As for his statement, “We do not concede that it entails any prohibition,” this is false. There is no disagreement among the jurists that zihār entails a prohibition removed by expiation. If he has intercourse with her before offering expiation, he sins according to the established consensus known in the religion. This temporary prohibition resembles the prohibitions arising from entering ihrām, fasting, and menstruation.

As for his analogy with prayer and ritual purity, it is unsound. Allah has required the worshipper to pray in a state of ritual purity. If he fails to attain that purity, he has neglected what Allah has required of him and thus incurs sin. The man who pronounces zihār, however, has forbidden his wife to himself and likened her to a woman forbidden to him. Allah therefore prevents him from approaching her sexually until he offers expiation. Here, then, the prohibition is tied to expiation. Prayer, by contrast, does not discharge his obligation without ritual purity, because such a prayer is not prescribed at all.

His statement, “A prohibition following something may arise because the wording entails it, or it may be a punishment,” and so forth, is answered as follows:

These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive in zihār. Pronouncing it is forbidden, and it renders the woman temporarily forbidden until the husband offers expiation. This does not prevent the utterance from being performative. The same applies to pronouncing three divorces together, according to those who hold them effective, and to divorce during menstruation: the act is forbidden, yet prohibition follows from it. You yourselves have said that a drunken man’s divorce takes effect as a punishment for him, even though, by common agreement, he did not intend to bring about a cause through which his wife would be divorced. Thus, the fact that a prohibition is punitive does not prevent it from resting on causes consisting of performative declarations that establish it.

His statement, “Causality is broader than performative declaration,” is answered as follows:

A cause is of two kinds: an act or an utterance. Whenever it is an utterance, it can only be performative. If by this broader scope you mean that an utterance’s causal efficacy extends beyond performative declarations to statements of fact, this is denied. If you mean that causality in general encompasses causation through both acts and utterances, this is conceded, but it does not help your argument in any way.

The decisive point is that his statement, “You are to me like my mother’s back,” comprises a performative declaration