in her account an indication that she had neither accepted nor rejected.
544 – When a woman is in this situation, it is permissible for someone to propose to her. But once she has approved a particular man, shown her inclination, and instructed that he be married to her, it is no longer permissible for anyone else to propose at a point when, were her guardian to contract the marriage at that very moment, the marriage would be valid.
545 – Someone might object: “Her state after she says an explicit ‘Yes’ differs from her state after the proposal but before she assents; in the same way, her state when she is first proposed to before showing any inclination differs from her state before any proposal at all. Likewise, if the proposal is repeated after she had earlier refused but then kept silent—silence is not necessarily consent, is it?”
546 – In my view, no position is sound here except what I have established by evidence. Had it not been for the proof provided by the Sunnah, then once a woman had been proposed to, it would have been forbidden for anyone other than the first suitor to approach her until that first suitor withdrew.
547 – The Prophet’s, peace and blessings be upon him, prohibitions fall into two categories:
548 – Everything he forbade that is, by default, prohibited until a new, lawful factor occurs: if a man introduces into it a factor that is itself forbidden, that does not make it lawful. It remains upon its original prohibition, since he did not approach it through the avenue that renders it lawful.
549 – For example, other people’s property is off-limits, and women are off-limits to men, unless a man acquires another person’s property through a lawful sale, gift, or the like, and women become lawful only through a valid marriage contract or a valid bond of ownership.
550 – Thus, if a man purchases something by means of a sale that has been forbidden, the prohibition continues to attach to the very item he bought, because he did not obtain it through the lawful avenue, and what is unlawful does not become lawful. In the same way, if he contracts a marriage that has been prohibited, the woman does not become lawful to him.
551 – And whatever I have been forbidden to do with something already in my possession, or with something otherwise permitted to me, is not