7. The guests at the walīmah should include the relatives of both bride and groom, the neighbors, the poor, and people of righteousness, so that familiarity, harmony, and blessing may spread, while extravagance, ostentation, and pride are avoided.

8. Shaykh al-Islām remarked: The scholars are unanimously agreed that the marriage contract is valid even when no dowry is stipulated. If the marriage is consummated, she is entitled—by their consensus—to the customary dowry of women comparable to her.

9. He further stated: If a man pledges his wife a large sum as a deferred dowry but intends never to pay it, that is forbidden to him.

What some vain and arrogant people do—namely, inflating the dowry for display and bragging, while the bride’s family do not mean to collect it and the groom does not intend to pay—is a reprehensible practice, contrary to the Sunnah and outside the bounds of the Sharīʿah.

If, alternatively, the husband truly means to discharge it, yet in most cases cannot afford it, he has imposed a burden upon himself, encumbered his liability, and exposed his good deeds to loss, while the woman’s family have wronged and harmed their son-in-law.