Amnesia and Its effect on Contract from the Perspective of Islamic Jurisprudence

Amnesia is the lack of paying attention to what is in the mind, which is considered as a psychological phenomenon by scholars and has been discussed in the authoritative Islamic sources. The main question is whether amnesia affects the contract based on Islamic jurisprudence or not. In general, the jurists have studied the amnesia based on the “Hadith-e Raf‘”. It should be noted that there is disagreement among Islamic jurists in this regard; some jurists consider that the “Hadith-e Raf‘”, and therefore amnesia, are effective in contract and considered the validity of the contracts of the person suffering from amnesia. However, some jurists consider that “Hadith-e Raf‘” and amnesia are not effective in contract and in case of concluding a contract in the situation of amnesia, the contract is considered void. Also, some jurists have considered in details that if it affects the reason, it is considered void and if it affects the cause, it is considered as having no effect on the contract. However, what it seems is that if amnesia disrupts the foundations of the contract, it will be void due to the lack of intention of the contract. Otherwise, it will not affect the contract.