—the agent has no authority to marry her off a second time unless a fresh mandate is issued by the person who is entitled to grant it.

No right of option (khiyār) may be stipulated in a marriage contract, nor is a marriage valid if its effectiveness is suspended until the prospective husband later approves it—such as when one man marries another to a woman without the latter’s prior consent.

Mālik nevertheless deemed valid a slave’s marriage concluded without his master’s permission, provided the master ratifies it before consummation; this question will be discussed in full under the chapter on marrying slave men and women.

It is permissible for several men, whether together or separately, to seek the hand of the same woman so long as she has not yet accepted one of them and inclined toward him. Once she inclines to a particular suitor and feels at ease with him, it is unlawful for anyone else to propose until that suitor withdraws or she turns away from him; once he does so, others may lawfully propose.

If a man proposes after his brother’s proposal—once the woman has already inclined and the discussion between them is complete—then contracts the marriage, and the first suitor, to whom she had inclined and for whom permission had been given, objects, the second marriage is annulled both before and after consummation, as though the woman had been another man’s wife. This is narrated from Mālik. Some of his companions held that the marriage should be annulled before consummation as a commendable measure, for the second suitor overstepped the prophetic counsel and acted reprehensibly; but if consummation has already taken place, the marriage stands and is not annulled, because the woman had not in fact been under contract to anyone else.

Such is the distilled ruling of Mālik’s school and the position relied upon, although among Mālik’s companions on this issue there are divergent and conflicting opinions.