and its being obligatory and performing the act, or declaring something forbidden, or its being forbidden, or bringing a legal consequence into effect, or its taking effect, or the prohibition resulting from it.

These scholars said:

As for the argument based on divorce for compensation and contractual manumission, and making these conditional upon compensation, the response of the Zāhirī scholars—Ibn Hazm and others like him—is that no conditional emancipation or divorce takes effect. They base this on the absence of a revealed text authorizing it: in their view, any contract or condition whose permissibility is not established by a revealed text is invalid. They do not consider the general evidence requiring the fulfilment of conditions and covenants, prohibiting treachery, and so forth sufficient in this regard, because they believe these texts have been abrogated. This position is weak, as explained at length elsewhere.

The terms divorce and emancipation in the Quran encompass both immediate pronouncements and those made conditional, provided that the intention is for them to take effect upon fulfilment of the condition. Both fall within the meaning of pronouncing divorce. This differs from cases in which its taking effect upon fulfilment of the condition is undesired, for this is an oath included within the meaning of pronouncing divorce.

Accordingly, the response based on the position of the leading scholars and the majority rests on distinguishing between a condition whose fulfilment is intended and one whose nonfulfilment is intended, together with the nonoccurrence of the consequence made dependent upon it. The latter is intended as an oath, not to bring about the stipulated consequence upon fulfilment of the condition. Distinguishing between these two cases is the position of the Companions, among whom no disagreement on this matter is known. It is also the position of the great majority of the early generations