Wife and Husband’s Brother

Question: 1940

Assalaamu’alaikum! Ya Sheikh, I have a very important question to ask
you and this will Insha’Allah benefit many other Muslims. A friend of mine
was telling me that a wife cannot come in front of the husband’s brother as
he is not her Mahram. My question is this: I live with my parents and
brother and sister. I and my brother pay the rent of the apartment.
Insha’Allah we are going to move to a rented house which will be bigger
and the rent will be payed by me and my brother. I had thought of getting
married because of the bigger house, but I don’t know whether I could do
this now unless I get my own separate house. Please answer my question
as soon as possible,
Jazakumulah Khyran

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

There is no harm in you and your wife living in one house with the rest of the
family members you mentioned. All that you have to be careful about is that
your wife does not go out in front of your brother or be alone with him in the
house, because the Prophet (peace and blessings
of Allaah be upon him) forbade non-mahrams (unrelated men) to enter upon women.
He said: “Beware of entering upon women.” One of the Sahaabah said
to him, “O Messenger of Allaah, what about the brother-in-law?” He
said: “The brother-in-law is death!” (Reported
by al-Bukhaari, Fath al-Baari, 9/330).

Al-Nawawi, may Allaah have mercy on him, said: “What is referred to in
the hadeeth is all the husbands (male) relatives apart from his father
and sons. People customarily take the matter of a man being alone with his brothers
wife as being of little consequence; to indicate the seriousness of the matter,
it was likened to death. Indeed, one should be more cautious about the brother-in-law
than about a stranger. The phrase “the brother-in-law is death” may
have a number of meanings:

That being alone with a brother-in-law
may lead to disaster if a sin is committed, or may spell divorce for the
woman if her husband cannot contain his jealousy;
Or: Beware of being alone with a non-mahram
woman fear this as you fear death.

All this stems from
Islams keenness to protect households, to avoid evil and to preserve marriages
in the best possible way. You will find more details under question #217
.

May Allaah bless our Prophet Muhammad.

Source:

Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid

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