have married her to you for what you have memorised of the Qur’an.’

They contend that the Prophet’s statement—peace and blessings be upon him—‘Seek, even if only an iron ring,’ is proof that no minimum exists; for had a minimum been required he would have stated it, since it is impermissible to delay clarification when the need arises. This line of reasoning is self-evident, as you can see, whereas the analogy on which those who fix a minimum rely is unsound in its very premises.

That analogy rests on two suppositions: first, that the dowry is an act of worship; second, that every act of worship is delimited. Both suppositions are open to dispute, for the Sacred Law contains acts of worship that are not specified, in which only the least that fulfils the name is obligatory. Moreover, the dowry does not purely resemble acts of worship. Those who preferred that analogy to the purport of the report did so on the assumption that the report might pertain solely to that particular man, because it says: ‘I have married her to you for what you have of the Qur’an’—but this runs counter to legal principles.

Some versions of the ḥadīth indeed add that he said, ‘Go and teach her,’ after the man mentioned what he knew of the Qur’an; the man then rose and taught her, so the marriage took place by way of a wage. Yet when they looked for a precedent by which to measure the amount of the dowry, they found nothing they deemed closer—despite the great disparity—than the minimum sum that incurs amputation in cases of theft.

Their analogy proceeds thus: a limb becomes lawfully subject to amputation upon payment, so the payment must be fixed; the precedent is the hadd of amputation. The weakness of this reasoning lies in the fact that the notion of ‘being made lawful’ in the two cases is merely a shared term: amputation is not intercourse. Amputation is authorised as punishment, harm, and removal of a limb, whereas the dowry makes intimacy lawful for pleasure and affection.

For an analogy by resemblance—even in its weaker form—to be valid, the likeness between the branch case and the root must be a single, meaningful element, not a mere verbal concord, and the ruling must exist in the root because of that resemblance. None of this is present here. Furthermore, it is a resemblance not indicated by the wording itself, and such analogies are rejected by the exacting scholars. Still, they did not use this analogy to prove the existence of a minimum in the face of the ḥadīth’s implication, for it is extremely weak; they used it only to specify the amount they had already assumed.

The analogy they advanced to oppose the purport of the ḥadīth is stronger than the foregoing, yet the absence of a fixed minimum is also supported by what al-Tirmidhī narrated: ‘A woman contracted marriage for two sandals. The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said to her, “Have you accepted, concerning yourself and your property, two sandals?” She replied, “Yes,” and he approved the marriage.’ Al-Tirmidhī declared the report ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.

Once those who insist on a minimum agreed to model it on the threshold of theft, they differed over the amount in line with their divergence concerning that threshold