In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Bestower of Mercy.
May Allah bless our master Muhammad and his family.

The Book of Zihār

Zihār is a man’s likening intercourse with a woman lawful to him to intercourse with a woman permanently forbidden to him through blood relationship, marriage, or breastfeeding. The Arabs would allude to this by mentioning the back, saying, “My wife is to me like my mother’s back.” Hence it was called zihār, a word derived from zahr (back). The back, rather than the abdomen, genitals, or other bodily parts, was singled out in expressing the prohibition of zihār—even though the prohibition would more appropriately apply to those parts—because the back is where one mounts, and a woman is mounted during intercourse. Thus, when a man says to his wife, “You are to me like my mother’s back,” he means that mounting her for intercourse is forbidden to him just as mounting his mother for intercourse is forbidden. He uses mounting to signify intercourse, since the man engaging in intercourse mounts, and the back to signify mounting, since it is where one mounts. This is a subtle use of metaphor to convey an allusion.

Zihār takes four forms: comparing a whole to a whole, a part to a part, a part to a whole, and a whole to a part. All carry the same ruling, unless the part of his wife being compared, or the part to which he compares his wife, is something separable from her or from the permanently forbidden woman used in the comparison, such as speech or hair. Such a case is subject to the same disagreement as when a man pronounces divorce upon that part of his wife.

Zihār has explicit and allusive expressions. According to Ibn al-Qāsim and Ashhab, and their respective transmissions from Mālik, its explicit form is to mention the back in a comparison to a woman permanently forbidden to him. According to Ibn al-Qāsim, its allusive expressions are comparisons to a permanently forbidden woman without mentioning the back, or comparisons mentioning the back of a woman who is not permanently forbidden to him. According to Ashhab, its allusive expressions also include comparisons to a woman who is not permanently forbidden to him without mentioning the back.

According to Ibn al-Mājishūn, its explicit expressions also include comparisons to a permanently forbidden woman without mentioning the back. In his view, mentioning the back in a comparison to a woman who is not permanently forbidden does not count as an allusive expression of zihār; thus, according to him, zihār has no allusive expressions. The distinction between