Chapter on Zihār
Introduction
Zihār is derived from the Arabic word ẓahr (back). It bears this name because the husband who performs zihār likens his wife to his mother’s back. The back, rather than any other limb, was invoked because it is the part of a camel—or any mount—upon which one rides.
A woman, so to speak, is “ridden” when intercourse takes place. Thus, when he says to her, “You are to me like my mother’s back,” his intention is: “Approaching you for marital relations is forbidden to me just as it would be forbidden with my mother.”
Zihār is prohibited by the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and unanimous scholarly consensus.
Allah says: “Indeed, they utter a repugnant statement and a falsehood” (Qur’an 58:2).
From the Sunnah, the prohibition is established by the narration of Khawlah bint Mālik ibn Thaʿlabah and the report of Salamah ibn Ṣakhr.
Ibn al-Mundhir stated: “The scholars are unanimously agreed on its prohibition.”
Such “repugnant speech” and “falsehood” constitute one of the gravest major sins, for its meaning is to place one’s wife on the same footing as one’s mother with respect to sexual prohibition—while Allah has said: “They are not their mothers” (Qur’an 58:2).
The opening verses of Sūrah al-Mujādilah were revealed concerning the rulings of zihār when Aws ibn al-Ṣāmit al-Anṣārī al-Khazrajī declared it against his wife, Khawlah bint Mālik ibn Thaʿlabah al-Anṣārīyah.