al-Imdad bi-Ahkam al-Hidad
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- Islamic University of Madinah
al-Imdad bi-Ahkam al-Hidad (Providing the Rulings of Mourning) is a comparative Islamic jurisprudence study on the rules and conditions of mourning (hidad or ihdad) by the Saudi scholar Fayhan Shali al-Mutayri .
Background and Motivation
Al-Mutayri, who served as an assistant professor at the College of Sharia, composed the work to gather and systematically organize the legal rulings of mourning, noting that classical scholars had rarely devoted independent treatises to the subject and that its discussions were scattered across extensive legal compendia, typically occupying no more than ten pages . The immediate catalyst for the writing was an inquiry submitted by a female student at a nursing institute whose husband died in a car accident prior to the consummation of their marriage; she inquired whether mourning was binding upon her and whether she was permitted to leave her house to attend classes and sit for exams since she had no financial provider . After providing an answer, al-Mutayri referred her question to Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baz, who issued a fatwa in agreement with his response, prompting al-Mutayri to compile the treatise .
Methodology
Al-Mutayri structured the work according to comparative jurisprudence (al-fiqh al-muqaran):
- Documenting the positions of the four Sunni legal schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali) from their recognized reference works, alongside opinions from other Sunni schools .
- Presenting divergent juristic views with their respective evidence, evaluating counterarguments, and adopting the view deemed most legally sound (al-rajih) .
- Sourcing Quranic verses by chapter, and attributing prophetic hadiths and historical reports (athar) to hadith and jurisprudence collections .
Structure and Contents
The book is arranged into an introduction, six thematic chapters, and a conclusion :
- Introduction: Explores the honoring of humanity in Islam, the blessings of reason and marriage, and the underlying wisdom behind the institution of mourning .
- Chapter One: Defines the linguistic and juristic meaning of hidad (abstaining from adornment, perfume, and suitors during the waiting period) .
- Chapter Two: Discusses the legal status (hukm) of mourning, detailing the scholarly consensus regarding its obligation on the bereaved wife .
- Chapter Three: Examines the agreed-upon and contested conditions of mourning, including sanity, reaching the age of majority (bulugh), Islam, whether mourning is exclusive to death, and the requirement of a valid marriage contract .
- Chapter Four: Details the categories of mourning, dividing them into permissible (ja'iz) and prohibited (mumtani') forms .
- Chapter Five: Addresses the duration of mourning, distinguishing between mourning for deceased relatives other than the husband (a maximum of three days) and mourning for a husband (four months and ten days for non-pregnant women, or until delivery for pregnant women), as well as the rules governing divorced women whose husbands pass away during a revocable divorce waiting period .
- Chapter Six: Outlines the practical restrictions and consequences of mourning, including prohibitions against perfume (tayyib), bodily adornment (zina), beautifying garments, and jewelry (huly), alongside rulings on residence (sukna), staying overnight at home (mabit), leaving the house during daylight hours, and financial maintenance (nafaqa) .
- Conclusion: Summarizes the legal findings of the research .
Publication
The work was published as a monograph by the author in 1405 AH (1984/1985 CE) in a single volume comprising 128 pages (17×24 cm) . It was also published as an academic research series in the Journal of the Islamic University of Medina (Majallat al-Jami'ah al-Islamiyyah bi-al-Madinah al-Munawwarah) across several issues .
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