from her.

If the husband goes missing after the marriage has been consummated and the wife has not yet received her dower, the whole dower is paid to her. The waiting period (ʿidda) and the four-year term fixed for the wife of a missing man do not in themselves constitute a divorce, for if the husband returns before she marries someone else, he has the first claim to her.

Should she remarry and the second husband consummate the marriage, and then the first husband come back, the first has no right to her; she owes him nothing, nor does the second husband have to return any part of the dower he gave her, because she became entitled to it once consummation took place.

If she remarries but the new husband has not yet consummated the marriage and then her first husband arrives, there are two opinions:

1. He has no claim to her;
2. He is more entitled to her as long as the second husband has not consummated the marriage.

The second view is the stronger one on the basis of transmitted evidence; it is not a matter of independent legal reasoning, for in this issue we follow the ruling of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him. Both positions are reported from Mālik and a group of his companions.

If she returns to her first husband before the second has consummated the marriage, she re-enters the union with all three pronouncements of divorce still at his disposal. But if the second husband has consummated the marriage and then divorces her or dies, and afterwards she remarries the first husband, only two pronouncements remain, for remarrying her consumes one divorce.

During both the four-year period and the ensuing four months and ten days, the wife of the missing man is entitled to maintenance from her husband’s estate, whether she later inherits from him or not, and whether she marries again or remains single. The estate is not distributed unless his death is certain, or until so much time has passed that a man of his age would normally no longer be alive.

If the first husband returns after the second has consummated the marriage and then accuses her of adultery, he is subjected to the prescribed corporal punishment; the mutual imprecation (liʿān) procedure is not available, because no marital bond remains between them.

The second type of missing person is the captive whose life was confirmed for a time and then news of him ceased so that neither life nor death can be established. No separation is pronounced between such a man and his wife until he has reached the limit of normal human lifespan; once that span has expired, he is treated in every respect as one who has died, except that he does not