were superior to those to whom the texts were unknown. The former receive two rewards, and the latter one, as Allah Most High says:

“And remember David and Solomon, when they judged concerning the field into which some people’s sheep had strayed by night. We were witness to their judgment.”

“We gave Solomon understanding of the case, and to each We gave judgment and knowledge.”

Whoever reflects upon the texts of the Quran and Sunnah will find that they explain marriage without imposing the conditions required by certain jurists. Some, for example, stipulate that marriage must be contracted using the words inkāh or tazwīj (giving in marriage). Some require it to be in Arabic. These jurists, together with others, require the presence of two witnesses. Yet despite this, they deem a marriage valid even when a dower is expressly excluded.

They then divide into two groups. One considers “shighār marriage” valid, since its only potentially invalidating feature is the exclusion of a dower, which they do not regard as invalidating. The other considers it invalid, but offers unsound reasons for doing so, as we have explained at length elsewhere. They also deem valid a “muhallil marriage,” in which the husband intends to make the woman lawful for her former husband.

Thus, the position of the scholars of hadith and the scholars of Medina—who did not require a particular marriage formula or the presence of two witnesses when the marriage was publicly announced and made known, and who invalidated shighār marriage, every marriage in which a dower was expressly excluded, and muhallil marriage … (1)—was more consistent with the Quran, the Sunnah, and the reports from the Companions.

Furthermore, many jurists of the Hijaz and Iraq who relied on legal opinion broadened the “scope of divorce.” They gave effect to divorce pronounced by an intoxicated person and to divorce invoked in an oath, and these jurists also gave effect to the divorce pronounced by