Fatwa ID: 03054
Answered by: Shaykh Umer Khan
Question:
Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah
If a marriage is faskh after khalwat then does the mahr have to be given back?
Answer:
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Faskh of nikāḥ means dissolving the marriage contract by the decree of a Muslim judge in a sharīʻah court where sufficient grounds for the decree exist according to Islāmic Law. In a non-Muslim country, an Islāmic/sharīʻah council may serve this function. A faskh of nikāḥ has the same effect as a bā'in ṭalāq (resulting in an irrevocable to the marriage), and the same rulings apply.
Based on the presence of khalwat al-ṣaḥīḥah (having privacy and isolation in a way and situation that intercourse was possible), according to the Ḥanafī jurists, she may keep the full mahr and does not have to return any of it (al-Hidāyah, 3/71).
Only Allah knows best
Written by Shaykh Umer Khan
Checked and approved by Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah
Darul Ifta Birmingham