Is It Permissible To Take The Husbands Name After Marriage? Muslims over the years (especially those living in Western countries) have adopted many practices from Western culture which have no basis in the Sharia. One of them is the the woman changing her family name to her husbands after she gets married. Woman who are newly converted to Islam sometimes fall into this trap more easily for two reasons... the first being that its the normal thing to do in the West. And the second, because they wrongly assume that taking their husbands name (a muslim name) is going to be better for them than keeping a non muslim name. A woman changing her name after marriage has two problems... The woman falls into the sin of changing the name of her father (who spent his life and money caring for her) And the woman changing her family name is making resemblance to the non-believers and we know the hadith says... The Prophet (s.a.w) said: He is not one of us who imitates other than us. Do not imitate the Jews or the Christians. (Tirmidhi) And... Whoever imitates a people, he is one of them. (At-Tabarani and Abu Dawud) Islam doesnt ask a woman to change her name at the time of marriage and there is nothing in the Sunnah to say that a woman should take her husband’s name when she gets married. It is an innovation and it is not approved of in Islam. The wives of the Prophet s.a.w are the Mothers of the Believers, and the Prophet s.a.w, was the best of people and the best example. And if we look at the example left for us, we see that whenever the Prophet s.a.w married any of his wives, NOT ONE of them took his name. They all kept her father’s name EVEN if her father was a kafir. Similarly, the wives of the Sahaba and those who came after them did not change their names either. If it was the right thing for us to do, the wives of the Prophet s.a.w would have done it and the Prophet s.a.w himself would have encouraged us to do so. But there was never any instruction or encouragement to do so. Allah s.w.t ordered us to keep our father’s name as an indication of your lineage. “Call them (adopted sons) by (the names of) their fathers, that is more just with Allaah…” Al-Ahzab 33:5 The Prophet (s.a.w) said: “Whoever calls himself by other than his father’s name, will be cursed by Allah, the angels and all the people.” (Ibn Maajah) “Any man who knowingly attributes himself to someone other than his father is guilty of kufr. Whoever claims to belong to a people when he has nothing to do with them, let him take his place in Hell.” (Bukhari and Muslim) And... “Whoever knowingly claims to belong to anyone other than his father, Paradise will be denied him.” (Ahmad, Bukhari, and Muslim) The woman is ‘the daughter of so and so’, NOT ‘the wife of so and so’ and keeping your fathers name, has to do with inheritance, spending and who is her mahram etc. But also we will be called by our father‘s name in the Hereafter. The Prophet s.a.w. said: “On the Day of Resurrection, each betrayer will have a banner raised beside him, and it will be said, this is the betrayer of so and so, the son of so and so.” (Bukhari and Muslim). Some say “But the woman is not denying her father or her lineage, shes just honoring her husband or She just wants to belong to her husband out of love for him.” If it was honorable to take the husbands name, surely there would be no greater honour than for the wives of the Prophet s.a.w to take his name yet they didnt. And if it was for the love of their husband, surely there is no relationship between a husband and wife better than the relationship between the Prophet s.a.w and his wives. Still, none of the mothers of the believers showed their love by changing their last names. So, any single sisters out there, don’t change your maiden name when you get married. And those of you who may have already, its never too late to take back your maiden name and reclaim your identity. It is part of the Sharia.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 18:10:03 +0000
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