Forever Until ...

Marriage is a sacred entity in all religions. Two people agree to stay together forever, and their friends and family witness their commitment to each other, and celebrate the event. As everything good in this life, marriage has its own enemies, too. In this blog, I am going to delve into one of those enemies: Mut'ah.

A brief definition of mut'ah is as follows: two people agree to stay married for a predetermined amount of time (1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, etc.), and when that time is over, they separate without any mutual rights. So, it is also called temporary marriage by those who support the idea. But not everybody is in favor of it, as will be discussed below. So, I would like to give a summary of the logic and evidence presented by both sides, and in the end, I would like to add my contribution to the discussion.

Mutah was a form of marriage that was present among Arabs even during life time of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. Whenever a man was to travel to a distant city and was to stay there for a certain amount of time, he would do mutah with a woman, and pay an agreed upon price in exchange for: 1- lodging, 2- overseeing his belongings and commercial goods, 3- sex work. At the end of the term, the man would leave without any obligations to the woman.

The defendants of the validity of this kind of  act say that there was no explicit Quranic verse that prohibit it. Furthermore, they present two verses in favor of mutah. The first one is from chapter Nisa (4/24):

...And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse. So for whatever you enjoy [of marriage] from them, give them their due compensation as an obligation...

They especially focus on the word "ujuurahunne" here, which literally means "compensation", claiming that it beyond doubt points at a price in exchange for a service, whereas for the dowry of the permanent marriage, other words (mahr and sadaqah) are used. (Note: this claim is incorrect, as will be discussed below.)

The second verse that is presented as a pseudo-support to the idea of mutah is from the chapter Muminun (23/5-6):

And they who guard their private parts, except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed, they will not be blamed...

They claim that this verse prohibits relationships out of the wedlock, but that mutah IS a marriage, and so, is out of the prohibition in this verse.

After these, they show hadiths that portray the presence of mutah during the time of the prophet.

Having summarized the case of the mutah supporters, I would like to give an overlook of the case against it. First of all, it is known that mutah was practiced among Arabs - including early Muslims-, though prophet Muhammad never practiced it himself. With the revelation the above-mentioned verse (23/5-6), it was forbidden. This prohibition was also reinforced with the words of the prophet (Sahih Al-Bukhari 5523).

Nevertheless, there seems to be a division of decisions on the final verdict about mutah. According to some, it was not the prophet but Umar (2nd caliph) who forbade it (Sahih Muslim 1405e). In another view, it is conditionally permissible under severe conditions (Sahih Al-Bukhari 5116), similar to the permission to eat swine under hardship (2/173). So, those who are against the idea of mutah employ two additional things. First is a reactionary, and irrational, claim, which is that "mutah is a practice of Shiites and must be shunned". Second is the rational approach, which is the use of common sense to see that "the application of mutah is prostitution in disguise and favors the breach of other injunctions in the Quran".

Now, I would like to analyze certain points from both sides, and then introduce the notion that I alluded to in the title.

The strongest evidence that is used by the mutah supporters is the verse from the chapter Nisa (4/24). Specifically speaking, as mentioned above, the word "ujuurahunna" is held as the prime evidence pointing at a "finite price for a temporary service". However, when you look at the context of that verse and consider all instances where the same word is used in context of marriage, you realize that the Quran is talking about marriage dowry (mahr), the marriage as we know it. In other words, instead of the word "mahr" that is used in the hadiths, "ujuurahunna" is used in the Quran. At only one place, the concept of "mahr" is referred to by "sadaqah" (4/4), meaning charity, and again it has nothing to do with the concept of mutah. Therefore, using the verse 4/24 as an evidence for validity of mutah is essentially wrong.

If you broaden your search and look at other uses of the same word (e.g. 3/185 ujuurakum), you see that it is also used in the context of the infinite reward that will be given in the paradise. This means an infinite reward for the efforts in a finite life with an intention to worship God eternally. That is, God does not say that we worshiped Him for a finite life and, so, we deserve a limited reward, and after that, we are doomed to annihilation. This comparison actually serves as a metaphor to see the nuance between real marriage and mutah.

In case of marriage, those uniting their lives actually love each other, which means an intention to stay together forever, and the dowry is a seal of this contract that starts with the marriage and extends into infinity. So, it is in no way a compensation for a certain service in a given time. As a support, you can remember that if the marriage is broken before any relationship occurs between the spouses (i.e. no services provided(!)), the woman is still due to retain half of the dowry (2/236-237).

