the Prophet ﷺ said: “Whatever Allah has remained silent about is a pardon.” (1) This unrestricted wording cannot be construed in light of the restricted wording, even though the cause is one—the ẓihār—because the ruling differs. When the ruling differs, the unrestricted text is not construed according to the restricted one. This is why we do not construe the unrestricted wording of Allah’s statement concerning dry ablution: “Then wipe your faces and your hands with it.” [al-Mā’idah 5:6] according to its restriction in the verse on ablution: “and your hands up to the elbows.” [al-Mā’idah 5:6] Although the cause is one, this is due to the difference in ruling.

Here too, the ruling differs. Therefore, in the matter of fasting, Allah repeated: “before the two touch one another” [al-Mujādilah 58:3]; He did not refer back to the restriction mentioned in the matter of freeing a slave. Thus, when He stipulated the condition in the first case, followed it with the same condition in the second, and remained silent concerning the third, it is known that this condition is not intended in the third case. Hence, when a person is unable to free a slave or fast, it is not stipulated that he complete the expiation before resuming relations with his wife, because Allah did not stipulate this.

It may be that Allah, Exalted is He, made matters easier both in feeding people itself and in not making it a condition for the wife to become lawful again. Thus, the Lawgiver has taken ease and facilitation into account. A comparable example is wiping the head: it is done only once, because when its basic requirement was made easy, its manner was made easy as well. This is a very strong line of reasoning, and it is one of the two opinions on this issue: if feeding is the required expiation, then he may have intercourse before offering the expiation.