based on the view that marriage is restricted to these two expressions and has an element of prescribed ritual observance. Yet this position, besides not being expressly stated by Ahmad, conflicts with his principles. Ahmad did not expressly state this, nor did they transmit any explicit statement from him to that effect. They merely transmitted his statement, as reported by Abū al-Hārith:

“If a woman gives herself to a man, that does not constitute marriage, for Allah Most High says: ‘Exclusively for you, and not for the other believers.’”

This is only an explicit prohibition of what was exclusive to the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), namely marriage without a dower. Indeed, according to the well-known position reported from Ahmad, he expressly stated that marriage is contracted when a man says to his female slave, “I have freed you and made your freedom your dower,” or says, “I have made your freedom your dower,” or, “I have made your dower your freedom.” He stated this in several of his responses.

His followers differed over this. Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hāmid applied his analogy consistently and said: “In addition to that, he must say, ‘I have married her’—tazawwajtuhā or nakahtuhā—because marriage can never be contracted in Arabic except through these two formulas.”

Judge Abū Yaʿlā and others, however, treated this case as an exception to the analogy on which they agreed with Ibn Hāmid, regarding it as a case of juristic preference.

Ibn ʿAqīl mentioned a view within the school that marriage can be contracted using words other than inkāh or tazwīj, on the strength of Ahmad’s explicit statement to this effect. This accords more closely with Ahmad’s explicit statements and principles. Mālik’s position on this resembles his, for Mālik’s followers differed over whether marriage can be contracted using words other than inkāh or tazwīj, with