Islamic Fiqh > Marriage and family > Zihar (injurious comparison) > Zihar: definition and rules
Updated on 06 October 2026 at 10:50 PM
Zihar is the formula of prohibition inherited from the pre-Islamic era: a man would declare his wife to be like the back of his mother, which made her forbidden to him until he paid an expiation. The twenty sheets of the fiqh encyclopedia cover successively the zihar of the non-Muslim, of the child, of the coerced person, of the drunkard and of the foreign woman, then the formula, its timing, the words "you are forbidden to me", repetition, zihar over several wives, the conditions of the comparator, the position of the woman, and the effects of zihar. The positions of the four schools are given faithfully, with their Quranic and prophetic proofs and their classical references.