in which there is a small dower, and she verified his claim, then she has nothing other than that. If she denied it, her statement is accepted because she is a denier. If she acknowledged it but said: "They are two dowers in two marriages," while he said: "Rather, it is one marriage that we kept secret then made public," then her statement is accepted, because the apparent [meaning] is that the second is a valid contract that provides a ruling like the first, and she is entitled to the dower of the second contract and half of the dower of the first contract, if he claimed the lapse of half of it due to divorce before consummation. If he persists in his denial, the woman is questioned. If she claims that he consummated with her in the first marriage, then divorced her with an irrevocable divorce, then married her with a second marriage, she shall swear an oath regarding that and will be entitled [to the dower]. If she acknowledges that which would cause the lapse of half the dower or all of it, she is bound by what she acknowledged.

Section: If he marries four women in one contract with one dower, such as if they have one guardian—like the daughters of paternal uncles, or [if they are] wards of one master, or [if] they have no guardian and the judge marries them off, or they have guardians who authorized one agent, and he concluded their marriage with one man, and he accepted, then the marriage is valid and the dower is valid. This is the view of Abu Hanifa, and it is the most famous of the two views of al-Shafi'i. The second view is that the dower is invalid and the dower of an equal (mahr al-mithl) is obligatory because what is obligatory for each one of them from the dower is unknown. Our argument is that the total is known, so it does not become invalid due to its unknown nature in the breakdown, just as if he purchased four slaves from one man for a single price, or likewise a heap of grain for a single price, while he does not know the quantity of its measures. When this is established, the dower is divided among them according to the proportion of their dowers, according to the view of the Qadi and Ibn Hamid. This is the view of Abu Hanifa, his two companions, and al-Shafi'i. Abu Bakr said: It is divided among them equally, because he attributed it to them in a single attribution, so it is among them equally, just as if he had gifted it to them or acknowledged it for them, and just as if a group purchased a garment for different prices, then they sold it for profit or through bargaining, the price is among them equally even if their capital shares differed. [He argued this] because the claim of partitioning it leads to the unknown nature of the compensation for each one of them, and that invalidates it. Our argument is that the transaction