Fatima.Mernessi_The-Forgotten-Queens-of-Islam-EN

154 The Arab Queens
After the doctrine of the infallibility of the imam, inheritance
laws are one of the major points of conflict between Sunnis and
Shi'ites, although there are also others on which the two communities
do not agree. In his very concise summary of the differences in
personal status laws between Shi'ites and Sunnis, Ahmad Amin
adds mut'a marriage to the list. Nikah al-mut'a, literally 'pleasure
marriage', is a contract that links a man and a woman for a specified
limited time, from a few days to a few months or more, at the end
of which the husband must pay the woman a certain sum fixed
in advance. The Sunnis consider this agreement nothing but zina
(fornication) pure and simple, a form of prostitution. The principal
reason for the Sunni condemnation of this practice is that mut'a
marriage does not require witnesses and is thus deprived of the
public character so essential to Sunni marriage. A second reason is
that it does not give the partners the right to inherit from each
other, and a third is that the fate of any children born of the
union is more than uncertain. Obviously there is no possibility for
repudiation in this form of marriage, since the marriage is selfannulling
upon the fixed termination date. 55 After all these divergences
in matters of marriage and inheritance, in which women
seem to play a different role, one might expect a similar outlook in
political matters, with the Shi'ite caliph of Cairo displaying a more
conciliatory attitude and being better disposed toward a queen like
'Arwa, an attitude that would not be a homologue of Sunni law.
However, Caliph al-Mustansir reacted exactly like a Sunni caliph
to the death of al-Mukarram: he opposed her assumption of power
and dispatched messengers who sharply advised her to get married
and remain in the background behind her spouse. All would be in
order if 'Arwa would consent to marry Saba Ibn Ahmad, her
husband's cousin, whom al-Mukarram had designated as his successor
('ahd) on his deathbed. But here the historical sources, until
now in agreement, diverge on the details of this succession and the
conditions of 'Arwa's second marriage.
Some historians specify that al-Mukarram had carefully divided
responsibilities between 'Arwa and Saba, bequeathing to 'Arwa the
wasiya and to Saba the da'wa. The wasiya confirmed 'Arwa in her
position as holder of earthly political power, and the da'wa designated
Saba as inheritor of the spiritual mission as leader of the
Isma'ili community of Yemen. 56 Other historians simply say that al-
Mukarram gave the 'ahd to his cousin Saba without specifying what
it covered. 57 The word 'ahd, which has the meaning of 'obligation',
'engagement', 'pact', 'treaty', or 'convention', is the accepted word