The Ruling for Simultaneous Marriage with a Woman and her Niece from the Perspective of Muslim Jurists

Marriage prohibitions have been treated by divine religions other than Islam too but not with the same extent and detail. Among the issues concerning marriage prohibitions, simultaneous marriage with an aunt and her niece has led to diversifying perspectives in the Islamic Ummah. The entirety of Sunni scholars plus Shaykh Saduq, as a Shiite scholar, have acknowledged this type of marriage as generally and absolutely forbidden/ unlawful by reference to Hadiths quoted from the Prophet and the Imams of the Shia. Dawud Al-Zahiri, Uthman al-Batti, the Khawarij and some Imamiyya jurists have acknowledged this type of marriage as absolutely lawful based on Verse 24 of Surah al-Nisa’; hence, rejecting the above mentioned Hadiths as incapable of modifying or specifying the ruling given by the Book of Allah. The majority of Imamia jusrists have preferred distinguishing the cases and issuing the rules suitable for each, and, by reference to Hadiths that have been quoted from Shiite Imams concerning this distinction, consider the Hadiths that point to the absolute unlawfulness of this type of marriage as modified and specified by other ones. The common ground between the majority of Sunni and Shiite scholars is the necessity of paying respect to aunts and their position in the family. Sunni jurists have preferred the prohibition of this type of marriage for the sake of respecting blood ties, but Shiite jurists have considered it as lawful and dependent on permission and distinction of cases for the sake of respecting moral values. The results of the present field study, which was conducted in December 2015 in the form of a questionnaire survey and covering the years after 2011, suggest a lack of social support for this type of marriage, as explained in detail in the body of the same paper.