the Successors and those who came after them then discussed these oaths, addressing some of them along these lines. Some said that whoever broke such an oath was bound by whatever he had undertaken. Others said that only divorce and the freeing of slaves became binding. Others said, rather, that these were oaths of the kind sworn by polytheists, and that nothing became binding through them. Still others said that these were Muslim oaths, subject to the same obligations as all other Muslim oaths. This last group followed what had been transmitted from the Companions concerning this kind of oath and what the Quran and Sunnah indicated, as explained at length elsewhere.

The point here is that, during the time of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Rightly Guided Caliphs, no woman was returned to her former husband through a marriage arranged to make her lawful for him again. Such arrangements were made only in secret. Hence the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Allah has cursed the recipient of usury, its payer, its two witnesses and its scribe; and He has cursed the man who marries a woman to make her lawful again for her former husband, and the former husband for whom this is done.”

Al-Tirmidhī said: “An authentic hadith.”

In the case of usury, he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, cursed the recipient, the payer, the two witnesses and the scribe, because it involves a debt that is recorded and witnessed. In the case of a marriage arranged to make a woman lawful again for her former husband, he cursed the man who married her for this purpose and the former husband for whom it was done. He did not curse the two witnesses or the scribe, because in his time dowers were not recorded in writing. The general practice was to provide the dower before consummation, leaving not a single dinar outstanding as a debt owed by the husband, so there was no need for a written document and witnesses. The man who married her for this purpose and the former husband for whom it was done kept their arrangement secret. The woman, her guardians and the witnesses knew nothing of it.

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, cursed the man who marries a woman to make her lawful again for her former husband, and the former husband for whom this is done,”

because they—not the others—were the ones who committed the forbidden act. Generally, people had no need for such arrangements, since a man would reach three divorces only by divorcing again after taking his wife back or entering into a new marriage contract. Thus, only rarely would anyone regret it after three divorces; and this would