and it is established that his Companions—including ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿUmar and Ibn ʿAbbās—prohibited such marriages. None of them is known to have permitted them. This accords with the principles of the scholars of Medina. Among their principles is that intentions count in contracts: they treat a prior stipulation like one made when the contract is concluded, and a customary stipulation like an expressly stated one.

On these principles, they invalidated marriages intended to make a woman lawful again for her former husband, as well as khulʿ (marital dissolution for compensation) employed as a device to perform the act covered by an oath. They also invalidated legal devices used to render usury permissible, and similar practices. Their opponents among the Kūfan scholars, and those who agreed with them, disregarded intentions in these acts, treated good intentions and bad intentions alike, and permitted the outward performance of acts that had neither substance nor genuine intent behind them. Rather, these are a form of hypocrisy and deceit. As Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī said: “They try to deceive Allah as they deceive children. Had they done it outright, it would have been less grave for them.”

Al-Bukhārī included in his Sahīh a book refuting those who resort to legal devices. The early generations of this community and its leading scholars have consistently denounced those who do so, as we have explained at length in a separate work.

As for reciprocal exchange marriages, it is established from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, through more than one