Woman in Islamic Shari‘ah
7. Concerning divorce
~ 175 ~
fathers and husbands as stipulated by Islamic law.
If they could do so, this would be more than
enough to meet such emergencies.
However, Islam has not just left women’s financial
problems to the vagaries of inheritance, because
parents are not invariably in possession of property
which can be divided among their children. Further
arrangements have been made under the
maintenance law, but this has no connection with
the law of divorce. The answer to this question
must be sought therefore in the Islamic law of
maintenance. Here we shall briefly describe some of
its aspects:
1. In case the divorced woman is childless or the
children are not earning, according to Islamic law,
the responsibility for her maintenance falls on her
father. That is, her situation will be the same as it
was before marriage.
To quote from
Fath al-Qadir
147
:
The Father is responsible for bearing the
expenses of his daughter till her marriage, in
the event of her having no money. The father
