And a group of his companions, including Ibn Battah, al-ʿUkbarī, and Ibn ʿAqīl, said:

“Such a qualification is not valid here, because this is a performative declaration, like pronouncing divorce or emancipation. It does not consist of two clauses, as an oath does; rather, it is a single clause, like other performative declarations. Thus, saying, ‘You are forbidden to me,’ is like saying, ‘You are divorced.’ There is no future action here to be made conditional upon Allah’s will, as there is in saying, ‘I shall certainly go out.’”

At first glance, this view appears stronger because of the similarity in form. Ahmad’s view, however, displays greater juristic understanding and penetrates more deeply into the meaning. The issue here—and Allah knows best—is comparable to the differing approaches to a vow made in contention or anger: some classify it with a vow of devotion because their verbal forms are identical; others classify it as an oath because it resembles an oath in its substantive feature—the matter sworn to; and others apply the rulings of both to it because it combines both meanings. For one half of it resembles an oath in meaning, while the other half resembles a vow.

Likewise, with all other expressions to which legal rulings are attached, one person may consider their form, another their meaning, and another both together. For example, in saying, “I shall certainly do it,” the form is that of an assertion, whereas the meaning may be an assertion, a demand, or a combination of the two.

Thus, saying, “You are to me like my mother’s back,” was, in the pre-Islamic period of ignorance, purely a performative declaration establishing prohibition. Since prohibition could not take effect without divorce, they regarded it as divorce in accordance with the apparent import of its wording, because divorce entails prohibition. They thus took the consequence as evidence of that which entails it. Allah invalidated this, because it is a reprehensible statement and a falsehood: what is lawful cannot be like what is permanently forbidden. Nor did He make it a divorce, even if divorce was intended by it, because divorce cannot take effect unless the invalid meaning is first established, namely, the resemblance