affection and mercy.” By contrast, marriage contracted to make a woman lawful again for her former husband involves hatred and aversion. This is why those involved do not publicize it, but conceal it as illicit intercourse is concealed. Among the outward signs of marriage is its public announcement, as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Announce marriages and beat the frame drum for them.”

According to one group of scholars, having a marriage witnessed suffices to make it public. Another group requires both witnesses and public announcement; if the parties agree to conceal it, it is invalid. Other signs include the wedding feast, scattering treats, perfume, drinks, and similar customary wedding practices.

As for a “marriage to make her lawful again for her former husband,” none of these things takes place, because those involved do not intend the man to become the woman’s husband or the woman to become his wife. Their sole purpose is to borrow him to mount her, as reflected in his being called “the borrowed billy goat” in a hadith traced back to the Prophet. He has likewise been compared to the donkey of al-‘Ashriyyayn, hired to mount females. Consequently, after this arrangement, the woman’s relationship with her husband does not remain as it was before; rather, a degree of aversion develops between them.

Since such an arrangement serves no sound purpose commanded by the Lawgiver, Satan has made other practices contrary to scholarly consensus seem analogous to it. Some ordinary people have thus come to think that a woman’s giving birth to a boy makes her lawful again for her former husband, or that his stepping with his foot on her foot or head, or on a roof or ladder beneath which she is, makes her lawful again for him. Some think that if the two meet at ‘Arafāt, as Adam and his wife met, this makes her lawful again for him.

Some women, upon marrying a man for this purpose, do not allow him intercourse with them, but instead give him access to a slave woman they own. Others give him something and instruct him to acknowledge having had intercourse with them. Some men perform this role for both a mother and her daughter. There are other such practices, discussed at length elsewhere, which we have explained