Al-Shafi‘i said in the new opinion: There is no ‘idda for her, due to the saying of the Almighty: "O you who believe! When you marry believing women and then divorce them before you have touched them, you have no ‘idda for them to count" (2). This is an explicit text (nass), and because she is a divorced woman who has not been touched, so she is similar to one with whom there was no seclusion. Our argument is the consensus of the Companions. Imam Ahmad and al-Athram narrated with their chain of narration from Zurarah ibn Awfa, who said: The Rightly-Guided Caliphs decreed that whoever lowers a veil or closes a door, the dower (mahr) becomes obligatory, and the ‘idda becomes obligatory (4). Al-Athram also narrated it from al-Ahnaf, from ‘Umar and ‘Ali, and from Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyib, from ‘Umar and Zayd ibn Thabit. These were famous cases that were not disputed, thus becoming a consensus. Ahmad weakened what was narrated to the contrary, and we have mentioned it in the Book of Dower (5). Furthermore, it is a contract regarding benefits, and the enabling (tamkin) (6) therein acts in the position of taking possession (istifa’) in the related rulings, such as a lease contract. The verse is specific to what we have mentioned, and it is not valid to draw an analogy (qiyas) to one with whom there was no seclusion because she did not provide the enabling (7).

Section: The apparent view of al-Khiraqi is that there is no difference between whether he was in seclusion with her while there was an obstacle to intercourse or without one, whether the obstacle was physical—such as impotence (jabb), erectile dysfunction (‘unnah), or vaginal obstruction (fatq or rataq)—or legal, such as fasting, ihram, menstruation, postpartum bleeding, or zihar; because the ruling here is attached (8) to the seclusion that is a likelihood of intercourse, not its reality. This is why if he were in seclusion with her and she brought forth a child within the gestation period, its lineage would be attached to him, even if he did not have intercourse with her. It has been narrated from Ahmad that the dower is not completed with the presence of an obstacle, and thus it is analogized in the case of the ‘idda. It has also been narrated from him that fasting the month of Ramadan prevents the completion of the dower with seclusion, and this indicates