Skip to main content

Helping Your Wife With Household Chores is a Neglected Sunnah

choresHelping your wife with household chores is a neglected sunnah. Any man that sees it beneath him or is too arrogant to help his wife around the house is acting against the sunnah and is guilty of chauvinistic behavior. In fact, majority of Muslim scholars are of the opinion that serving one’s husband is not compulsory on a wife. Imam Malik , al-Shafi’e and Abu Hanifa also support this.
Aisha, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), was asked, “What did the Prophet (ﷺ) use to do in his house?” She replied, “He used to keep himself busy serving his family (كَانَ يَكُونُ فِي مِهْنَةِ أَهْلِهِ) and when it was the time for prayer he would go for it.” (Bukhari)
The word used in the hadith is Mihnah (مِهْنَة), which is translated as ‘busy serving’ here, also means in the Arabic language ‘work’, ‘job’, ‘profession’, etc. This implies helping your wife in the house is a full time job as well. Whether it’s helping wash the dishes, cooking, cleaning, raising the kids, etc., is all part and parcel of being the ‘man’ of the house. The notion that it is somehow degrading for men to help and work with the wife around the house is foreign to Islam.
In another report Aisha is reported to have said, “He did what one of you would do in his house. He mended sandals and patched garments and sewed.” (Adab Al-Mufrad graded sahih by Al-Albani)
In yet another report it is said that she said, “He milked his goat.” (Ahmad)
Hence, he did not find such things too ‘womanish’ for him to do. It is no wonder that he said, “The best of you is the one who is best to his wife, and I am the best of you to my wives.” (Tirmidhi; Ibn Majah)
Following is a very interesting and touching short video on this topic and shows how culture has ingrained within many societies a wrong understanding (Urdu only):

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IN ISLAM

In Islam, a woman is considered as a homemaker... She is not considered as a housewife, because she is not married to the house.

South Korea : Jeju

Jeju Island  (제주도,濟州島) , formerly  Cheju Island , is an island off the southern coast of  South Korea , in the Korea Strait, southwest of Jeollanam-do Province, of which it was a part before it became a separate province in 1946, and more recently Korea's first and only Special Autonomous Province. Its capital is  Jeju City . Understand Jeju Island, also known as the "Island of the Gods," is a popular vacation spot for Koreans and foreigners. It remains the top honeymoon destination for Korean newlyweds. Despite attempts to market the island as "the Hawaii of Korea," climatologically and geographically it bears little in similarity to the Hawaiian Islands in the U.S. The island offers visitors a wide range of activities: hiking on Halla-san (South Korea's highest peak) or Olle-gil(routes), catching sunrises and sunsets over the ocean, riding horses, touring all the locales from a favorite television K-drama, or just lying around on the sandy beaches. ...

Korean Food Guide: 44 Things to Eat in Seoul, South Korea and Where to Try Them

Before our trips to Korea, my knowledge of Korean food was pretty much limited to  kimchi ,  bulgogi , and  japchae . My exposure to the cuisine never really went beyond that in spite of having several Korean friends, including a Korean roommate for a couple of years. I think part of it is due to how damn good Korean barbecue is. It’s so delicious that it was pretty much all I ever looked for when eating at Korean restaurants. Bulgogi for my main course, and a plate of japchae on the side. That was it. But thanks to our two trips to Seoul, in 2015 and 2017, my Korean food vocabulary has expanded to over 40 dishes. As delicious and universally appealing as Korean barbecue is, I’ve learned that there’s so much more to the cuisine than just bulgogi and  galbi . Things like  ganjang gejang ,  jokbal , and  naengmyeon aren’t as well known outside of Korea but they are dishes well worth flying for. Ganjang gejang was particularly memorable. After waiting...