2 – The report establishes that withdrawal is lawful, for the Prophet ﷺ knew of the practice and tacitly approved it; he never endorses falsehood, and his legislation is conveyed through both his words and his silent approval. The points of scholarly disagreement will be discussed below.

3 – Al-Sanʿānī remarks that the phrase, “Had it been something…,” is unique to Muslim’s version and is not Jābir’s own statement. Rather, it is the comment of Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, who transmitted the report from ʿAṭāʾ on the authority of Jābir. Muslim’s wording is: “If it had been something we were forbidden from, we would have been forbidden from it.” Sufyān derived this judgment by inference and then inserted it into the narration. The wording adopted by the author of ʿUmdat al-Aḥkām gives the impression that it is part of the hadith, but it is not.

4 – Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd viewed this statement—attributed to Jābir and ultimately to Allah—as puzzling. Al-Sanʿānī attempted to resolve the difficulty, yet it vanishes altogether once it is understood that the words do not belong to Jābir.

Divergent Scholarly Views

The jurists have differed over the ruling on coitus interruptus.

The three imams—Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, and Aḥmad—maintain that it is permissible with a free wife provided she consents, with a slave-wife provided her owner consents, and with a slave-girl generally without anyone’s consent.

They base their position on the two aforementioned reports as well as other clear, sound hadiths. They restricted the practice in the case of a free woman to her permission because of the hadith of Abū Hurayrah, in which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “No man may practise withdrawal with a free woman except with her permission.”

Abū Dāwūd said, “I heard Imām Aḥmad mention this hadith, and he did not find fault with it.”

Al-Shāfiʿī, on the other hand, deems withdrawal permissible without qualification, whether the woman is free or enslaved, and a dispensation to this effect is reported from ten Companions.

Ibn Ḥazm and a group of scholars declare it absolutely forbidden, citing the report recorded by Muslim from Judhāmah bint Wahb, who said: “I was present with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ among some people when they asked him about withdrawal. He said, ‘That is the hidden form of infanticide.’” They consider this hadith to abrogate the reports permitting the practice, which accord with the original presumption of permissibility; thus, they argue, this narration alters that presumption.

The preferable approach is to reconcile the texts without recourse to abrogation, so that the default ruling remains permissibility. The cited hadith should be understood as referring to a man who uses withdrawal specifically to avoid having a child, as indicated by the Prophet’s words, “That is the hidden form of infanticide.”