Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

One of the most fundamental issues debated between four madhahib and ja‘ferī scholars is mut‘a marriage. The underlying issues of the debates on this topic are as follows: Permission and prohibition of mut‘a marriage at certain times during the life time of the prophet though permitted at the beginning (the ja‘farī claim for permission to continue) Some narrations from Abdullāh b. ‘Abbās (d.68/687), one of the highly re-spected companions of the prophet, and from Ibn Jurayj (d.150/767), one of the great scholars of those who followed the companions of the prophet, al-tabieen, as to permission of mut‘a The claims Ibn ‘Abbās changed his view on mut‘a marriage Sayings related to ‘Ubeyy b. Ka‘b (d.21/642) and ‘Abdullāh b. Mas‘ūd (d.32/652) as they used to read the verse of al-Nisā’: مِنْهُنَّ فَآتُوهُنَّ أُجُورَهُنّ} اسْتَمْتَعْتُم بِهِ { فَمَا "so those of them whom you enjoy, give them their appointed wages" (4:24) with three more words resulting in the sentence of the form: "...to an ap-pointed time (ilā ajal musammā)." and different commentaries on this verse (the view of ja‘fariya, the most important one, referring to the permissibility of mut‘a marriage) The argument that mut‘a was only forbidden by the caliph ‘Umar (d.23/644) and for it was ‘Alī himself who said: "If ‘Umar had not prohibited mut‘a, no one would commit fornication except the wretched!" is also the focus of the de-bates on the issue. The topic of mut‘a marriage has been discussed thoroughly in this article.