Islamic law as they actually occur. Rather, they posited things that might never occur, and others they imagined to be expressions used by the Lawgiver. But this is not how the matter works.

The Lawgiver never guided people through the expressions they mentioned. Nowhere in his words do we find: “The conditions of sale and marriage are such-and-such,” or “This act of worship or contract is valid,” or “It is invalid,” or similar expressions which they made the basis for determining validity and invalidity. Rather, all these expressions were introduced by those who introduced them among the proponents of juristic opinion and speculative theology.

Instead, the Lawgiver guided people through commands and prohibitions, through declaring things lawful and unlawful. From his statement concerning certain contracts, “This is not proper,” it was understood that they were invalid—as when he said of exchanging two mudds of dates for one mudd: “It is not proper.”

The Companions, the Successors, and the other leading scholars of the Muslims used prohibition alone as evidence that contracts were invalid. Thus, they cited the prohibition mentioned in the Quran as evidence that marriage to women within the prohibited degrees of kinship was invalid. The same applied to the invalidity of a contract uniting two sisters in marriage. Some of them imagined that two scriptural texts conflicted over the prohibition in this case and therefore withheld judgment. It has also been said that some of them permitted such a union.

Likewise, they cited the words of the Most High as evidence that remarrying a woman after divorcing her three times was invalid:

“If he divorces her, she is not lawful to him thereafter until she marries another husband.”

Similarly, the Companions cited the prohibition of shighār marriage as evidence of its invalidity. It is therefore a form of corruption, not soundness, for Allah does not love corruption, but loves soundness.