are some uglier than urinating in a mosque.”

Zufar was known for rigorously extending his analogies—to the established basis of the case he used as a precedent, and from the effective cause of the ruling in that original case—“which answers the demand for proof of the effective cause.” Whoever firmly establishes this foundation will have sound analogical reasoning.

For example, Zufar held that when a marriage is contracted for a specified term, the time limit is void but the marriage remains valid and binding. Some scholars derived this as a position within Ahmad’s school. This position effectively means that a temporary marriage becomes valid and binding without a time limit, contrary to Ahmad’s explicit ruling and the consensus of the early generations. When the Muslim community has differed over an issue, holding two positions, later scholars may not introduce a position that contradicts both and implies that the early generations unanimously erred and departed from what was correct. The early generations held only that temporary marriage was invalid or that it was valid for the specified term. To hold that it becomes binding indefinitely therefore contradicts their consensus.

This position arose from their belief that every invalid condition in a marriage contract is void while the marriage itself remains binding. This includes annulling the stipulation that the marriage is intended to make the woman lawful again for her former husband, and similar conditions.

It is established in the two Sahīh collections, on the authority of ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir, that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“The conditions most deserving of fulfilment are those by which you have made marital intimacy lawful.”

This text indicates that fulfilling conditions in marriage is more deserving of observance than fulfilling conditions in a sale. If, when invalid conditions are stipulated in a sale, the contract does not remain binding without them—rather, either the contract is invalid or the party whose stipulated purpose has been frustrated gains the option to rescind when the condition is annulled—then what of conditions stipulated in marriage?

Their principal argument rests on the fact that marriage is valid without specifying the bridal gift, as established by the Quran, the Sunnah, and consensus. They therefore drew an analogy between a marriage in which the absence of a bridal gift is stipulated