al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad, according to the more explicit of the two reports from him. Compensation is assessed at the stipulated dowry, as Mālik and Ahmad maintain—the latter according to one of the two reports from him. Al-Shāfiʿī holds that compensation is assessed at the customary dowry for a woman of her standing.
Their disagreement concerns a case in which witnesses testify that a man divorced his wife and subsequently retract their testimony. One view holds that they owe nothing, on the grounds that the loss of a husband’s conjugal rights is not compensable. This is the position of Abū Hanīfa and, according to one of the two reports from him, Ahmad. Later scholars of Ahmad’s school, such as Judge Abū Yaʿlā and his followers, adopted this report. Another view holds that the witnesses owe the customary dowry for a woman of her standing. This is al-Shāfiʿī’s position and one juristic opinion within Ahmad’s school. A third view holds that they owe the stipulated dowry. This is Mālik’s position and is more widely attested in Ahmad’s explicit statements. He expressly ruled that, where a man’s marriage to his wife is invalidated through breastfeeding, he may recover the stipulated dowry.
The Quran and Sunnah support this view. In Sūrat al-Mumtahana, Allah Most High says:
“Ask for what you have spent, and let them ask for what they have spent.”
He also says:
“Give those whose wives have gone away the equivalent of what they spent.”
This refers to the stipulated dowry, not the customary dowry for a woman of her standing. Likewise:
“The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, instructed the husband of a woman seeking divorce in return for compensation to take back what he had given her.”
He did not instruct him to take the customary dowry for a woman of her standing. In unrestricted transactions of exchange, he commands only what is just. This is discussed at length elsewhere, and ʿUmar’s case rests on this principle.
The Companions agreed that contracts may be held in suspense when necessary. It is established