Answer
Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
In Islam, fostering family ties is essential, but not at the expense of marital harmony and privacy. A wife’s right to feel comfortable and secure in her own home is paramount. To maintain both kinship and marital peace, it is best to find alternative accommodations for extended family members while ensuring family visits occur in a respectful, balanced way.
In his answer to the question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Islam commands Muslims to maintain the ties of kinship and be kind to their relatives, it is keen to maintain the rights of each of the spouses in comfort and privacy and protect the marital life against any prospective misgivings or doubts that might eventually terminate it.
Your love for your cousin and your desire to help are indeed commendable. It is our Islamic duty to do what we can to foster ties of kinship.
But at the same time, you must know that in Islam we have priorities that we must observe. We are not supposed to act based purely on our feelings or emotions, but based on sound thinking and understanding.
If your wife is objecting to your cousin living with you in the same house, she is quite justified in doing so. She has every right to safeguard her privacy in her own house; and as a husband, it is your duty to provide such privacy and comfort for your wife.
Moreover, if your cousin lives with you, there may be situations where she would be isolated with him, which may give rise to complications and misgivings.
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has, therefore, warned us strictly against such matters. He said, “In-laws are death!” (Muslim)
In other words, isolation with your cousin could be disastrous for her and him, so never even entertain such an idea.
You are, therefore, not to allow your cousin to live in the same house, but you may find accommodation elsewhere for him, and he could be occasionally invited to your house when you are home. Don’t break your home in order to accommodate your cousin.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.