obligatory. He may also impose it on both grounds, as with pledging allegiance to the Messenger to hear and obey him, pledging allegiance to the leaders of the Muslims, and people entering into agreements to act upon what Allah and His Messenger have commanded. The very commitment to observe the ordinances of Islam belongs to this category. The believer has undertaken to observe them through faith and the testimony that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. This testimony obliges him to fulfil its requirements: affirming the truth of what the Messenger brought from Allah and obeying him in what he made obligatory and commanded. For the Messenger conveyed from Allah that obedience to him is obedience to Allah, and disobedience to him is disobedience to Allah. These principles are discussed at length elsewhere.

The point here is this: if the fundamental principle of the revealed law is that nothing binds a person unless the Lawgiver makes it binding upon him or he undertakes it himself, then whenever jurists disagree over a subsidiary question arising from this principle, it must be referred back to it. Some jurists apply this principle consistently, while others do not; rather, they depart from it in many questions, even though they generally adhere to it in most. Among these are “questions of marriage and its stipulations.”

Here too, the governing principle is that stipulations are presumed valid and binding unless evidence establishes otherwise.

It has also been said that, on the contrary, stipulations are presumed invalid unless evidence establishes their validity, on the basis of the hadith of ʿĀ’ishah. The first view, however, is correct, for the Book and the Sunnah both establish the duty to fulfil contracts and covenants and condemn treachery