Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, says no woman should remain in an abusive, harmful or toxic marriage under Islamic law.
Gumi made this known in a message on Monday in Kaduna, where he outlined several lawful avenues available to women seeking to leave harmful marriages.
He identified mutual consent divorce, khul‘, judicial annulment (faskh), delegated divorce (talaq al-tafwid), and arbitration as options available under Islamic law.
According to him, mutual consent divorce allows spouses to end their marriage amicably based on agreed terms covering issues such as finances, custody and the waiting period.
He explained that khul‘ allows a woman to initiate divorce by returning her dower or offering compensation to her husband. He said it could be pursued when a woman no longer wanted the marriage but could not establish specific harm or fault.
Gumi noted that judicial intervention could become necessary where a husband unreasonably refused a legitimate request for khul‘.
He said judicial annulment, known as faskh, allows a woman to seek dissolution without returning her dower where valid grounds exist. These, he said, include physical, emotional or psychological abuse, failure to provide maintenance, prolonged abandonment, serious illness preventing marital relations, certain defects in the marriage contract and a husband’s apostasy.
He also identified delegated divorce, or talaq al-tafwid, under which a husband transfers divorce authority to his wife under specified conditions. Such conditions, he said, could include preventing a wife from lawful education or employment, or taking another wife.
Gumi stressed that delegated divorce must be expressly included in the marriage contract or subsequently agreed upon by both spouses.
He said Islamic law also encourages arbitration and mediation before divorce where reconciliation remains possible, citing Qur’an 4:35, which directs that arbitrators be appointed from both families when a breach between spouses is feared.
He, however, expressed concern over challenges facing some Sharia courts in Nigeria, including corruption, case backlogs, procedural delays, stringent evidentiary requirements and limited legal awareness among women.
According to him, these challenges could leave vulnerable women trapped in abusive or untenable marriages for prolonged periods.
Gumi said some women who qualified for fault-based judicial annulment sometimes resorted to khul‘ simply to secure faster release from abusive marriages, potentially forfeiting their dower despite having grounds to retain it under judicial annulment.
He argued that the gap between Islamic legal principles and courtroom realities undermined the protective objectives of Sharia, calling for better access to justice and greater awareness of lawful options available to women facing abusive marriages.
