and for your child—according to what is customary.”
Maintenance (nafaqah)
The jurists unanimously hold that the wife is entitled to maintenance. They differ, however, in four areas: 1) the time it becomes due; 2) its amount; 3) to whom it is owed; and 4) upon whom it is imposed.
- The time when it becomes due
Mālik maintained that the husband is not liable for maintenance until he has consummated the marriage or is invited to do so, provided that the wife is of an age that permits intercourse and that he himself is an adult. Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Shāfiʿī replied that even a minor husband must provide maintenance if the wife has reached maturity. If the husband is an adult while the wife is still a minor, al-Shāfiʿī has two opinions: the first agrees with Mālik, while the second grants her maintenance without restriction.
The root of their disagreement is whether maintenance is owed in return for conjugal enjoyment or because the wife is effectively confined to the husband, like someone kept waiting while he is absent or ill.
- The amount of maintenance
Mālik held that the Sharīʿah fixes no set amount; it depends on the circumstances of both spouses and naturally varies with locality, era, and condition. Abū Ḥanīfah concurred. Al-Shāfiʿī, by contrast, regarded it as quantified: the wealthy husband must provide two mudd per day, the man of moderate means one and a half mudd, and the poor man one mudd.
Their dispute turns on whether maintenance here should be analogised to food in cases of expiation—which is fixed—or to clothing, which all agree is left unspecified.
They also differed on a related question: Is the husband obliged to support the wife’s servant, and if so, how much? The majority say he must do so when the wife is of a social standing that she does not serve herself. Others argue that household service is the wife’s own responsibility. Those who obligate support for the servant then disagreed about the number of servants: some limit it to one, while others—Mālik and Abū Thawr among them—allow for two when the woman ordinarily requires two attendants. I know of no explicit proof for requiring the husband to maintain a servant other than the analogy between providing servants and providing housing, for the jurists have unanimously held that housing is the husband’s duty by the text concerning a revocably divorced wife.
- To whom maintenance is owed
They agree that it is due to a free wife who is not recalcitrant (nāshiz). They differ with regard to the nāshiz and the female slave.
a. The recalcitrant wife
The majority deny her maintenance, while a minority hold that it remains obligatory. The point at issue is the clash between the general wording of the Prophet’s statement—“They have the right that you provide for them and clothe them in a fitting manner”—which covers obedient and disobedient alike, and the inferred principle that maintenance is granted in exchange for conjugal access, which would exclude the nāshiz.
b. The female slave (amah)
Mālik’s followers voiced a range of views: that she is maintained like a free woman (the prevalent opinion); that she is not maintained at all; that if she goes to him he must provide for her, but if he comes to her he need not; that she is maintained only on the days she attends him; and that if the husband is free he must maintain her, whereas if he is himself a slave he bears no such obligation.