Marriage and Divorce: The Quranic Framework

Al-Tahawi's Quranic treatment of marriage law centers on the prohibitions listed in Surah al-Nisa' (4:22-24). Verse 22 prohibits marrying women whom one's father married ('what your fathers married of women'), an eternal prohibition with no conditions attached. Verses 23-24 then list the permanently prohibited degrees of kinship and the temporarily or conditionally prohibited women. Al-Tahawi derives from verse 24's reference to 'what your right hands possess' (ma malakat aymanukum) the ruling on marriage or concubinage with slave women: the verse permits this subject to the conditions established by the Sunnah, and al-Tahawi carefully notes the Hanafi position that a free Muslim man may marry a free Jewish or Christian woman (ahl al-kitab) based on verse 5 of al-Ma'idah, while marriage to a polytheist (mushrika) is prohibited by Surah al-Baqarah (2:221).

The Quranic basis for the rules of divorce is found primarily in Surah al-Baqarah (2:226-232) and Surah al-Talaq (65:1-7). Al-Tahawi derives from Surah al-Baqarah (2:229), 'Divorce may be pronounced twice, then keep with kindness or release with good treatment,' the ruling that two revocable divorces do not dissolve the marriage permanently, allowing the husband to revoke within the iddah and return to the wife without a new contract. The third pronunciation, by contrast, makes the dissolution permanent, and the Quranic verse is read as establishing this three-stage structure. The verse 'until she marries another husband' (2:230) is particularly important to al-Tahawi as evidence that the Quran addresses the woman as a party to the contract, supporting the Hanafi position that an adult woman may contract her own marriage.

The phrase 'touching women' in the Quranic divorce passages refers to consummation, and al-Tahawi derives from Surah al-Ahzab (33:49) an important ruling on the iddah: 'O you who believe, when you marry believing women and then divorce them before you have touched them, there is no waiting period for you to count against them.' This verse establishes that an unConsummated marriage, when dissolved, requires no iddah from the wife, and the full mahr is due if it was specified (half if not specified with the other half waived). Al-Tahawi's careful reading of this verse and its interaction with the general waiting period rulings of Surah al-Baqarah illustrates how the ahkam al-Quran method requires the scholar to read all relevant verses together before deriving a ruling.

The rules on the iddah and its financial implications are drawn primarily from Surah al-Talaq (65:1-7). Al-Tahawi derives from verse 1 ('Do not expel them from their homes, nor should they leave') the Hanafi ruling that a divorced woman must remain in the marital home during the iddah, and her husband must maintain her there. From verse 6 ('If they are pregnant, spend on them until they deliver their burden, and if they nurse for you, give them their wages') al-Tahawi derives the distinct Hanafi rulings on the maintenance of a pregnant woman after irrevocable divorce and the wages of a wet-nurse who is the child's own mother. This integrated reading of the Quranic text serves as the foundation for the comprehensive Hanafi law of marital dissolution and its consequences.