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Muhammad Yaqub al-Dahlawi

Damanat Huquq al-Mar'a al-Zawjiyya

Author died
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Editions
‘Imādat al-Baḥth al-‘Ilmī bi-al-Jāmi‘ah al-Islāmiyyah

Damanat Huquq al-Mar'a al-Zawjiyya (Guarantees of Women's Marital Rights) is a contemporary jurisprudence study authored by Muhammad Yaqub al-Dahlawi, 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 .

Purpose and Scope

The work addresses contemporary discussions surrounding women's social, political, and marital rights, particularly claims from critics that Islamic law disadvantages women relative to positive legal systems . Al-Dahlawi aims to articulate the comprehensive legal guarantees (damanat) provided by the Shari'a that ensure women's rights are upheld, prevent marital injustice, and establish judicial and doctrinal recourses against harm .

Structure and Contents

The book is arranged into an introduction, an entrance (madkhal), two primary chapters covering seventeen specific guarantees, a conclusion, and indices :

  • Introduction and Entrance: Outlines the subject's importance, methodology, research outline, and the linguistic and technical definitions of guarantees (damanat) .
  • Chapter One: General Guarantees of Women's Marital Rights: Examines six overarching guarantees:
    1. The establishment of marital rights through binding revealed rulings backed by divine accountability .
    2. The non-waivability of certain fundamental marital rights under Islamic law .
    3. The nullification of waiving marital rights when done under coercion (ikrah) or deception (gharar) .
    4. The nullification of premature waivers of marital rights prior to their legal obligation or due cause .
    5. The prohibition of forms of marriage that inflict material or non-material harm upon women .
    6. The abolition and penalization of harmful pre-Islamic spousal practices such as zihar (injurious comparison) and i'la' (vow of continence) .
  • Chapter Two: Specific Guarantees for Particular Marital Rights: Examines eleven guarantees linked to individual legal situations:
    1. Prohibiting the guardian from wrongfully preventing the woman from marrying ('adl) .
    2. Transferring guardianship to more distant kin in cases of unjustified prevention or the guardian's absence .
    3. The woman's legal prerogative to stipulate material and non-material conditions beneficial to her .
    4. The right of annulment (faskh) if she is married without her valid consent .
    5. Safeguarding her dowry (mahr) through multiple legal protections .
    6. Entrusting divorce primarily to the husband .
    7. Granting the wife the power to initiate divorce if stipulated in the marriage contract .
    8. Granting the woman legal options when subjected to material or psychological harm by her husband .
    9. Permitting her to seek divorce through compensation (khul') if marital continuation becomes untenable .
    10. Mandating the dispatch of two arbiters (hakamayn) to pursue reconciliation between estranged spouses .
    11. Preserving her inheritance rights even during irrevocable divorce if the husband divorced her with the intent of disinheriting her during a terminal illness .
  • Conclusion and Indices: Summarizes the research results and concludes with dedicated indices for Quranic verses, prophetic traditions, biographical notices, and legal and jurisprudential maxims (al-qawa'id al-fiqhiyya wa-l-usuliyya) .

Method

Al-Dahlawi employs a comparative jurisprudential method. He introduces each legal issue with linguistic and technical definitions, examines relevant textual evidence from the Quran and Sunnah alongside views of early authorities (salaf) and contemporary jurists, and weighs differing opinions (tarjih) to select the view closest to the scriptural evidence . The work focuses specifically on substantive legal rulings (furu' al-fiqh) and legal maxims rather than historical or sociological exposition .

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