Nothing impelled him—may Allah have mercy on him—to adopt this position except his reliance on the two ḥadīths we have already cited.

Al-Suhaylī(1) and others report that some claimed mutʿah was made lawful three times and forbidden three times; others said four times. This is exceedingly far-fetched. Allah knows best.

They also differed over the first occasion on which it was prohibited. Some said at Khaybar; others during ʿUmrat al-Qaḍāʾ; others in the Year of the Conquest—and this seems the most probable; some said at Awtās, which is close to the previous view; others at Tabūk; and others during the Farewell Pilgrimage, as related by Abū Dāwūd(2).

Some scholars tried to reconcile the ḥadīth of ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—by saying that its wording has come down with inversion. What is actually preserved is the version recorded by Imām Aḥmad(3): Sufyān related to us, from al-Zuhrī, from al-Ḥasan and ʿAbd Allāh, the two sons of Muḥammad, from their father—al-Ḥasan being the better of the two in person—that ʿAlī said to Ibn ʿAbbās, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade temporary marriage and the meat of domesticated donkeys during the time of Khaybar.”

They explained that the narrator assumed the word “Khaybar” was the time-frame for both prohibitions, whereas it applies only to donkey meat. No specific time was mentioned for temporary marriage; ʿAlī merely paired it with the other ruling because he had heard that Ibn ʿAbbās permitted both mutʿah and the meat of domesticated donkeys. The Commander of the Believers ʿAlī therefore told him, “You are a confused man; the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade temporary marriage and the meat of domesticated donkeys on the day of Khaybar,” combining the two prohibitions so Ibn ʿAbbās would abandon the permissibility he held. This interpretation was the view preferred by our teacher, the ḥadīth scholar Abū Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī—may Allah envelope him in His mercy. Āmīn.

Even so, Ibn ʿAbbās did not withdraw from his opinion that donkey meat and mutʿah were permissible. He interpreted the ban on donkey meat on the grounds that those animals were their mounts, and he restricted the permissibility of mutʿah to cases of necessity during travel, applying the prohibition to times of ease and abundance. A number of his pupils and followers adopted this stance, and it remained well-known among the scholars of the Hijaz until the time of Ibn Jurayj and beyond.

A report attributing a similar view to Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal has been cited, but it is weak. Some authors on juristic disagreement tried to quote another report from Imām Aḥmad to the same effect, yet it too is unsound. Allah knows best. A fuller discussion of the issue appears in the book al-Aḥkām; and upon Allah we rely for assistance.

Ibn Isḥāq(4) said: The Messenger of Allah(2) then began to draw close to their forts and possessions. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Bakr told me that a man of Aslam related to him that the clan of Sahm from Aslam came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, “By Allah, O Messenger of Allah, hardship has overtaken us and we have nothing.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ had nothing to give them, so he supplicated, “O Allah, You already know their condition and that…"