the groom who contracts the marriage: whether he openly conditions it on serving as a muḥallil or merely intends that in his heart, the very presence of such a condition or intention renders the marriage invalid. No legal penalty is imposed on him, yet his intercourse does not make the woman lawful for her former husband. It is immaterial whether the ex-husband knows of the arrangement or remains ignorant of it, for everything turns on the groom who marries her.

Some jurists nonetheless say that, should the first husband learn that the second man married her with the aim of tahlīl, he ought to abstain from taking her back. The same ruling applies if the woman herself had stipulated that purpose, provided the groom’s own intention was a genuine marriage of desire, for the woman has no authority to dissolve her own bond. Another, stricter opinion maintains that if any one of the three—first husband, second husband, or the woman—even contemplates the idea of tahlīl, the marriage is void.

Sālim, al-Qāsim, Abū al-Zinād, and Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd held that it is permissible for a man to marry her with the unspoken aim of making her lawful for her first husband, so long as the two spouses themselves are unaware of that aim; he is even rewarded for the intention, provided he does not state it in the contract. Their phrase “so long as the two spouses are unaware” marks the middle ground. In practice, however, the view that is acted upon is the one already cited from Mālik.

Marriage while in a state of pilgrim sanctity (iḥrām) is impermissible. Neither man nor woman may contract marriage while both are in iḥrām, and they remain so until sexual relations become lawful for them by performing the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa after casting Jamrat al-ʿAqaba during the ḥajj. For the person performing ʿumra, the iḥrām ends as soon as he completes the saʿy between Ṣafā and Marwa; if either party marries (or they marry one another) before that point, the marriage is annulled, whether before or after consummation.

There is a difference transmitted from Mālik regarding how the annulment is carried out: some report that it takes the form of a divorce, while others report that it is an annulment without divorce. His overriding principle—followed by most of his companions—is that any defective marriage that cannot be validated, even were the guardians to approve it, is set aside by simple annulment, without divorce. Conversely, any marriage that could be rectified with the guardians’ approval and thereby allowed to stand, if it is nonetheless dissolved, that dissolution counts as a single irrevocable divorce in which no right of return remains.

Ibn al-Qāsim, however, maintained that every marriage over which the early scholars differed, or which any of the leading jurists of the great cities deemed permissible, when annulled