and his daughters.

The second point is the woman’s protest against ʿUmar, her refutation of him, and her citing Allah’s words, “And you have given one of them a qintar…” (4:20).

As for his – may Allah be pleased with him – prohibition against inflating the bridal gift, it was recorded by Aḥmad in the Musnad and by the authors of the Sunan through several chains from Muḥammad b. Sīrīn, from Abū al-ʿAjfāʾ al-Sulamī, who said: “I heard ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) say, ‘Beware of exaggerating in the dowries of women. Had that been an honor in this world or a token of piety before Allah, the Prophet ﷺ would have been the first to do it. Yet the Messenger of Allah ﷺ never gave any of his wives, nor was any of his daughters given, more than twelve uqiyas.’” Al-Tirmidhī ruled: “This ḥadīth is ṣaḥīḥ (sound).”

The amount of the mahr, whether large or small, is tied to the groom’s financial ease or hardship. Muslim reports in his Ṣaḥīḥ from Abū Salama b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān: “I asked ʿĀʾisha, the Prophet’s wife, ‘How much was the dowry of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?’ She replied, ‘The dowry he gave his wives was twelve uqiyas and a nash.’ She then asked, ‘Do you know what a nash is?’ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Half an uqiya.’ That makes five hundred dirhams. Such was the dowry the Messenger of Allah ﷺ gave his wives.”

Muslim also relates in his Ṣaḥīḥ that Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, ‘I have married a woman of the Anṣār.’ The Prophet ﷺ asked, ‘For how much did you marry her?’ He answered, ‘For four awāq’—meaning ounces of silver. The Prophet ﷺ exclaimed, ‘Four awāq! It is as though you are chiseling silver out of the side of this mountain!’—because the man was of modest means and unable to afford it. From this it is clear that ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) disliked excessive dowries in general, and on that there is no dissent.

As for the story of the woman who answered ʿUmar and supported herself with the verse, it is narrated by Abū Yaʿlā, but its chain contains Mujālid b. Saʿīd, who is weak. Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar says of him in al-Taqrīb, “He is not strong, and his memory deteriorated at the end of his life.” The report also comes through other broken chains. Moreover, the woman’s use of the verse is misplaced, for the verse concerns a woman seeking khulʿ (a release-divorce).

The meaning of the verse is this: if you wish to replace one wife with another—because you have come to dislike her and can no longer bear to live with her honorably—while she has committed no flagrant indecency, and you have already given one of them a qintar of wealth, meaning a great sum, whether she has actually received it and it is in her possession or you merely pledged it so that it became a debt you owe, then do not take any of it back. It must remain entirely hers, for you are exchanging her for another only out of personal desire and enjoyment, without any legitimate fault on her part that would entitle you to reclaim anything—unlike the case when she herself seeks separation through khulʿ because of wrongdoing on her side.