Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Sixth Fascicle

give nafaqa or its monetary equivalent:
1– It is farz for a man to pay his wife her nafaqa even if she is
rich. It is farz even if his wife is a disbeliever. Nafaqa becomes farz
immediately after the performance of nikâh. If the husband and
the wife are poor people, the husband pays nafaqa prescribed for
a poor person. If they are rich, he will have to pay nafaqa
prescribed for a rich person. Nafaqa prescribed for a rich person
enforces that the wife be provided (by the husband) with a
(female) servant hired to do housework. If either one of them is
rich and the other one is poor, the husband will pay moderate
nafaqa.
Ibni ’Âbidîn ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaih’ states: “In Islam,
nafaqa consists of ta’âm (food), kisva (clothing), and suknâ
(habitation). It has been a customary policy followed by most
books to use the term ‘nafaqa’ when they only mean ta’âm. A
husband who is poor has to pay nafaqa whose amount is customary
among families with moderate income to his wife, if she is rich. He
may (as well ) give nafaqa prescribed for a poor person and pay the
difference when he becomes rich. If the wife files a complaint
against her husband for not paying her nafaqa although he is
capable of doing so, the judge of law court will determine an
amount of nafaqa and order him to pay it. If the dereliction
continues despite the order, then the judge will send the husband
to prison, have his property sold out, and have the money earned
spent for the nafaqa of the wife. In case his property cannot be
found, he will be kept in prison until it is found out that he is (too)
poor. At this stage the judge will not grant a divorce. In case of
failure to pay at least the lowest of the three kinds of nafaqa on
account of poverty or absence on the part of the husband, the
judge will not separate the pair or imprison the husband. In the
Shâfi’î Madhhab, the judge will dissolve the wife from her poor
husband if she chooses that solution. To make it possible to
dissolve the marriage, a judge in the Hanafî appoints another
judge, who is in the Shâfi’î Madhhab, as his deputy. He gives him
the application written by the woman who wants a divorce. The
husband and wife are brought to the law court. The wife, by
producing two witnesses, proves that she is not being paid nafaqa
and, if the husband fails to prove that he is capable of paying
nafaqa, the judge separates them. In case the husband is absent
(and cannot be found), the judge will not separate them since it
will be impossible to determine that he is (too) poor (to pay
nafaqa). In the Hanbalî Madhhab, the judge has the authority to
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