For Those Left Behind
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Ep. 13: The Widow and the 'Iddah | For Those Left Behind
A lost Sunnah of our times is striving to serve the widow. What does it mean to care for the widow, and what can a community do to revive this sunnah?
The virtue of the patient widow is that she occupies a special place in Paradise. How then should a widow grieve? What are the rules of 'iddah that the widow should observe? What breaks the 'iddah, and how long does the iddah period last?
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:39 Sunnah of caring for the widow
Caring for the widow is a lost Sunnah. The Prophet ﷺ said, "The one who strives (in caring) for the widows and the poor is like the one who strives in the path of Allah, or like the one who fasts all day without breaking it, and prays all night without sleeping."
Caring for the widow includes:
-taking care of her needs
-taking care of her family
-making sure that she can grieve properly
02:14 Reward of widowed mother for raising her children
04:40 How should a widow grieve?
05:09 Rules of 'Iddah
The 'iddah is a period of waiting that a woman must observe after her husband's death or a divorce, during which she may not marry another man.
The Sunnahs of 'iddah are:
- The 'iddah for the widow is 4 months and 10 days, or it expires with pregnancy
- She can leave during the day to care for her needs
- She should abstain from adorning herself
- She should spend these nights in her husband's home
If there are circumstances that make it difficult or impossible for her to spend the night in her home (eg. old age, or she and her husband are overseas when her husband passes away) then insha'Allah it can be waived.
08:49 False cultural innovations of 'Iddah
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We take so much pride in our Islamic history and the seerah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam about how the companions would care for the widows and particularly the way that the widows as soon as their iddah would be finished, they would have a line of men ready to marry them and to take care of their families. And SubhanAllah, it's as if that entire history is completely removed from us and relegated almost exclusively just to marriage. And that is a loss on our part. Asalaat al-anwati arhamukullahu So before I even talk about their iddah and the rulings on their iddah, let's talk about this lost sunnah of caring for the widow. And it is indeed a lost sunnah. You know, when you hear about orphans and you hear about the poor and you hear about all these different things, the sunnah of caring for the widows. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was described, wa la ya'nafu an yamshi'a ma'al armarati wal miskeen fa yaqdi alahu alhaaja that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was not too proud to be seen walking with the widow and walking with the miskeen, walking with one who was poor and carrying out their needs until he fulfilled their need. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, assa'i alal armarati wal miskeen The one who strives in caring for the widow and for the poor person is like the one who strives in the path of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, like the mujahid in the path of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala or like the one who fasts all day without breaking their fast or like the one who prays all night without sleeping. SubhanAllah, all that for who? The one who cares for the widow, al armala wal miskeen And all of these things that fall in the category of caring for the widow, you know, the ahadith in general about being there for someone who is vulnerable, being there for someone who is in need that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is in the cause of his servant so long as his servant is in the cause
of his brother or sister. Who more blessed to serve in the wake of a tragedy than the widow, especially when you start talking about an elderly widow and one that really has a hard time caring for herself. And by the way, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when he talks about the virtue of the person who raises an orphan and that the one who cares for the orphan, anawakafil wajateem I and the one who cares for the orphan are like these two fingers. In one narration the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam specifies I and the one who cares for an orphan, meaning their own orphans or someone else's orphans, meaning their own children or someone else's children are like these two in paradise. So to that woman that suffers the loss of her husband and cares for her own children, raises her children on her own, you will be like this with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam bi-idhnillahi ta'ala because we know that charity with your own family by the way is greater than any type of charity. And obviously being a mother taking care of your own children is not charity, it is sila and sadaqa because you achieve the reward of both. And there are some narrations, beautiful narrations about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and there are athar that are narrated about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam seeing a woman racing him on the day of judgment to al-jannah, to the gates of al-jannah and this is a woman who cared for her children and raised her children all the way until they were able to take care of themselves. This is an incredible category of people and who would not want to serve a person who has been given that reward of being like this with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So that's the first thing, reviving that legacy of serving the widow, of being in her cause, making sure that she's taken care of and taking that up as a job, as a role in the community. SubhanAllah there was one brother may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala bless him and I don't know his name for a reason because he would send, there was
