Mut'a / Temporary Marriage (Ibn Majah's Wording)
Ibn Majah 2566 reinforces the mut'a framework with cross-collection attestation. The substantive issues are addressed in entry m01 (Muslim 1422) and entry n08 (Nasa'i). The Ibn Majah contribution: cross-collection consistency of the inconsistent timeline and unresolved Sunni-Shia divergence.
The analysis from entries m01 and n08 applies fully here.
The cumulative cross-collection picture:
1. Muslim 1422 (m01): Mut'a permitted at Khaybar, prohibited later. 2. Nasai 3392 / 3378 (n08): Same teaching, with permission/prohibition tension preserved internally. 3. Ibn Majah 2566 (this entry): Same teaching, with cross-collection attestation. 4. Sunni jurisprudence prohibits mut'a; Shia jurisprudence permits. 5. The strongest hadith (Muslim 1217) attributes the prohibition to Caliph Umar.
The text is what we would expect of a contested human jurisprudential tradition with timeline uncertainty and political-authority attribution, and not what we would expect of a unified divine teaching on a fundamental sexual-ethical question.
The Sunni-Shia divergence on mut'a is among the most thoroughly documented fractures in comparative Islamic jurisprudence. Sachiko Murata, Muta': Temporary Marriage in Islamic Law (Muhammadi Trust, 1987), traces the origin of the divergence between Sunni and Shia law to competing readings of Q 4:24 and conflicting hadith on the timing of the prohibition. Joseph Witztum, “Q 4:24 Revisited,” Islamic Law and Society 16:1 (2009), argues on text-critical grounds that there is a strong case for understanding the second part of the verse as addressing mut'a — meaning the Quranic basis for the Sunni prohibition is itself exegetically contested, not settled. The practical modern reality is documented by Shahla Haeri, Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi‘i Iran (Syracuse University Press, 1989), whose ethnographic fieldwork shows mut'a operating as a formally codified short-term contract ranging from one hour to ninety-nine years — not a fringe novelty but a functioning institution with deep classical roots.
The attribution of the prohibition to Caliph Umar rather than to Muhammad is the most structurally significant problem. Muslim 1217 records Jabir ibn Abdallah stating that Umar, upon becoming caliph, declared: “Any person who comes to me with a marriage of appointed duration, I would stone him.” This is the voice of a political ruler announcing a new ruling, not a companion confirming an existing prophetic prohibition. Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge University Press, 1997), documents how Umar's caliphate involved the exercise of independent legislative authority over matters the early community understood as still open — a pattern that renders the Sunni attribution of the prohibition to Muhammad historically fragile. Jonathan A.C. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (Oneworld, 2014), observes more broadly that the hadith tradition contains genuine tensions between reports that preserve competing early-community positions, and that later canonisation can obscure those tensions rather than resolve them.
- P1. Ibn Majah 2566 preserves the mut'a framework with cross-collection attestation.
- P2. The hadith is established across multiple canonical collections.
- P3. The timeline of permission and prohibition remains inconsistent across narrations.
- P4. Sunni and Shia Islam reach opposite conclusions on mut'a's current permissibility.
- P5. The strongest hadith (Muslim 1217) attributes the prohibition to Caliph Umar, raising Caliphal-vs-prophetic authority questions.
- P6. Modern Twelver Shia communities practice mut'a institutionally; Sunni communities forbid it.
- P7. A clear divine teaching would not produce contradictory hadith timelines and opposite sectarian conclusions on a sexual-ethical question. (See entry m01.)
Ibn Majah 2566 completes the cross-collection record on mut'a, reinforcing the textual instability around the practice. The Sunni-Shia split is structural; the timeline is inconsistent; the attribution of prohibition to Umar undermines the prophetic-source claim. (See entries m01, n08 for substantive analysis.)
Mut'a was prohibited by Muhammad himself.
Internal inconsistency on timeline. (See m01.)
Q 4:24 refers to ordinary marriage.
Verse is interpretively ambiguous; Shia read mut'a. Joseph Witztum, “Q 4:24 Revisited,” Islamic Law and Society 16:1 (2009), argues on text-critical grounds that the second part of the verse has a strong case for addressing mut'a, making the Sunni reading a contested exegetical position rather than a transparent reading of the text. (See m01.)
Umar confirmed Muhammad's teaching.
Muslim 1217 records Umar using first-person language — “I would stone him” — announcing a new ruling, not citing a prophetic precedent. Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad (Cambridge University Press, 1997), documents that Umar exercised independent legislative authority on matters the early community treated as open, which undermines the claim that Umar was merely confirming an existing prohibition by Muhammad. (See m01.)
Modern Shia mut'a is degraded.
Structural form is the original. (See m01.)
Sunni-Shia agree on most things.
Disagreement on sexual ethics is not minor. (See m01.)