Nor is the condition of the child being “in one’s care” applicable to step-daughters, for there is no difference between the girl who lives under his roof and the one who does not. Accordingly he said: “The step-daughter is forbidden without exception.” By contrast, those who regarded that clause as an unintelligible stipulation ruled: “She is not forbidden unless she is in his care.”

Issue Two
Does the daughter become forbidden to the husband merely by his physical contact with her mother, or only by intercourse? The jurists agree that intercourse certainly establishes the prohibition. They disagreed, however, about lesser acts—touching, or looking at the private parts, whether with desire or without—does that suffice or not?

Mālik, al-Thawrī, Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Awzāʿī, and al-Layth ibn Saʿd maintained that lustful touching of the mother renders her daughter forbidden; this is also one of the two opinions transmitted from al-Shāfiʿī. Dawūd and al-Muzanī held that nothing less than intercourse has this effect, and this is the preferred of al-Shāfiʿī’s two positions.

With Mālik, looking is treated like touching when the gaze is one of sexual gratification at any part of the body, though another report from him differs. Abū Ḥanīfah agreed only with respect to looking at the private parts. Al-Thawrī assimilated looking to touching and did not require desire. Ibn Abī Laylā, and al-Shāfiʿī in one of his two views, dissented: they ruled that looking alone entails no prohibition, whereas touching does.

The root of the disagreement is whether the consummation (dukhūl) required by the Almighty’s words, “born of the wives with whom you have consummated marriage” (al-Nisāʾ 4:23), is limited to actual intercourse, or whether it extends to pleasurable contact short of intercourse; and, if it does, whether looking falls under it or not.

Issue Three
Concerning the mother-in-law, the vast majority of jurists in all regions hold that she becomes forbidden by the very contract with the daughter, whether or not intercourse occurs. Others argued that she is not forbidden unless intercourse with the daughter takes place—just as the daughter is not forbidden unless intercourse with the mother occurs. This view is weakly reported from ʿAlī and Ibn ʿAbbās—may Allah be pleased with them both.

The dispute turns on whether the clause “with whom you have consummated marriage” (al-Nisāʾ 4:23) refers back only to the nearest antecedent—namely, the step-daughters—or to both the step-daughters and the mothers-in-law mentioned just before them in the verse: “your wives’ mothers, and your step-daughters who are in your care, born of the wives with whom you have consummated marriage” (al-Nisāʾ 4:23). The phrase could be taken to refer to both mothers-in-law and daughters, or solely to the daughters.

Among the evidence cited by the majority is the ḥadīth narrated by al-Muthannā ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather, that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said:

“Any man who marries a woman—whether or not he consummates the marriage—her mother is unlawful for him.”

Issue Four
The jurists also differed over whether fornication entails, in these relationships, the same prohibitions produced by intercourse within a valid marriage or a marriage contracted in error—i.e., one for which the ḥadd would be waived. Al-Shāfiʿī held that fornication with a woman does not prohibit marrying her mother or her daughter, nor does it prevent the fornicator’s father or son from marrying her. Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Thawrī, and al-Awzāʿī