My husband is miser, what should I do?

♦ A husband forces his wife to pay the price of the cups and dishes which she breaks .

 ♦A husband counts fruits and the pieces of meat .

♦ Psychiatrists: Miserliness kills all good instincts in man .

 ♦heologians : Women have the right to take from the money of their miser husbands their basic needs .

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Of the famous forms in our communities about which we often hear complaints is the form of miser husband and wasteful wife. However, the reality does not execute an extravagant husband or a miser wife because when a husband becomes miser, suffering becomes huge and unbearable because the whole family is suffering. Reality is full of these samples but searching for notable examples is a problem that we hope to overcome.

Iman `Abdur-Raziq, who is a young wife who has got married 11 years ago and begot three children , says : When my husband betrothed me, we went out to buy something and I was glad because I thought them gifts, but after a while he asked me to pay half the price , so I suppressed my anger and paid him. Another time I asked him to drink some juice in coffee shop, but he objected and said coffee shops are expensive and it is better to drink from hawkers. Then I complained to my family, but he justified that and tried to fix himself until we got married. After marriage, when I break a cup or a dish, he makes me pay for it moreover he gives me one hundred pounds to buy clothes for me and for the children, and that sum is worthless, so I borrow money from my father who us well-to-do. When my father gives me some money, my husband takes half of it, furthermore, he asks me to bring sustenance from my family : meat, butter, beans, lentil, and everything. During `Eid my father sent me much meat which was sufficient for us and the neighbors, but I was surprised when my husband said to me: Call your mum and tell her to prepare lunch for us. I said to him: My mother is sick and you know that, moreover they sent us all we need. However, he got angry.

At the end, Iman `Abdur-Raziq says : What hurts me is that my husband is rich and he owns a building, a car, a shop, and has a good job.

As for Salwa Hawwash, she has married six years ago and she narrates another side of her husband's misery : My husband used to cut the meat into small pieces and count them for fear that I eat something behind his back. Then I surprised when I found him buying a lock for the telephone so as not to let me talk in it, accordingly he will not pay the bill. When he buys some fruits, he buys half a kilo and usually he eats more than the half and leaves few for me and the kids. He pretends to be poor and visits our families and friends in meal times to eat with them. I had almost believed him, but I found him buying a car which he did not ride because he fears of the consumption of benzene. When we go out to buy something for the kids, he looks for hawkers to buy used and old clothes which have been washed and cleaned .

As for Sa`diyyah `Abdul-Barr, she has been married for 20 years and she has five kids, she says : My husband is very miser and I feel sorry for him, and I fell that Allah sent me to him to look after him because no person can endure him.

At the beginning of our marriage, I discovered that he only wears one shirt and one trouser without changing or washing them because he fears to pay the price of soap. One day we had some food which its smell was rotten and its taste was nasty and I wanted to throw it in the garbage but he refused and forced us to eat it until we all got sick. He said: We do not throw food in the garbage. Moreover, he does not allow us to cook two types of food: Salad and vegetables are forbidden to enter the house to the extent that I and my kids go to eat meat at my family's house. Then Allah bestowed mercy on us and we traveled to a gulf country and my husband had a good job, we bought a car, and my husband bought a building. However, we came back, he took my car and forced me to sell my jewelry. I know that his bank account has been high and despite all these monies, he became very miser to that extent that his kids hate him, and I am trying to seek excuses for him .

Sa`diyyah adds : The tragedy was at the gulf when he told me to go to one of his friends to take care of his kids until their parents come home. So, I went there with a good intention, but when their mom came back, she yelled at me saying: why did not you clean the house, cook food, and wash the clothes of the kids? Her tone was not comfortable, but later on I found out that my husband sent me as a maid and he took the salary in advance. It was harsh for me to accept that painful experience , so I sent to my father who sent me a ticket and I came back alone leaving him collecting money .

