Volume Two
Book of Marriage
Chapter: The Sunnah concerning the marriage contract, appointing an agent to conclude it, and the ruling on proposing after one’s brother has already proposed.

Book of Marriage
In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Compassionate. May God bless our master Muḥammad, his family, and his Companions, and grant them peace in abundance.

Chapter: The Sunnah concerning the marriage contract, appointing an agent to conclude it, and the ruling on proposing after one’s brother has already proposed.

Marriage is not obligatory except for the one whose soul yearns for it, whose sexual desire has grown strong, and who possesses the means to marry. According to the majority of scholars, God’s command to marry signifies permissibility, recommendation, and guidance—not obligation.

When a man wishes to marry a woman, Mālik holds that he is not permitted to look at her or contemplate her beauty. A different report from him, however, allows him to look at her while she remains clothed. Those scholars who permit a suitor to look at the woman during the proposal restrict that to her face and hands, for she is not required to cover them in prayer.

In Mālik’s view, a marriage contract is valid without witnesses, just as a sale is valid, provided the man and woman consent, the woman has full authority over herself, or she is an orphan who has been granted partial authority over her affairs, and—