Jurisprudential-interpretative Review of Men's Disobedience and How to Deal with It

Nushūz is the state when one spouse violates his or her marital duties. Nushūz, in the term of most jurists, is equated with disobedience or refusal to obey. It is the discharge of the wife from the lines of obedience that have been obliged, forbidding the husband from having fun with him, leaving the house without the permission of the husband because she knows that the husband will not allow her.  When the wife leaves the obligatory tasks that God Almighty has placed on her in relation to her husband, she is called Nāshiza. In this study, the author wants to use the verse 128 of Sūra al-Nisāʾto emphasize the fact that disobedience (nushūz) is not exclusive to women, rather if a man neglects to fulfill his obligatory duties such as alimony, obligatory cohabitation, the right to share the bed and fail to fulfill other obligations during the marriage, it is considered nushūz, and a woman can resort to solutions such as advice and admonishment, demanding rights, referring to a qualified Mujtahid to get her husband to fulfill his duties. But such an action is never taken by the wife due, mainly, to the fact that she is, in most cases, unaware of her rights. This article uses library resources and explanatory-analytical method to extract the opinions of jurists and the legal position, by explaining the true meaning of nushūz and determining its limits and consequences and solutions in the Qur'an. It concludes that women too, like men, can demand their rights in the event that their husbands are recalcitrant.