* This article only reflects the favoring views of Temporary Marriage in Islam. My views toward this topic are not expressed in this article. My views are expressed at this article.
Bismillahi
RRahmani RRahim
The Temporary Marriage
(Muta) is permitted in Islam
By
Before
reading this article, I advise you ( reader ) to go to
http://www.answering-christianity.com/muta_no.htm
and read the article entitled “The
Temporary (Muta) Marriage is prohibited in Islam” written by Abdul Haleem. Because here I
will criticize that while I prove the permission of Temporary Marriage in Islam, it is
good to read that article before reading mine. I don’t define Temporary Marriage
here, because Abdul Haleem has already defined it in his article using Shia Encyclopedia
found in http://www.al-islam.org.
My essay has
been partitioned in 3 parts:
1) What does “Hadith” say about
Temporary Marriage, according to Sunni and Shia point of view?
2) What does “Quran” say about
Temporary Marriage, according to Sunni and Shia point of view?
3) Where is wrong in Abudl Haleem’s
article (which is based on Quran alone) that has forced him to conclude that Temporary
Marriage must be prohibited?
4) Using Quran alone, we conclude that
Temporary Marriage is permitted in Islam.
5) What does “wisdom” say about
Temporary Marriage, and if Islam prohibit Temporary Marriage, then haven’t Islam
forgotten a necessary need of human being?
6) Shia allows Temporary Marriage
As you
probably know, Sunni and Shia are two major Muslim groups that have some different
opinions about some of Islamic topics. This does not mean they have different Quran, or
different Prophet, or… . No, Sunni and Shia both have the same Quran and the same
Prophet and the same Qiblah and … . The reason why they have some different ideas
about some topics is that they have somehow different “Ahaadith”. Here I
don’t go deep into this difference to explain. If you want to know more about
differences in Ahaadith of Shia and Sunni, you con go to http://www.al-islam.org or any other
Islamic site in the Internet. But one of important things to notice is that, some ahaadith
are common between both Shia and Sunni, and when this happens, the credibility and
authority of those ahaadith are much high. Now let’s see what do ahaadith of Shia and
Sunni say about Temporary Marriage.
As you can
see in Abdul Haleem’s article, there are 3 (or 4) types of ahaadith in Sunni sources:
1) There are some ahaadith saying that Mutah was permitted by Prophet. 2) There are some
other ahaadith saying that Mutah was prohibited by Prophet after some times that it was
permitted. 3) There are some other ahaadith saying that Mutah was permitted by Prophet and
never prohibited, until the time of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who prohibited it.
But what
does Shia ahaadith say about Mutah ? There is only one type of hadith in Shia source of
ahaadith about permission of Mutah : according to Shia, Prophet permitted Mutah and never
prohibited it, until the time of Umar, who prohibited it.
Now compare
Shia ahaadith and Sunni ahaadith, you will see that the only common ahaadith are those
which say that Prophet permitted Mutah but Umar prohibited it long time later. So as I
said, this common hadith is more authentic, and we can conclude that other types of
ahaadith in Sunni source of hadith are not valid. Especially when we see that there are
heavy contradicted ahaadith in Sunni source of hadith, but there is no contradiction in
Shia hadith about Mutah, so Shia hadith about mutah is more acceptable.
So according
to Hadith science, Temporary Marriage is permitted in Islam. Notice that because Sunnis
haven’t agreed with Temporary Marriage, they have not any condition and detailed
explanation and information about it, while you can find detailed and well-organized
information about Temporary Marriage and it’s conditions in Shia world of knowledge.
Shia says that 4.24 directly refers to Temporary Marriage (Muta) where it says “Fa Mastamta’tum Bihi Minhunna…” (Then as to those whom you profit by…) . Muta is the root word for Mastamta’tum in Arabic language. Some Sunnis try to have different explanation and “tafsir” for this verse to support their idea of prohibition of Mutah, but even a lot of Sunni scholars and Mufassirs agree that this part of verse is about Mutah. Those Sunnis that agree that this verse permits Mutah, say that this verse has been abrogated later by Prophet ( like Fakhr Raazi ).
Again you
see that the strong common tafsir of this verse between Sunnis and Shias is about
permission of Temporary Marriage, so according to this part of Quran we must conclude that
Temporary Marriage is permitted in Islam. But why Abdul Haleem insists that Temporary
Marriage is prohibited in Islam and we have only Permanent Marriage in Islam ? we will see
this in the next part.
