The Lahore High Court has ruled that marrying a sister-in-law before the completion of the iddat period (waiting period after divorce or death of a spouse) of the first wife is “unlawful.”

On Friday, LHC judge Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh of the Lahore High Court issued an 11-page written judgment.

It stated that marrying a sister-in-law before the completion of the iddat period was equivalent to simultaneously marrying two sisters, which is not permissible according to Islamic law.

The high court ruling highlighted that scholars unanimously agree that a person cannot marry his sister-in-law before the completion of the iddat period of the first wife. But it was permissible to marry a sister-in-law after the completion of the iddat period.

It was incumbent upon the husband and wife that upon becoming aware of such an invalid marriage, they separate from each other promptly, the order said added that if the husband and wife fail to terminate such a marriage, it becomes the responsibility of the qazi to dissolve their marriage.

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The judgment refers to a case filed by Sabir Ali against his brother-in-law, Masoor Hussain, in August 2023.

According to the FIR, his brother-in-law married the younger sister of his wife while he was still married to his first wife. As per Masoor Hussain, he married his first wife’s sister nine days after he divorced his first wife. Islamic law does not consider the iddat period complete within nine days.