Answer
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:
1- Indeed, as you are required, according to the laws of Shari`ah, to obey your husband, he is also highly required to maintain his ties of kinship from which is your own family.
2- Hence, he is not only required to allow you visit your relatives, but he is also responsible for encouraging you to strengthen these ties urging you to pay your family due visits.
3- So, you are recommended to have a permission from your husband to travel to visit your relatives and he is required to hasten in giving this permission as long as it is available.
Responding to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Even as you are obligated to render your duties towards your husband, you are obligated to render your duties towards your blood relations. Just as he should foster his ties of kinship, you should also foster your blood relations.
Therefore, he is not allowed to stop you from visiting your relatives, even as you are not allowed to stop him from visiting his. There is no obedience to anyone in disobedience to Allah.
Allah reminds us to reverence the wombs that bore us; this is an imperative addressed to both males and females.
Thus, if he stops you from visiting your relatives, he is against the laws of Allah, and he is arrogating to himself the power of Allah, for He alone has the right to be obeyed unconditionally.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.