When we come to the second verse (23/6), it is important to look at what is meant by "spouses - azwaj". Of course we are looking at two people joining their lives with the act of marriage, but before exploring the Quranic verses on the topic, I would like to present you an analogy.

Imagine that you own a car, and aside from that, you rented a car. They are parked side by side. Which one is yours? Any person with sound reason and conscience would say that the car owned by you is yours, not the one rented by you. And what is the difference between the two? The rental car is "yours" for a certain amount of time for which you paid the price. However, when you buy a car, you pay a price, but then it is YOUR car until it dies or until you die. Similarly, your spouse is your spouse until death and beyond, whereas mutah serves to a "rental wife concept" hiding under the cover of religion, and you can guess what that means.

Now, let's see what Quran says about the qualities of spouses:

Longing for her: There is no blame upon you whether you hint at a marriage proposal to such women or keep the proposal hidden in your hearts. Allah knows that you will think of them in that connection... (2/235) 

Being tolerant and patient with each other: ... And live with them in kindness. For if you dislike them - perhaps you dislike a thing and Allah makes therein much good. (4/19)

Completing each other: It is He - Allah -Who created you from a single being, and out of it He made its mate, that he may find comfort in her. (7/189)

Treating each other as a sign of God: And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquillity in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought. (30/21)

Satisfying each other's desires: ...each one has enjoyed the other, and they have taken a firm covenant from you (4/21)

Being a protection and adornment for each other: They are clothing for you and you are clothing for them. (2/187)

 Let's think now. Can these qualities, other than satisfying desires, take root in a rental agreement? Then, can you call people that come together through mutah as spouses in the Quranic sense? No. So, the verse from the chapter Muminun DOES prohibit that kind of relationship.

Third step of scrutiny against the mutah involves the hadiths on the issue. First of all, the fact that something was done during the life of the prophet does not necessarily mean that it is lawful to do it. Ban of alcohol or ban of interest came much later than the beginning of the revelations to Muhammad pbuh. So until a certain point in time, you could see the friends of the prophet dealing with things that we now call "haraam". But of course, those actions were abandoned once they were forbidden in the Quran. Exactly the same is true of mutah. It was the common practice at first, but it was outlawed by the Quranic verses that regulate marriage/divorce and that describe the qualities of the spouses. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to justify mutah through hadiths, when it is ruled out in the Quran.

Now let's scrutinize the case of those against mutah. First of all, you cannot reject something only because it is voiced by the scholars of the Shiites. You have to consider their claims and supports, then you can come to a final conclusion. Are you going to reject the five daily prayers, too, because they are preached by those scholars?

Second, if something is allowed under restraining conditions, you cannot generalize this permission to an unconditional acceptance. That permission is there to be used with caution, and the case of one person in history may not be the same as another one at a different point in history.

Third, use of common sense actually reveals serious problems with the practice of mutah. As told by many discussing this issue, it potentially leads to the breach of other prohibitions in the Quran. For example, a man could have mutah with a lady, and a baby girl could be conceived from that union. Years later, unknowingly, the same man could have mutah with that girl, who is actually his daughter. Or, if the girl born out of the first mutah marries a boy, who was actually the same man's son from another mutah, they are committing incest marriage. Or, the man's son does mutah with another woman with whom his father did mutah later, the boy would be committing another sin. This list can be extended. One could claim that these challenges could be overcome by a sophisticated database system, and that is true. But even if that was done, this practice is fundamentally outlawed by the Quran and by the ultimate practice of the prophet as explained above. Plus, it is obvious that this practice, similar to prostitution, results in the abuse of women at the hands of men. And that is another violation of the rights of women in Islam.

Now, I would like to add the final touch that I implied in the title and gave spoilers of throughout this article. In order to see what a proper marriage is, you can also look at a proper divorce. And when you look at the Quranic verses that arrange a divorce, you see two classes: those that start with "in", which means "if you divorce(d)" (e.g. 2/236) and those starting with "iza", which means "if you divorced" (e.g. 2/231). The purpose of both sets of verses is to ensure the protection of certain essential rights of both parties. However, in all these verses, the presence of "if" is noteworthy. This "if" implies that a proper marriage does not start with a certain intention to separate at a known time. A proper marriage starts with the intention not to end, where divorce is a possibility, hence the "if". Therefore, being a transaction to end at a known time, mutah does not formulate a proper marriage.

You cannot "unite forever" until one day later!