the Quran should not be part of the mahr because a man should do it anyway.
It is why many times, many grooms do not realise how important honouring the mahr is. Honouring the mahr  is honouring the bride (ie, paying it is honouring the bride)

I do believe the meaning and this importance of this bridal gift is getting lost because many people associate the mahr to a dowry... no, the dowry is something else and the mahr is for the bride.

[Badreya]

Salam alaikum
Lets say your are building a house, you can use it to help build the house.
What you do with it later is not the matter, it is the fact that you use it.
If you give it as a house then the house has to be in your name too.
Or you can give it as a gift to help your family/husband = self too!

[shahada4]

Asalmo Alaikom,

A thought came up. Can a Mahr agreement be amended or changed later in marriage?

And if it can be changed, do they have go through the whole 'legal official process' of the country they got married and living in?

[khadi1]

Assalamoou aleikoum wa rahmatoullah wa barakatou

The mahr , as far as I know, does not have an official registration . If one of the spouse wants to change the arrangement, it is fine as long as the other agrees.
Lets say the man said the mahr would be £2,000 , then he pays half and he decides he wants to pay more. He can if he wants and if his wife agrees too (she may not want more, but then again, in Islam, we should not refuse a gift even if we do not need it, we give it to someone else).
But they have agree to £2,000 and he pays half and later on, he tells his wife he cannot pay the rest. If she agrees, he will be let off the debt. If she does not agree, then he will still have to pay it as , the mahr IS a debt and a debt has to be honoured .
If she agrees to change the arrangements, fine, but if she does not agree, she is not doing anything wrong, since the promise of the mahr was £2,000 and this is due to her. But what she should do, if her husband cannot pay, is not to make life harder on him and either :1) forego the rest of the money , or,  2) accord him terms of payments that are easy on him, until such time he is in a better financial situation.



As for going to legal process, theoritically, Islamically, a verbal agreement should suffice between the two parties with witnesses if they can find , since it is a monetary matter, especially if the debt is to be re-written. But Ulama nowadays advise to make it in writing to protect the interests of the woman. So, the man and the woman can just write a piece of paper and both sign it. As far as I know. Allahu alam.

i will be back later on Inshallah with all what I have digged out on mahr...The mahr is a serious business sisters. Do not take it lightly.

[oum_husayn]

Assalaam aleikoem wa rahmatoelah wa barakatoeh

My mahr was knowledge of islam/Quran and arabic.

Alhemdoulilah I understand my husand's dialect (Iraqi arabic) pretty good.
He also helped me with understandig the Quran and many other things of our deen mashaAllah.

My stephdaughter's mahr was that her husband will take her to hajj inshaAllah.

wa aleikoem salaam