Increasing Marriage Portion after Conclusion of Marriage Contract in Jurisprudence of Islamic Schools of Thought and Law of Iran

Specific rules such as division of marriage portion into halves in case of divorce before sexual intercourse and the wife’s right to refrain from submission until the marriage portion is paid have been applied to marriage portion according to Islamic jurisprudence and law of Iran. A significant question arises whether the spouses may, after concluding the marriage contract, increase the amount of specified marriage portion by mutual consent so that the marriage portion rules apply to the added amount? This paper, through descriptive-analytic method, has studied the above said issue in jurisprudence of Islamic schools of thought and Iranian law. The results of this paper indicate that there is controversy regarding this question in the Islamic jurisprudence. The Hanbalis and some Hanafis apply the rules of marriage portion to the added amount. According to the opinion attributed to Malik ibn Anas despite the increase is accepted, a number of portion rules would not be applied to this amount. The Imami and Shafi‘i jurists do not consider the added amount as marriage portion. A review of the evidences proves that non-application of portion rules to the added amount is stronger. As regards this question, there is controversy in the Iranian law. In order to prove the validity of agreement to increase the specified marriage portion and application of marriage portion rules to the added amount, a number of evidences including freedom and validity of contracts principles, Taslit Rule, marriage portion not being an essential element of permanent marriage, 24th verse of Surah Al-Nisa, the right to decrease the specified marriage portion and validity of calculating cash money marriage portions at the daily rate have been put forward. However, in this paper, after the above said evidences have been reviewed, their capability to prove and their signification as to the application of specified marriage portion rules to the added amount has been refused. Nonetheless, it has been emphasized that given the fact that marriage is a part of personal status, under principles 12 and 13 of the Iranian Constitution, the religion and religious schools minorities are free to obey the rules of their own religion and school.