“…that the one observing iʿtikāf should not visit the sick, nor attend a funeral, nor touch a woman or be intimate with her, and that he should not leave the mosque except for what he cannot dispense with; there is no iʿtikāf without fasting, and iʿtikāf is valid only in a congregational mosque.”

Abū ʿUmar Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said: “No one relating the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah has inserted the phrase ‘this is the Sunnah’ except ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Isḥāq, and in their estimation these words are sound only as the statement of al-Zuhrī himself. If that is so, the report cannot be treated as fully supported (musnad).”

As for the third condition, namely sexual contact (mubāsharah), they are unanimously agreed that should the devotee deliberately have intercourse, his iʿtikāf is rendered void—apart from what is reported from Ibn Lubābah concerning intercourse outside the mosque. They differed, however, about one who does so forgetfully.

They also disagreed over whether iʿtikāf is invalidated by acts short of intercourse, such as kissing or caressing. Mālik held that all such acts invalidate the retreat. Abū Ḥanīfah maintained that no invalidation occurs through mere physical contact unless ejaculation takes place. Al-Shāfiʿī has two opinions: one coincides with Mālik’s view, the other with that of Abū Ḥanīfah.

The root of their disagreement lies in a linguistic question: does a word that can be understood both literally and figuratively possess generality and specificity? This is one category of homonymous terms. Those who affirm such generality say that the word mubāsharah in the divine utterance, “And do not approach them while you are in retreat in the mosques” (al-Baqarah 2:187), encompasses both intercourse and anything short of intercourse. Those who deny that generality— and they are the majority—hold that the word refers either to intercourse or to what falls short of it, but not to both at once. If we say that by consensus it denotes intercourse, then it cannot at the same time denote anything else, for a single word cannot simultaneously convey its literal and its figurative sense. Those who treat ejaculation as tantamount to intercourse do so because it is essentially analogous to it; those who disagree argue that the term does not literally apply to it.

They also diverged concerning what, if anything, is required of the one who has intercourse. The majority said that nothing is due. Others imposed an expiation: some ruled that the expiation is the same as for intercourse in Ramadan—a view held by al-Ḥasan; others said he should give two dinars in charity—a view ascribed to Mujāhid; still others ruled that he must emancipate a slave, and if unable, offer a camel, and if unable, give twenty ṣāʿs of dates in charity. The basis of this disagreement is whether analogy (qiyās) is admissible in matters of expiation; the stronger opinion is that it is not.

They further disagreed about an unqualified vow to observe iʿtikāf: is uninterrupted continuity a condition? Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfah held that it is, whereas al-Shāfiʿī held that it is not. The reason for their difference is its analogy with an unrestricted vow to fast.

As for the impediments to iʿtikāf, they agree that anything other than the acts intrinsic to the devotee’s worship constitutes a hindrance, and that it is impermissible for him to leave the mosque except for a natural human necessity, or for what is analogous to it in cases of pressing need, on account of what is established in the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah, who said: