The marriage contract and its effects; A comparative study between the interpretations of four Shiites and Sunnis (Treasury of gratitude in the jurisprudence of the Qur’an and Paths of Understanding to the Verses of Al-Ahkam-The Collector of the Provisions of the Qur’an by Al-Qurtubi and the enlightening interpretation of the creed, the law and the method by Al-Zuhaili)

In the Holy Qur’an, God Almighty has stated the rules related to marriage and the effects of marriage contract. The commentators and jurists have used the Qur’anic verses to extract the rules and customs related to the marriage contract and its effects to make legislation in the Islamic societies for the laws related to the family – as a one of the main purposes of the Sharia (maqasid al sharia), i.e. maintaining the ancestry or family lines. There are differences between Islamic denominations in some of the rules of marriage and its effects. Since the Holy Qur’an is the most important source of rules among Islamic denominations, the difference in fatwas in most cases is due to the difference of interpretations in the verses that express the rules and effects of marriage contract. The present discussion examines the four interpretations of “Kanz al-Irfan fi Fiqh al-Qur’an” and “Masalak al-Afham to Ayat al-Ahkam” from Shia and the interpretation of “Al-Jamae L’ahkam al-Qur’an” by Qortubi and “Al-Tafseer al-Munir fi Aqeedah wa Shari’a wa al-Manhaj” from Sunnis in order to search for the roots of the difference between Shia and Sunni in marriage laws and the effects of marriage contract, and to bring the views of Muslims closer together. The result of this research is that these four interpretations use different methods in interpreting and explaining verses and using them to derive rules. However, they are the same in general rules of marriage such as validity and means of invalidity of the marriage contract. The rules that come from the verses on the legitimacy of marriage and its types are: The order to marry between maidservants and righteous servants, the necessity of self-control for those who are unable to marry, the permissibility of marrying 4 free women provided that there is no fear of injustice between them, the marriage of married women is not permissible, nor is it the marriage in forms of contracts other than “nikah” except Melk Yamin, permissibility or non-permissibility of marriage to women of the people of the book, those whose marriage is forbidden, marriage with polytheist women and other similar rules regarding the legitimacy of marriage. Also, in the discussion of the financial effects of the marriage contract, Shia and Sunnah interpretations are common in the three financial effects – marriage settlement and alimony and inheritance between spouses. The only difference is related to some secondary matters, such as the conditionality of marriage on the marriage settlement, the amount of alimony, the decree of alimony in the case of insolvency, disobedience of women and its causes, the extent of inheritance, the cases of inheritance, etc. The result is that there is no difference between the four interpretations in the main rules of marriage contract and its effects; There are some differences in the details of marriage contract and its effects, which go back to the commentators’ understanding of the verses used to understand those rules.