Indeed, “the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited marriages by exchange without dowries,” and the Companions declared them invalid, because those involved had left the marriages devoid of dowries. This is the rationale stated in Ahmad’s well-known pronouncements, and it is also the position of Mālik and others.

Some of Ahmad’s followers, however, hold that the rationale is what al-Shāfiʿī stated: shared conjugal rights. The first explanation is more correct. The latter makes no sense, for no sharing of conjugal rights has occurred. Rather, each husband has acquired exclusive conjugal rights over one woman, even though he has made conjugal rights over the other woman her dowry. The free woman has not acquired conjugal rights over another woman, nor could she do so, since a woman cannot marry another woman. Instead, she has assigned to her guardian the dowry to which she is entitled. Thus, it is her guardian who has acquired the conjugal rights: her dowry has been made to consist in her guardian’s acquiring those rights, while she herself has acquired nothing. This is why it is called shighār. A shāghir place is a vacant one, and shagharat hādhihi al-jiha means “this area has become vacant.”

If a woman is promised something as her dowry but does not receive what she was promised, the marriage is not binding upon her, and she is given a substitute, as in a sale—and with even greater reason. For:

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

If a woman is held bound by a marriage without receiving what she agreed to, she is being held bound by a marriage to which she did not consent. This contradicts the Book and the Sunnah. If such a thing is impermissible in a sale, it is even more clearly impermissible in marriage. The Lawgiver has not bound her to marriage on these terms, nor has she undertaken it herself. A person is bound only by what the Lawgiver has imposed or what he has undertaken himself. Neither applies here, so there is no basis