درء التعارض بين الشرع والعرف في بقاء الأرملة في بيت الزوجية بعد انقضاء عدتها

Abstract

It is a unanimous agreement among Muslim scholars that a widow should vacate her husband’s home after observing her waiting period (iddah). However, what the reality in the Ugandan society is contrary to that since a widow, due to socio-economic factors and justifications remains in the matrimonial home until she passes on. It is only in rare cases of those young aged widows who are interested in remarrying after the death of their husbands to vacate the matrimonial home, but a different case for the post-menstrual age widows who have no desire in marriage, and thus prefer to stay in the matrimonial home to death and even be buried beside their husbands’ graves.

Some scholars have started calling for the strict adherence to the Shariah rule of evacuating widows from the matrimonial home in order to pave way for the distribution of the late husband’s estate, and also to avoid the widow’s encroachment on the rights of other legal heirs, something which has raised a serious concern in the community which had been for long accustomed to a different culture. This research article is a scholarly attempt to intervene in this matter to ward off and harmonize the inconsistence between Shariah requirement and custom in light of the jurisprudence of reality and in consideration of the higher objectives of Shariah in this matter.