mahrum

Mahrum, often transliterated mahram, is an Islamic legal term for a person who is permanently forbidden to marry a given individual due to kinship, breastfeeding, or marriage ties. The concept applies to both men and women and is used in matters of marriage eligibility and, in some traditions, travel arrangements. In everyday language, the word also appears in languages such as Urdu with meanings like “deprived,” though that sense is separate from the kinship-use.

There are three main ways a person may become mahram to another. By blood or kinship, close relatives whose marriage would be prohibited under Islamic law—such as parents, grandparents, children, siblings, and certain uncles and aunts—are typically considered mahram. By breastfeeding, a woman who nursed a child creates milk kinship, which imposes marriage prohibitions between the nursed child, the nurse, and the nurse’s close relatives in these communities. By marriage, the spouses themselves are mahram to each other, and certain in-laws (such as a wife’s relations to her husband’s side) may also be treated as mahram for specific purposes under different schools of law.

Travel is a common context in which mahram status matters. In many Islamic juristic traditions, a woman may travel without a guardian if accompanied by a mahram, though the exact rules vary across schools and jurisdictions.

Notes and variations: The precise list of mahrams and the scope of mahram status can differ among Islamic legal schools (for example Hanafi, Shafi‘i, Maliki, and Hanbali), and local laws or practices may adapt these concepts in everyday life.