a sister whose husband had passed away in the community and he would send you know $500 every single month to take care of his family but he would send it through another brother so that I would not know who he is and so the sister did not know the brother that was giving me the money and I did not know the brother that was giving the brother the money that was giving it to me. SubhanAllah so there is this anonymous person that decided that he wanted to take care of this family and he was acting upon this hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So taking care of the widow, serving her, caring for her needs, making sure that she can grieve properly. All of this is from the sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and that's when you start to see some of the hadith about the way that the widow is to grieve herself. Zayna bint Abi Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha wa an abiha wa an ummiha. She narrates that Um Habiba radiAllahu anha when Abu Sufyan passed away that Um Habiba radiAllahu anha after three days sent for some perfume and she put some perfume on her forearms and her cheeks and she said that it's not because I needed this or it's not because I really wanted this but she wanted to fulfill the sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and saying that it is not permissible for a woman who believes in Allah in the last day to abstain from adorning herself for more than three days except in the case of the widow who mourns for four months and ten days as Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says in Surah Al-Baqarah and that is of course the iddah of the widow. Now the iddah is also a thing that often comes with cultural baggage and certain things that are not from the sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. What is this here? What is the sunnah surrounding the widow particularly when it comes to the iddah? So we know what Allah Azawajal tells us in the Quran that the iddah for the widow is four months and ten days or it expires with pregnancy. So if she is pregnant and she gives birth before the
end of four months and ten days then her iddah is over when she gives birth even if it's a day after the death of her husband or it's four months and ten days. In that four months and ten days she mourns, she can grieve, she is to spend the night in her home and Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala a lot of the fiqh that we learn by the way the jurisprudence about death and how to act in the wake of death comes from Uhud because of the impact on the community and so you find a narration that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told some of the widows of Uhud as they would they would gather during the day to make sure that they can talk amongst themselves but when it's time to go to sleep to sleep in their homes to sleep in the home in which the news came to them and so when it comes to the iddah and the woman fulfilling that in her home that is that a woman can leave during the day to care for her needs there's no problem for that whatsoever to go out and care for her needs. Ideally again she has a family a community people that want to strive to care for her needs so that she doesn't have to go out and do those things for herself that she can take the time to properly grieve and not have to do that though she uh abstains from adorning herself and abstains from marriage and you know that which leads to marriage at the same time you know there is no form of self-punishment that's being inflicted here right the only thing is that at night she spends the night in the home of her husband and this should be observed unless there is a need for it not to be observed and I see two extremes here sometimes I have seen where you know a person enforces this rule when they don't need to enforce this rule and sometimes people abstain from it unnecessarily and the reality is that it's it's somewhere in between what does that mean just like with everything else in Islam if there are needs and dire needs then that makes things that are ordinarily prohibited permissible and so let's say for example it is an elderly woman and she is unable to spend the night you know alone and that she
can't care for herself at that point she can go in to move in with her children she could move in with with a sister or someone that can take care of her so that she's not alone you also might have a woman whose husband passes away in Hajj for example and subhanAllah I actually had that happen in my group where a woman becomes a widow in Hajj so is she supposed to stay in Mecca for four months and ten days no in her situation she would return home and she would spend the night in her home there for four months and ten days and then you see some of course that you know do not observe this iddah whatsoever so the iddah is to be observed and if there are things that make it you know exceedingly difficult for a woman to spend the night in her home then inshallah ta'ala it can be waived and during the day there is no harm and there should be no undue burden on her and the community the family the extended family the community should see it as a blessing inshallah ta'ala to serve her so that she can grieve properly and observe her iddah without being disrupted in that sense now the last thing I'll say here is that just like with the azza some of those cultural practices take the sunnah of ease and they make it difficult and that can be a fitna for a woman in her deen that can truly be a test for a woman in her deen and from those that are encountering some of these things that don't make any sense whatsoever it can be a fitna for them in regards to their deen so you'll see for example certain things like you know a woman is not supposed to smile for four months and ten days you'll see all sorts of cultural innovations that come into this and will guilt a woman and the only thing we know from the sunnah is to abstain from adornment and to abstain from sleeping outside of the home at night and of course a person again can go out during the day to do what they need to do so instead of you know adding blame or adding certain things to the iddah which take it closer to jahiliya and jahili practices or other things that exist in other cultures that get mixed in with the way that
iddah is observed by a neighboring muslim community let's think about how we can care for a person that is in that situation and take care of the needs of the widow so that we can revive a sunnah that has been lost.
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