A Contract, Not a Sacrament

The nikah is the Islamic marriage, and the classical jurists treat it as a contract rather than a sacrament, an agreement, with an offer and acceptance, concluded before witnesses. Its essential elements are the consent of the two parties, the presence of witnesses, and the mahr, a gift or payment from the groom that becomes the bride's own property and financial security. In the practice of most schools the bride's guardian (wali) has a role in the contracting, though the schools differ over how far an adult woman may contract her own marriage.

Because it is a contract, its terms could be negotiated, and stipulations could be written into it. The ceremony itself may be brief and is often conducted by a scholar or official, though no priestly mediation is required; the feast that publicises the marriage, the walima, follows separately. Scholars such as Kecia Ali have examined how the early jurists conceived marriage in terms drawn partly from the law of sale and property.