may marry her to a suitable husband without her permission or consent.

Shaykh al-Islam said: in such a case the father contracts the marriage on her behalf and no permission is required from her.

Their evidence is the Prophet’s marriage to ʿĀʾishah when she was six years old.

The scholars have differed regarding a virgin who has reached legal adulthood.
• The prevailing opinion in the Hanbali school—also held by Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Isḥāq—is that her father may compel her.
• The Hanafi school, along with a second report from Imām Aḥmad, maintains that no legally accountable woman, whether virgin or previously married, may be forced into marriage. This view was adopted by Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn, who wrote in al-Fāʾiq that it is the sounder position.

Al-Zarkashī commented that this latter view is clearer, for the rationale for compulsion applies only to minors.

Similarly, concerning a nine-year-old—whether virgin or previously married—the Shaykh held that she should not be forced; this is one of the narrations from Aḥmad, and some later scholars have deemed it the stronger opinion.

Al-Wazīr (Ibn Hubayra), Ibn Rushd, and others said: the scholars unanimously agree that a father may compel a daughter under nine to marry a suitable match, as demonstrated by Abū Bakr giving ʿĀʾishah in marriage to the Prophet when she was six years old.