Now
let’s have a review on Abdul Haleem’s article and criticize it. I will criticize
the words using only Quran alone, so even Quran aloners cannot disagree it:
Abdul Haleem
says :
<<
From these
ayahs, it is apparent (1) A marriage contract must consist of more than an arrangement for
satisfaction of lusts (Quran 4:24, 25, and 27); and (2) Quran 4:24 merely states that
"all others are lawful," i.e. one may marry any partner to whom marriage is not
otherwise prohibited in the Quran. It does not say mut’a is alright, and the
ayah’s discussion of the dowery does not imply the legality of mut’a but merely
recites the universal rule that the dowery contracted for cannot be reduced except by
mutual agreement. See also Quran 4:19.
>>
Albeit those
sentences are not exact and there are some mistakes in them, but because I want to shorten
my article, I don’t go deep into it. Abdul Haleem says that a marriage must have more
than satisfaction of lusts. Abdul Haleem thinks that Temporary Marriage has been created
only for satisfaction of lust, so he concludes that it is not legal. But he is wrong.
Temporary
Marriage is not only for satisfaction of lusts ! “Having
pleasure and enjoying the other partner, physically and spiritually”, “achieving spiritual stability” , “social and psychological tranquility”, “love and mercy to each other”, “Providing an
alternative way to avoid the sin of fornication”, “protecting from
falling into the hands of evil and sin”, “perserving
faith and religion”, and other benefits
exist and can be in Temporary Marriage (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~azma/WhatisMuta.htm
).You know that all of
these benefits have Quranic basics. Even if we suppose that someone may perform Temporary
Marriage just for satisfaction of lust, again this does not mean that we must destroy the
law and prohibit Temporary Marriage. Like Permanent Marriage that we cannot prohibit it
while there are some people who misuse it and don’t have a good and complete benefit
of Permanent Marriage.
<<
Quran 4:24
merely states that "all others are lawful," i.e. one may marry any partner to
whom marriage is not otherwise prohibited in the Quran. It does not say mut’a is
alright,
>>
The reader
can briefly see the contradiction in this sentence. “All other are lawful” means
that Temporary Marriage is also lawful! “It does not say mut’a is alright”
is in contradiction with “all others are lawful” because when Quran mentions
that “all others are lawful” then there is no need to mention all of them by
name! But even Quran has mentioned Mutah strictly as I said before.
<<
and the
ayah’s discussion of the dowery does not imply the legality of mut’a but merely
recites the universal rule that the dowery contracted for cannot be reduced except by
mutual agreement.
>>
It is vice
versa. The dowry subject in this verse strictly defines another type of marriage next to
Permanent Marriage. Lets see some verses about dowry in Permanent Marriage :
"5.5" ... and
the chaste from among the believing women and the chaste from among those who have been
given the Book before you (are lawful for you); when you have given them their dowries,
taking (them) in marriage,…
You see,
in marriage, you must give women their dowries first, not after profit by them.
"2.237": And if you divorce them before you
have touched them and you have appointed for them a portion, then (pay to them) half of
what you have appointed,...
You see,
when you are speaking about marriage and divorce, EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT PROFIT BY THEM AND
EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT TOUCHED THEM!, you must give them their dowries.
Now, when we look at 4.24, we see a completely different structure :
"4.24":
...Then as to those whom you profit by, give them their dowries as appointed;…
( Arabic :
Famastamta’tum Bihi Minhunna, Fa’tuhunna Ujurahunna )
You see, this verse is introducing us another marriage with some DIFFERENT structure than others: In this type of marriage, the dowry is NOT required before marriage, you give their dowries when you have profited by them. How can this verse be about marriage while it says we must pay dowry “after” profiting by woman, while in other verses we see that we must pay “dowry” even if we didn’t profit by her? If the type of marriage in this verse is like marriage in other verses so there is a big contradiction here.
So 4.24 is
speaking about dowry in Temporary Marriage, not in Permanent Marriage.
