and outfitting a wife with property to be taken with her to her husband’s home, when custom dictates that it is a gift rather than a loan.

The same applies to leases, such as boarding the vessel of a boatman who provides transport for hire; riding an animal belonging to a camel-driver, donkey-driver, or muleteer who provides transport for hire, in a manner [understood] to constitute a lease; entering public bathhouses that people use for a fee; handing a garment to a launderer or tailor who works for a fee; or giving food to a cook or someone who roasts it for a fee, whether he roasts the meat cut into slices or unsliced. Indeed, Ahmad’s followers even disagreed over whether a compensated divorce may be effected by conduct—for example, if a wife says, “Release me from the marriage in exchange for this sum of one thousand or for this garment,” and the husband accepts the compensation in the customary manner indicating his consent to the exchange.

The Ukbarī scholars, such as Abū Hafs al-Ukbarī and Abū Alī ibn Shihāb, held that this constitutes a valid compensated divorce. They cited statements from Ahmad and from the early generations before him—the Companions and Successors—that accord with their view. This may indeed be the predominant position in his explicit statements. In fact, he expressly stated that divorce takes effect through both speech and action. In support of its taking effect through writing, he cited the words of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): “Allah has pardoned my community for whatever passes through their minds, so long as they neither speak of it nor act upon it.” He said, “When a person writes, he has acted.”

The Baghdādī scholars of that period, such as Abū Abd Allah ibn Hāmid, and those who followed them, such as Judge Abū Yalā and those who adopted his approach, held that marital separation is effected only by speech. They cited statements of Ahmad upon which they relied in this matter, reasoning that marital separation is an annulment of the marriage contract: just as marriage requires a verbal formula, so too does its annulment.