Grand Ayatollah Shirazi: Husband is obliged to pay Nafaqah to wife, even if he is poor
The daily scholarly meeting of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Sadegh Hosseini Shirazi was held on Monday, the 11th of Safar. In this session, like the previous meetings, the Marja answered the questions of the attendees about various jurisprudential issues.
In this meeting, Grand Ayatollah Shirazi discussed Nafaqah (financial support), and said: “payment of Nafaqah to wife is absolutely obligatory, even if the husband is poor and the wife is rich,” adding that, “If the husband is in circumstances where he cannot provide Nafaqah, he is obliged to borrow money and fulfill this duty as long as he does not come to harm or distress.”
He explained that one’s relatives are divided into two categories, linear and non-linear, with linear including the father and mother and the fathers and mothers of a person, as well as the children and descendants of a person.
Then, non-linear relatives include brothers, sisters, their children, uncles, aunts, and other relatives, and the like.
The Supreme Religious Authority stated that a person is considered poor by Islamic Sharia when he/she is not able to meet his living expenses as his status entails, and the general public opinion does not determine poverty.
Accordingly, his Eminence said that if an individual is rich and financially capable, and there is a poor person among his linear relatives, then the individual is obliged by Sharia to financially support that relative and pay him/her Nafaqah.
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi further said: If a person dies and he owes Nafaqah to his wife, this unpaid duty is considered a debt of a person that must be paid off before dividing the inheritance. So, this Nafaqah must be paid to the wife and then the remainder of the inheritance can be divided among the heirs, even if the properties in question are the dead person’s clothes and the carpet under his feet, because he does not need them after death. However, if the payment of Nafaqah to relatives was an obligation that a person did not fulfill during his lifetime, it is not considered a debt and need not to be deducted from the inheritance.
