As for nushūz (“rising”) in His words, Most High:

“When you are told to rise, then rise,”

it means getting up, standing, and rising. The basic sense of this root is elevation and roughness. From it comes al-nashr, meaning an elevated, rugged tract of land. Likewise, His words, Most High:

“And look at the bones—how We raise them,”

mean that We raise them one to another. Those who read nunshizuhā understand it to mean, “We bring them to life.” A disobedient woman is therefore called nāshiz (“defiant”) because of her harshness and her holding herself above obedience to her husband. Getting up is called nushūz because a seated person rises from the ground. And Allah knows best.

He—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

Concerning a man whose wife is defiant and refuses him intimacy: does her entitlement to maintenance and clothing lapse, and what is required of her?

He replied:

Praise be to Allah. Her entitlement to maintenance and clothing lapses if she refuses him intimacy, and he may strike her if she persists in her defiance. It is not lawful for her to refuse him this when he requests it; rather, she is disobeying Allah and His Messenger. It is related in the Sahīh:

“When a man calls his wife to his bed and she refuses him, the One above heaven is displeased with her until morning.”