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:
There is nothing wrong in your grandma’s travel to her village during the iddah (waiting period after her husband’s death) as long as she avoids the unnecessary social gatherings.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Your grandmother can travel to the village as long as she avoids unnecessary social gatherings.
Iddah, as Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said, is an attitude. In other words, it is all about the way you are carrying yourself.
So, if a woman is not beautifying herself in order to appear attractive for men, there is nothing wrong for her in venturing out if she needs to do it.
Therefore, we are told that Aishah used to take widows who were in iddah with her for Umrah. Mind you, being the mother of the faithful and a scholar trained by the Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) himself, she is more qualified to pronounce rulings on such issues than any other men, no matter how esteemed they are.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.