and his paternal aunt, maternal aunt, and sister. This is zihar according to the majority of scholars, including al-Hasan, Ata, Jabir ibn Zayd, al-Sha'bi, al-Nakha'i, al-Zuhri, al-Thawri, al-Awza'i, Malik, Ishaq, Abu Ubayd, Abu Thawr, and the People of Opinion. This is the newer of the two statements of al-Shafi'i. In the older one, he said: Zihar cannot be except with a mother or a grandmother, because she is also a mother, and the expression that came in the Quran is specific to the mother; thus, if he deviates from it, what Allah the Almighty has obligated therein does not attach to it. Our evidence is that they are forbidden due to kinship, so they resemble the mother. As for the verse, He said regarding it: "And indeed, they are saying a statement that is reprehensible and a falsehood" [Quran 58:2], and this is present in our issue, so it runs in its same course. Attaching the ruling to the mother does not prevent the establishment of the ruling in others if they are like her. The third type is that he compares her to the back of someone who is permanently forbidden to him other than his relatives, such as foster mothers, foster sisters, wives of fathers and sons, mothers of wives, and stepdaughters with whose mothers he has consummated marriage; this is also zihar. The disagreement regarding it is like the one preceding it, and the argument for both schools is what has already been mentioned, with the addition [regarding] foster mothers that they are included in the general term of mothers, so they fall under the text, and the rest are in their meaning, so the ruling is established for them.

The second section: If he compares her to the back of someone who is temporarily forbidden to him, such as his wife’s sister, her paternal aunt, or a stranger. There are two narrations from Ahmad regarding this; the first is that it is zihar, which is the choice of al-Khiraqi and the statement of the companions of Malik. The second is that it is not zihar, which is the school of al-Shafi'i, because she is not permanently forbidden, so the comparison to her is not zihar, like a menstruating woman or a woman in a state of ihram among his wives. The argument for the first [view] is that he compared her to a forbidden person, so it resembles what if he compared her to his mother, and because his mere statement: