Events

Helping Your Wife With Household Chores is a Neglected Sunnah

Inviting the men in our community to show their talent !

Please come along for,
➡️ Bring & Share – One Dish
➡️ family gettogether
➡️ preferably cooked by brothers

📆  Saturday, 14th January
⏰  5 pm
📍 HUB – map

🍛  Please bring a main dish, and optionally also a dessert to share
🥄  Please bring food that is ready to be served along with any serving spoons that may be required
🍖  To ensure everyone’s considerations are looked after, please ensure that the food is certified as Halal


Helping 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 including Imam Malik, al-Shafi’, and Abu Hanifa.

The culture has ingrained within many societies a wrong understanding.

Ayesha bint Abu Bakr (radiAllahu anha), the wife of the Prophet Muhammad (), 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 Ayesha (radiAllahu anha) 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(ﷺ) did not find such things too ‘womanish’ for him to do. It is no wonder that He(ﷺ) emphasised on good behaviour towards family and specially towards womenfolk.

خَيْرُكُمْ خَيْرُكُمْ لِأَهْلِهِ وَأَنَا خَيْرُكُمْ لِأَهْلِي
“The best of you is he who is best to his family, and I am the best among you to my family.”
– Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ)