for a relative becomes an accrued debt for past periods, unless someone has borrowed to provide that maintenance, on the liable person’s account, with a judge’s permission; or has provided it without a judge’s permission, without intending it as a gift, and seeks reimbursement. In the latter case, the right to reimbursement is disputed.

As for maintenance becoming an established debt merely because it has been assessed—even when the recipient’s needs have been met by a voluntary benefactor or through their own earnings, as is said concerning a wife’s maintenance—I know of no one who holds this view. If a ruling contradicts scholarly consensus, a judge’s judgment does not make it binding. Whoever has had money taken from him without right is entitled to recover what was taken.

According to Abū Hanīfa’s school, maintenance lapses with the passage of time, even if a judge has awarded it, unless the judge authorizes borrowing. This is because the judge has general authority, so his permission takes the place of permission from the absent person. Some scholars of that school mention two reported positions on whether a judge’s award makes maintenance a debt. However, they interpret the position affirming that it becomes due as applying when the judge directs someone to borrow and spend on those entitled to maintenance, with a right to reimbursement.

The same applies when a husband is well-to-do but defiantly refuses to provide maintenance, and the wife asks the judge to authorize her to borrow. If the judge directs her to do so, she may seek reimbursement from her husband, because the judge’s instruction has the same effect as his own. Even if the judge has awarded her maintenance, he may direct her to borrow on her husband’s account so that her entitlement to maintenance is not extinguished by the death of either spouse. Since maintenance lapses upon the death of either of them, the purpose of directing her to borrow is to secure her entitlement to maintenance. The judge is charged with ensuring that rights reach those entitled to them, and this is one means of doing so.

However, suppose the judge directs a relative to borrow, but the relative does not do so, having no need because a voluntary benefactor provides maintenance or because the relative has earnings of their own. Judge Shams al-Dīn understood that maintenance becomes an established debt in this situation, because those scholars spoke without qualification of an instruction to borrow, without stipulating that borrowing must actually take place. Others, however, understood that the purpose of the instruction to borrow was for borrowing actually to take place. Permission to borrow, without any actual borrowing, does not make the authorized amount a debt until it is borrowed.