some scholars allow a man to withhold his surplus water. Yet this difference of opinion does not stop us from holding the act to be forbidden, adducing the hadith as proof; nor does the very existence of the hadith prevent us from believing that anyone who withholds it on the basis of a sincere interpretation is excused and that the threat does not apply to him.

The Prophet ﷺ also said, “May Allah curse the muḥallil (the man who contracts the intervening taḥlīl marriage) and the one for whom it is contracted.” (1) This narration is authentic, reported through several chains from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and from his Companions, even though a group of scholars still deemed the muḥallil marriage valid without qualification. Others judged it valid so long as the condition was not expressly stipulated in the contract, and they have well-known arguments for that view.

For the first group, the governing legal analogy is that a marriage contract is not invalidated by attached conditions, just as it is not invalidated by ignorance of one of the two counter-values. For the second group, the operative analogy is that contracts unaccompanied by an explicit condition are not altered in their rulings by a merely internal intention.

It seems that this hadith never reached those who held that position, for their early writings contain no mention of it. Had it reached them, they would have cited it, either adopting it or presenting a rejoinder; or it did reach them and they interpreted it, thought it abrogated, or believed they possessed other evidence that outweighed it.