♦ Miserliness deform the personality of man :

Dr. `Ali As-Sawwah, the professor of psychology says: Miserliness is a very difficult sickness but even harder than psychological diseases where it deforms the human personality. Miserliness penetrates into human soul to the extent that the soul becomes miser not the hand. Miserliness contains the meaning of withholding money where a person withholds money from his wife and kids, leaving them suffer in a time he can please them. We cannot describe a person with miserliness unless he is given some money but he withholds it and keeps it away from his family. then this attribute grows up with man until it destroys him and makes him helpless to offer goodness to anyone. I know a very rich person who does not give the poor in a time he owns millions .

Miser people cannot help anyone because he was turned into a mass of miserliness. Misers do not feel they are misers, but imagines himself good-manager of money. Misers do not have wishes, so they do not seek good foods, luxurious clothes, nor comfortable furniture , moreover their dreams are delayed to the future and that future never comes then he surprises the people that he died rich.

Here is the real issue which a miser does not know about himself which is he exerts efforts and collects money, but he does not use it to make himself happy , however others become happy with that money after his death. Here comes the old saying: (The money of a miser is for those who inherit it then spend it without effort). Very often Allah gives that money which a miser collected to some people who spend it without no control and without knowing its value. The standard is a husband should offer the basic needs to his family and get them out of deprivation and suppression which generate sick and abnormal souls. After a husband provides the limit which takes them away from deprivation, he may save whatever money he likes .

♦ Good rearing is saving and investment :

Hajj Mukhtar Al Munufy, a farmer from one of the villages of Kafr Ash-Sheikh - Egypt says: I have inherited a small piece of land from my father where my father gave my elder brother most of the land. My brother loves to money collecting and inherited the land unjustly. My brother has become money loving and buys land while depriving his kids from the basic needs in order to buy these lands to the extent that they live in a continuous dire need. Their clothes are torn out and he deprived them of education because he does not want to buy books and clothes for them or spend on them in collage. As for me, I focused on my children whom I reared and educated them well despite the lack of my resources and the smallness of my land. Years passed difficulty, but at the end I found the result of my effort where two of my children graduated from medic school, one from pharmacy school, one from veterinary medicine, one from engineering school, and the last from science school. May Allah bless them and their good manners. The elder is helping me now in spending on his brothers and sisters, and life began to smile to us. As for my brother, all his kids are illiterate and work in fields, and despite their richness they do not eat meat except in few occasions. After that long journey in life, I see myself is the winner because my investment was in my children, whereas the greedy person lives in pain and hunger. The kids of my brothers are looking respectfully to us and their father feels jealous and regret whenever he sees the success of my children.

♦ Why did Allah dispraise the miser?

Dr. `Abdul-Wadud Shalaby says: Allah (Glory be to Him) dispraised miserliness when He says: "And let not those who covetously withhold of that which Allâh has bestowed on them of His Bounty (Wealth) think that it is good for them (and so they do not pay the obligatory Zakât). Nay, it will be worse for them; the things which they covetously withheld shall be tied to their necks like a collar on the Day of Resurrection." He also says: "And whosoever is saved from his own covetousness, such are they who will be the successful." Likewise the Prophet (peace be upon him) dispraised it when he said: "A miser shall not enter Paradise." He also said: "There are two characteristics that cannot be associated with a Believer, miserliness and evil manners." So, Miserliness is forbidden as it is destruction for the people under your custody. A miser is short-sightedness person because he does not know that the sustenance of Allah is ample and does not know that Allah gives the one who spends for His Sake and destroys the one who withholds. He is short-sightedness person because he does not know that he may die today or tomorrow and his money shall not avail him, but it will be a disgrace and painful torment for him. A miser is tortured twice: Once in the world while collecting money and does not spend it and another in Hell.

As for Dr. Maryim Ad-Daghistany, a professor in Al Azhar University, she says: A miser is a sick person, therefore Islam gave the wife of a miser the right to spend money without his permission provided that she buys with it her basic needs without extravagance. Hence, Islam maintains the right of the family so that the breadwinner may not make them suffer.