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A misyar marriage (Arabic: نکاح المسيار, romanized: nikāḥ al-misyār or Arabic: زواج المسيار, romanized: zawāj al-misyār) is a type of marriage contract allowed by some Sunni Muslims. The husband and wife thus joined are able to renounce some marital rights such as living together, the wife's rights to housing and maintenance money (nafaqa), and the husband's right to home-keeping and access. The practice is often used in some Islamic countries to give a legal recognition to behavior that might otherwise be considered adulterous via temporary, contractual marriages.[1]
The Sheikh of al-Azhar mosque, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi and theologian Yusuf Al-Qaradawi note in their writings and in their lectures that a major proportion of the few men who take a spouse in the framework of the misyar marriage are men who are married or women who are either divorced, widowed or beyond the customary marriage age.[2] Arab News reported in 2014 that the “misyar marriages became a widespread reality” in the Saudi kingdom.[3]
Misyar marriage fits within the general rules of marriage in law, on condition merely that it fulfill all the requirements of the sharia marriage contract, i.e.:
However, some Sunni scholars and organizations have opposed the concept of Nikah Misyar altogether.[5]
In the view of the Saudi Islamic lawyer and member of the Higher Council of Ulema of Saudi Arabia Abdullah bin Sulaiman bin Menie, the wife can, at any time as she sees fit, retract her renunciation of her financial rights and require of her husband that he give her all of her marital rights, including that he live with her and provide for her financial needs (nafaqa). The husband can then either do so, or grant her a divorce.[6]
For these reasons, Professor Yusuf al-Qaradawi observes that he does not promote this type of marriage, although he has to recognise that it is legal, since it fulfills all the requirements of the usual marriage contract.[7] He states his preference that the clause of renunciation be not included within the marriage contract, but be the subject of a simple verbal agreement between the parties, since Muslims are held by their commitments whether they are written or verbal.[8]
In recent years, Islamic clerics in Saudi Arabia have declared misyar contracts as "legally valid" contracts.[9]
Misyar has been suggested by some authors to be comparable to mut'ah (temporary marriage) and that they find it for the sole purpose of "sexual gratification in a licit manner".[10][11] According to Karen Ruffle, assistant professor of religion at the University of Toronto, even though mutʿah is prohibited by Sunni schools of law, several types of impermanent marriage exist, including misyar (ambulant) marriage and ʿurfi (customary) marriage, which gained popularity in parts of the Sunni world.[12] According to Florian Pohl, assistant professor of religion at Emory University's Oxford College, misyar marriage is a controversial issue in the Muslim world, as many see it as a practice that encourages marriages for purely sexual purposes, or that it is used as a cover for a form of prostitution.[13]
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