Moreover, Ahmad did not believe there was any disagreement regarding these matters (1), to the point that he issued a fatwa that anyone who did so should be put to death. Those who held such marriages to be permissible, including al-Shāfiī and Ibn al-Mājishūn, maintained that lineage was negated because there was no right of inheritance (2). Consequently, all the legal consequences of lineage were negated, and prohibition in marriage (3) is one of those consequences. Those who rejected this position (4) said: The legal consequences of lineage (5) vary; some forms of lineage entail rulings that others do not. The category of those forbidden in marriage includes everyone encompassed by the wording, even by figurative extension, such that a daughter’s daughter is forbidden. Indeed, all that is forbidden by lineage is likewise forbidden through breastfeeding. A female conceived from his semen therefore has an even stronger claim to be forbidden in marriage. Inheritance is different, for it is restricted to those among the deceased’s offspring whose lineage is attributed to him; it therefore applies to the children of sons but not to the children of daughters.

As for a man contracting marriage with one of his permanently unmarriageable relatives, Abū Hanīfah regarded the outward form of the marriage contract as a legally cognizable doubt that precluded the prescribed punishment. The majority of jurists, however, did not regard this as such a doubt. Rather, they said: “This calls for a more severe prescribed punishment (6), because he has committed two forbidden acts: concluding the marriage contract and engaging in intercourse (7).”