856 – Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “A woman is not to be married together with her paternal aunt, nor is a woman to be married together with her maternal aunt.” Agreed upon. (1)

Points derived from the ḥadīth:

1. Islamic law brings everything that fosters love and harmony, and it forbids and cautions against whatever leads to discord, enmity, and hatred.

2. Allah permitted a free man to marry up to four wives because polygyny yields many interests and benefits for both men and women. Enumerating those advantages defies calculation and would require separate works; many scholars and thinkers have already explained and analyzed them, and this is not the place to do so.

3. When the Wise Lawgiver allowed polygyny, He forbade combining wives who are closely related by blood, because that would sever family ties and breed hostility among relatives; jealousy between co-wives is extremely intense.

4. This ḥadīth therefore prohibits marrying a woman together with her paternal aunt, and marrying a woman together with her maternal aunt, just as the Lawgiver forbade marrying two sisters at the same time. Allah, the Exalted, says: “and that you take two sisters together in marriage” (al-Nisāʾ 4:23). A prohibition entails both unlawfulness and invalidity, so the contract is void by consensus of the scholars.

5. Accordingly, it is forbidden to combine two sisters in marriage, or a woman and her paternal aunt, or a woman and her maternal aunt.