Abdul Haleem
continues:
<<
Moreover,
any argument based on Quran 4:24 fails to address the fundamental incompatibility of
mut’a with Quranic criteria for divorce. While Islam does not require OBJECTIVE proof
of some fault such as "mental cruelty" or "adultery" as a precondition
for divorce, the Quran makes it clear that there must be some BONA FIDE
"disagreement," "incompatibility" or "conflict" between the
spouses
>>
Then he
mentions verses 4.35, 4.128, 4.129, 4.130 to prove his idea and finally says:
<<
In
mut’a the marriage does not end due to bona fide disagreement between spouses but,
rather, precisely BECAUSE they have AGREED IN ADVANCE it should end!
>>
Now lets see
where Abdul Haleem is wrong:
Abdul Haleem
wants to say that a cause for divorce is REQUIRED. But what does divorce mean? It means
breaking a Permanent Marriage. Logically it will have a cause, because if there is not any
cause so why did they decide to marry permanently? Therefore the concept of
“divorce” is related to Permanent Marriage, not Temporary Marriage. If Abdul
Haleem wants to prove his point about Temporary Marriage from the “divorce”
channel, then first of all he must PROVE that marriage in Islam must be permanent only. If
marriage must be permanent, then surely the only way for separation will be
“divorce”, and as he said, divorce needs some cause. But what if marriage is not
required to be permanent?
From another
point of view, his reasoning is this:
1-The only
way of separation between husband and wife is Divorce.
2-Divorce
relates with Permanent Marriage
3-so
Marriage must be permanent.
This
reasoning is false, because the verses that he mentioned don’t determine that
“the only way of separation” is divorce. So he have to use this reasoning first:
1-Marriage
must be permanent
2-Divorce is
related with Permanent Marriage
3-so
logically the only way of separation will be “divorce”.
If he proves
this, then it will be acceptable, but again he cannot prove this from Quran.
You see, all of Abdul Haleem’s points opposing Temporary Marriage were answered with the use of Quran verses and logic. So even using Quran alone, Abdul Haleem couldn’t prove that Temporary Marriage is invalid, and we proved that Temporary Marriage is valid in Islam using Quran alone.
In the last
part of Abdul Haleem’s article, we see :
<<
Like many
innovations unfavorable to women, it can be traced directly to Judaism!
…
This
"Israeeleeat" doctrine has no place in Islam.
>>
I agree that
some things has been added to Islam by jews, and we must find them and destroy them so
that Islam remain pure, but we can not say that some thing has been come from jews
immediately after we see it in Islam as well. As you saw, Temporary Marriage is not among
“Israeeleeat”, and is provable by Quran alone and also Hadith and history.
The answer
for this question is obvious when you see the growth of illegal sex in societies that
Temporary Marriage is not defined and even some growth in Islamic Republic of Iran which
is a Shia society but the culture of people has not accepted Temporary Marriage at large
because of some historical reasons. Permanent Marriage is not always possible for young
(and even non-young) people and all of them can not control themselves, so what can they
do? If Temporary Marriage, which is legal in Islam, have some organized and systematic
manner to be done in the society then the illegal sex and prostitution will be lessened
heavily and a lot of spiritual problems of society will be solved. So how can we say that
Islam has forgotten this necessity for the society? Can we say that Islam dictates
Permanent Marriage and forces people to it while there is no need and good reason to
prohibit Temporary Marriage? This thinking is oppression to Islam and Islam is more open
and large than this. Islam is a general Din ( religion ) for all people in all societies
and not only for those people who can control themselves when they can not marry
permanently, so Islam has considered needs for all type of people who want to remain pure,
and that’s why Islam has permitted Temporary Marriage. Also there is no logical
answer to prohibit Temporary Marriage. Why prohibit it? What problem prohibiting Temporary
Marriage will solve? Isn’t world full of illegal sex? Will Temporary Marriage
increase some to it? NO. Briefly it will cause dirty sex in the world to lessen a lot,
while the religion and Iman (belief) will exist and will not change.
We saw that
Quran permits Temporary Marriage, Hadith permits Temporary Marriage, and Logic also agrees
Temporary Marriage.
Considering
logic, hadith and Quran, Shia says that Islam permits Temporary Marriage. The reader may
wish to be familiar more with Shia school of thought in Islam, which can be found in some
sites like http://www.al-islam.org.
Also if you have some questions about Temporary Marriage and it’s conditions, and
also other related questions, you can go to http://members.ozemail.com.au/~azma/QuestionsonMuta.htm.
Back to Is Muta (Temporary Marriage) allowed in Islam? section.
Back to Women in Islam and Christianity section.