How should custody and visitation be decided if both parents remarry?

Islamically, a parent's remarriage does not automatically strip them of their rights, but it can affect the practical custody arrangement discussed in Q6. If the mother remarries someone who is not a mahram (close blood relative) to the child, most schools of thought (with the Maliki school being more lenient on this point) hold that her right to physical custody can be affected, on the reasoning that the child's comfort and religious upbringing in that household needs consideration — this is treated as a welfare question, not a punishment for remarrying. A father's remarriage generally does not affect his custody rights when custody transfers to him at the applicable age, though scholars still expect him to ensure the child's wellbeing and religious upbringing are genuinely being met in the new household.

Visitation (the non-custodial parent's access to the child) isn't laid out with the same rigid, aged-based detail as custody in classical fiqh texts, but it is treated as the child's right to maintain a relationship with both parents rather than something either parent can simply deny out of resentment toward the other — most contemporary scholars and fatwa councils frame reasonable, safe visitation as an obligation flowing from the general Islamic principle of maintaining family ties (silat al-rahim). In India, if this is contested rather than agreed between the parents directly, family courts apply the "welfare of the minor" standard under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 as the deciding factor for both custody and visitation — which means the actual outcome, especially once new step-parents and step-siblings are involved, can diverge from the classical default and genuinely needs case-specific scholarly and legal guidance rather than a general rule.

Source: general Sunni fiqh on hizanah and remarriage (see Q6 sourcing); general principle of silat al-rahim (maintaining family ties) as applied to visitation by contemporary fatwa councils; Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 (India).