He replied that the man may indeed marry, but he must conclude an open-ended marriage contract that leaves it in his power either to keep the woman or to divorce her if he chooses. Should he firmly intend from the outset to divorce her the moment his journey ends, such an intention is disapproved, and the validity of the marriage is itself a point of contention among the jurists.

He—may Allah have mercy on him—then clarified his position regarding a marriage undertaken purely for temporary enjoyment. He said: If a man seeks to enjoy a woman for a fixed period and then leave her—like a traveler who stays in a town for some months, marries there, and plans to divorce her when he returns home—yet he phrases the contract in absolute terms, three opinions are reported within the Hanbalī school:

1. It is a valid marriage; this is the choice of al-Muwaffaq Ibn Qudāmah and the view held by the majority.
2. It is a “halāl-making” marriage (nikāḥ taḥlīl) and therefore unlawful; this is narrated from al-Awzāʿī and championed by Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā and his followers.
3. It is disliked but not forbidden.

The soundest opinion is that this is not nikāḥ al-mutʿah and thus is not prohibited. The man genuinely desires marriage, unlike the muḥallil, but simply has no wish for lifelong companionship—and perpetual cohabitation is not a condition of a valid marriage. He is free to divorce whenever he wishes; therefore, resolving in advance to divorce after a time is merely an intention to do something the Law already allows. Nikāḥ al-mutʿah, by contrast, resembles a lease that terminates automatically when its term expires, after which the man has no legal authority over the woman. In the present case his marital authority is unrestricted, and he might later change his mind and keep her permanently—just as a man who initially meant to remain with his wife forever may later decide to divorce her without affecting the contract’s validity.

Scholarly disagreement
The scholars are unanimous that nikāḥ al-mutʿah is forbidden and void, but they differ as to the exact moment when the prohibition was issued, owing to the various hadiths on the subject.
• Some maintain that the ban was first announced on the Day of Khaybar, citing the present hadith, that it was later allowed once more, and that it was finally prohibited on the day of the Conquest of Mecca.
• Others hold that the ban did not occur until the Conquest; before that, it remained lawful. They contend that ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—did not mean by this narration that the prohibition of mutʿah coincided with the ban on domestic donkey meat at Khaybar; he merely mentioned the two together to refute Ibn ʿAbbās, who allowed mutʿah in cases of necessity and deemed the flesh of domesticated donkeys permissible. This second view is the stronger one.

Al-Nawawī said: “The correct view is that its prohibition and its permission each occurred twice: it was lawful before Khaybar, then prohibited there; permitted again in the year of the Conquest, which is also the year of Hunayn; and thereafter forbidden permanently. There is nothing objectionable about a ruling being permitted more than once.” (1)