Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle

missing husband [who has been, say, put into jail, or taken prisoner
in a country far away from his hometown,] is dead, or that he
divorced her with three talâqs (triple divorce), [1] she will be free to
marry any other man. It is written in the explanation of the tenth
article of the book entitled Majalla that a missing man who is (at
least) ninety years old is judged to be dead by the judge. If her first
husband comes back the second nikâh (marriage) will be invalid,
even if she had heard that the man had died, or she had received a
letter from him informing her that he had divorced her with triple
divorce [Ni’mat-i Islâm]. It is harâm for a free man to be married
to more than four women, and for a slave man to be married to
more than two women, at the same time. It is not necessary to take
permission from the first wife in order to marry a second woman.
If the first wife does not consent to her husband’s second marriage,
even if she says that she will kill herself, the husband can still marry
the second woman. But it will be better if the husband gets the
consent of the first wife. It will be even better if he gives up the
second marriage in order to please the first wife. He will earn a lot
of thawâbs (rewards) for his forbearance. It will be harâm for a
man to marry even the first one if he cannot maintain justice or if
he is cruel to her, or if he cannot earn enough money to support
her. Please see the ninth chapter of the sixth fascicle of Endless
Bliss. Shiites say that it is permissible to marry up to nine women.
And Wahhabîs say that it is permissible to marry ten women.
Hamidullah in his book translated into Turkish under the title
‹slâma Giriş (Introduction to Islam) has misleading comments on
this subject.
It is sahîh for a man to marry a woman who is pregnant through
adultery before the child is delivered. But it is not permissible for
him to have sex with her until she delivers, and in this period it is
not wâjib for the man to support her. It is not valid to marry a
woman who is pregnant through nikâh until she delivers. It is
permissible for the adulterer to marry, and also to have sex with, a
woman with whom he has already committed adultery. The child
which is born after the sixth month after the nikâh will be his own
child. If the child is born before the sixth month and if he claims
that it is his child then it will be his child. It is jâiz to marry and
have sex before making istibrâ a woman who has already
committed adultery with somebody else. The âyat, “The
[1] Please see the fifteenth chapter of the sixth fascicle of Endless Bliss.
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