The Matter of Parents in Marriage Contract According to Shawkani

In this study, Shawkānī’s (d. 1250/1834) opinions about parents in marriage contract and issues associated with it have been treated with the views of various Islamic sects and faqihs. Shawkānī, who lived in Yemen under the Ottoman sovereignty, had significant intellectual and scientific impacts over the scholars in his period and the next generations. Having generally shared the opinions of the majority of Islamic scholars about being parental approval in a marriage contract, Shawkānī emphasized that the parental approval becomes inevitable for marriage contract and the marriage contract without parental approval becomes invalid. Also, even though he stated that the girl’s consent is necessary, he shared the general opinion that in a marriage contract the girls had no jurisdiction. On the other hand, he did not care about opinions of the scholars defending that the parents can contract without their girl’s consent. Shawkānī does not explicitly enunciate whether the girl has the authority to depute for her marriage contract or not. From his interpretations and considerations, it is understood that the girl has no authority to depute for the marriage contract. On the other side, this opinion of him seems contradictory with his statement “the messenger of God, in his character of male, has got procuration of the girl or he is the parental guardian of the all muslim believers in his character of the head of the state”, which is related with a riwayah about two persons married by the prophet’s permission.