just as a female captive ransoms herself from captivity. This ransom does not count towards the three divorces, whether expressed as release for compensation, annulment, ransom, release, separation, divorce, irrevocable separation, or any other formulation.

For this reason, the four imams and the majority of scholars permit a third party to provide it. A third party may secure her release for compensation, just as he may ransom a female captive or offer compensation to a slave’s master to emancipate him. This should therefore be conditional upon his intending to free her from her husband’s bondage for her benefit, just as he would ransom a captive.

There is a view within the schools of al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad that, if this release is considered an annulment, it cannot validly be arranged by a third party. They argue that it would then constitute rescission by mutual agreement, which cannot validly involve a third party. This is the view mentioned by Abū al-Maʿālī and others belonging to the Khurāsānī tradition. The correct position in both schools, however, is that, according to the view that it constitutes annulment, it remains an annulment even when arranged by a third party, as jurists from both schools have expressly stated. Although the author of Sharh al-Wajīz did not mention this, leading scholars of the Iraqi tradition did, including Abū Ishāq al-Shīrāzī in his Khilāf, among others.

This is because they treated it as analogous to ransoming a captive or paying to emancipate a slave, rather than to rescission by mutual agreement. Its purpose is to end the husband’s dominion over the woman so that she becomes free of his bondage once more; its purpose is not to transfer ownership to her. It therefore resembles emancipating a slave or freeing a captive, not mutually rescinding a sale. Accordingly, the imams agree that it is permissible for less than the stipulated dowry, while most scholars permit amounts exceeding the dowries. It is also permissible for compensation of a different kind from the dowry. Rescission by mutual agreement is not like this; rather,