Accordingly, the purport of the ḥadith reverts to cursing unbelievers, and disbelief is not restricted to rejecting this single ruling while accepting others; it is no different from saying, “May Allah curse whoever belies the Messenger in his judgement that a divorce clause inserted into the marriage contract is void.”

Moreover, the statement is general—both in wording and in meaning—and its generality is original. Hence it is impermissible to confine such a comprehensive text to a few rare cases, for that would render the discourse clumsy and incoherent, just as when some people interpret his—peace and blessings be upon him—words, “Any woman who marries without the permission of her guardian, her marriage is invalid” (1) as referring solely to a slave woman under a contract of manumission (mukataba).

The scarcity of such a scenario is evident: an uninformed Muslim does not fall under the ḥadith; a knowledgeable Muslim, who knows that the condition is not binding, would never insert it while believing it obligatory—unless he had drifted into unbelief. Yet an outright unbeliever does not contract marriage according to Muslim procedure unless he is a hypocrite, and for a marriage to take place in that fashion is exceedingly rare. Indeed, were someone to say that the speaker could scarcely have contemplated such a case at all, he would be telling the truth.

We have presented numerous proofs elsewhere concerning