from al-Hasan. Yet this must also include weakness in exercising patience, to accord with what is mentioned in the verse, for He says:

“Allah wishes to lighten your burden.”

This means easing religious obligations by permitting you what you need and cannot patiently forgo, as He permitted marriage to slave women. Before this, He said:

“This is for those among you who fear hardship. But to be patient is better for you. And Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

Thus, although He, glorified be He, permitted marriage to slave women when one lacks the means and fears hardship, He said:

“But to be patient is better for you.”

This indicates that patience is possible even when one fears hardship, and that permitting such marriage is not like permitting carrion in cases of severe hunger, when abstaining from it is not possible. Likewise, according to those who permit masturbation in cases of necessity, abstaining from it is better.

It has been reported from Ibn ‘Abbās that marrying slave women is better than masturbation, and masturbation is better than fornication. If refraining from marriage to slave women is better, then refraining from masturbation is all the more preferable. This is especially so since many scholars—or most of them—firmly maintain that it is prohibited in all circumstances. This is one of the positions within Ahmad’s school, adopted by Ibn ‘Aqīl in al-Mufradāt. The well-known position reported from him—meaning Ahmad—is that it is prohibited unless one fears hardship. The third position is that it is disliked unless one fears hardship.

If Allah has said regarding marriage to slave women:

“But to