the dowry that he had settled. It was narrated by al-Jawzajani and al-Athram, and al-Zubayr ruled according to it regarding a female client of theirs. ‘Ali also said that in the hadith we narrated, and no one is known to have disagreed with them in their era, so it constitutes a consensus. Based on this, if the first holds onto her, she is his wife by the first contract. The explicit text from Ahmad is that the second does not need to divorce her, because his marriage was void in reality. The Qadi said: The analogy of his opinion is that he does need to divorce her, because this is a marriage whose validity is disputed, so he is ordered to divorce her in order to sever the effect of the second contract, like other invalid marriages. It is incumbent upon the first to keep away from her until she completes her waiting period from the second. If the first does not choose her, she remains with the second, and they did not mention a new contract for her. The correct view is that it is necessary to initiate a new contract for her, because we have realized the invalidity of his contract upon the arrival of the first, and the statement of the Companions is interpreted accordingly due to the existence of evidence for it; for a man’s wife does not become the wife of another merely by his abandoning her. Abu al-Khattab said: The analogy is that if we have ruled for the separation both apparently and in reality, then she is the wife of the second, and there is no option for the first, because she is separated from him by the ruling of the judge, so it resembles the case if he had annulled her marriage due to his insolvency. But if we did not rule for her separation in reality, then she is the wife of the first, and he has no option.

Section: Whenever the first chooses to leave her, he returns to the second for her dowry, due to the ruling of the Companions on that, and because he intervened between him and her through his contract with her and his consummation with her. There is disagreement regarding Ahmad regarding what he recovers; it was narrated from him that he recovers the dowry that he himself settled upon her. This is the choice of Abu Bakr and the opinion of al-Hasan, al-Zuhri, Qatadah, and ‘Ali ibn al-Madini, due to the ruling of ‘Ali and ‘Uthman that he is given the choice between her and the dowry that he had settled, and because he ruined the compensated item for him, so he returns to him for the compensation, just as witnesses for a divorce do if they retract their testimony. Based on this, if he had not paid her the dowry, he does not recover anything, and if he had paid some of it, he recovers what he paid. It is possible that he recovers the dowry from him, and the woman recovers what remains of her dowry. Another report from Ahmad states that he recovers from him the dowry that the second settled upon her, because the ruin of the private parts (bid‘) is from his side, and the return to him is for its value, and the private part is only valued based on a husband or one who acts in his stead, so it is necessary to recover from him the second specified amount, not the first. Whether the second husband recovers from the wife what was taken from him? There are two reports regarding this, mentioned by Abu ‘Abd Allah ibn Hamid: One of them is that he recovers it, because it is a liability that burdened the husband due to his having had intercourse with her, so he recovers it, like the person deceived (al-maghrur). The second is that he does not recover it, which is more apparent, because the Companions did not rule for recovery.