Muhammad Yaqub al-Dahlawi
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Muhammad Yaqub al-Dahlawi is a contemporary scholar of Islamic jurisprudence specializing in Islamic family law and marital rights, known for his jurisprudential study Damanat Huquq al-Mar'a al-Zawjiyya ("Guarantees of Women's Marital Rights") .
Scholarly Focus and Legal Thought
Al-Dahlawi's legal scholarship centers on the doctrinal protections and legal safeguards that Islamic law establishes for women within the framework of marriage . He has addressed these topics extensively in his treatise Huquq al-Mar'a al-Zawjiyya wa-al-Tanazul 'Anha ("Women's Marital Rights and Waiving Them") and in his analytical study Damanat Huquq al-Mar'a al-Zawjiyya .
In his jurisprudence, al-Dahlawi categorizes the Islamic legal safeguards for married women into general and specific guarantees . The general guarantees encompass the divine mandate binding these rights, the impermissibility of surrendering inalienable marital protections, the nullification of waivers extracted through coercion (ikrah) or deception (gharar), and the voiding of marriage contracts that inflict harm or uncertainty upon the woman . He emphasizes that Islamic law abolished harmful pre-Islamic practices that left women suspended or deprived of their conjugal and personal rights, such as injurious oaths of sexual abstinence (ila') and injurious declarations of spousal estrangement (zihar), instituting legal penalties while preserving the marital bond .
His specific legal analyses examine a woman's right to consent in marriage, the prohibition of matrimonial obstruction by a guardian ('adl), and the legal entrenchment of financial entitlements such as the mandatory bridal gift (mahr) and inheritance rights . He demonstrates that because the mahr involves the claim of God (haqq Allah), it cannot be validly negated at the inception of the contract, and in contracts where it is omitted, an equivalent dowry (mahr al-mithl) is legally prescribed .
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List of Works
Damanat Huquq al-Mar'a al-Zawjiyya (Guarantees of Women's Marital Rights) is a contemporary jurisprudence study focusing on the legal safeguards established by Islamic law to protect women's marital rights and refute modern polemics concerning women's status in Islam. It examines how Shari'a upholds these rights, prevents marital injustice, and provides judicial and doctrinal remedies against harm.