Ahmad also permits, in marriage, conditions generally in which the stipulating party has a legitimate interest, because the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, as reported in the two Sahīh collections:

“The conditions most deserving of fulfillment are those by which you have made marital intimacy lawful.”

Those who uphold this hadith maintain that it makes conditions in marriage more binding than those in sales and leases. This contradicts the position of those who recognize conditions as valid in sales but not in marriage. Thus, Ahmad permits a woman to restrict rights that her husband would otherwise have, stipulating that she will not travel with him or move from her home. She may go further by stipulating that she have him exclusively, so that he neither marries another woman nor takes a concubine.

According to an explicitly transmitted position from Ahmad, deemed correct by a group of his followers, either spouse may stipulate that the other possess a desired quality, such as wealth, beauty, or the like, and has the right to annul the marriage if that quality is absent.

He takes one of the broadest positions on the annulment of marriage and its automatic dissolution. He permits its annulment on account of a defect—as when a husband takes another wife despite her having stipulated that he would not—or deception, as when he believed her to be a free woman but she proved to be a slave. According to the correct position, annulment is also permitted when a stipulated quality is absent, as when the husband stipulates that he possesses wealth but the facts prove otherwise.

In his view, marriage is automatically dissolved by invalid conditions incompatible with its purpose, such as setting a time limit or stipulating divorce. Does it also become void because the dowry is invalid, as when it consists of wine, carrion, or the like? Two positions are transmitted from him. One is that it does, as in shighār marriage.