to pay anything unless he divorces her before consummation. There is, however, extensive disagreement over this question.
If he designates a definite sum of gold or silver as the dower and she then uses that money to purchase from him a slave or a house, or she spends it—whether with him or with someone else—on perfume or any other item that she may rightly acquire for her trousseau and to set up her household with him, every such purchase is treated exactly like the original dower itself: any increase or decrease in its value is shared between them. Should he divorce her before consummation, she is entitled only to half of it and is not required to return half of the dower she had received.
The same ruling applies if she buys from a third party a slave or a house with the thousand coins he had given her as dower and he then divorces her before consummation: he has no claim against her at all.
Likewise, it makes no difference whether she first takes possession of the entire dower and then gifts it back to him, or she donates it to him before ever taking possession; in both cases she incurs no liability.
If she donates half of the dower to him before receiving it and he divorces her before consummation, she is entitled to half of what remains and has no right to the portion she donated. If she had already taken possession of the other half, that half must be returned to him.
Should he give her a slave—or any other piece of merchandise—as dower and she later discovers a defect, she may return it on account of the defect and claim its market value. If the slave dies, she is entitled, as in an ordinary sale, to the difference between its defective and sound values.
If the item is subsequently claimed by its rightful owner, or if the supposed slave turns out to have been free, ʿAbd al-Malik holds that she is entitled to the customary equivalent dower for a woman of her standing, whereas Ibn al-Qāsim rules that in both cases she is entitled to its assessed value—that is, the value a free person would have had had he been a slave.
If her dower is set as her father or any person who would automatically be emancipated upon her acquiring him, and he then divorces her before consummation, he may reclaim from her one-half of that person’s assessed value. The manumission takes effect, and she must pay whether she is solvent or insolvent. An opinion transmitted from Mālik deems it preferable that he seek no compensation from her, and ʿAbd al-Malik adopts this view when the husband knew that the slave would be freed upon coming into her ownership; yet the larger body of jurists upholds the first opinion.
If a man purchases his wife while the marriage has not yet been consummated, the marriage is thereby annulled and the dower lapses. The same applies when a female slave is emancipated: she is then free to choose whether to remain in the marriage or not.