Recordings › Mut'ah From The Sunni Point Of View Today? | Differing Opinions | Mufti Abu Layth · 19 Mar 2022 › Segment 1 of 1
Is mut'ah (temporary marriage) haram for Sunni Muslims?
hadith hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis ahaadith malik ibn anas malik bin anas imam maalik imam malik ibn anas imaam imams prayer leader maaliki malikite malikiyyah maliki school hanafite hanafiyyah hanafi school muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam halaal permitted lawful haraam forbidden iman imaan eemaan eeman sahabah sahaba sahabi sahabiyyah sahabiyat ahl al-sunnah ahl as-sunnah ahlus sunnah ahl al-sunna sunnis salafis salafism wahhabi wahabi wahhabism 'alim aalim ulema ulamaa shaykh shaikh sheik shuyukh shaykhs nikah nikkah nikaah nikah nama nikahnama walee awliya awliyah guardian talaq talaaq triple talaq talak amanah amana amaanah amanat rahmah rahma rahmatIs mut'ah haram in Sunni Islam? A minority view and Ibn Ashur
Play from 0:00
The video loads from YouTube only when you press play. Click a time in the transcript to seek.
Watch the answer
Open on YouTube at 0:00The player starts at 0:00, where the answer begins.
This segment0:00 to 9:02 · 9 min 02 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenMufti Abu Layth says most Sunnis hold mut'ah haram but a minority, including Ibn Ashur, held it is not categorically haram; follow the view you hold and do not fight over it.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth answers a chat question on the validity of mut'ah from the Sunni point of view, pointing to his earlier videos and to a detailed book and lectures in Arabic by a contemporary Maliki scholar from Morocco, whose name the captions do not catch, arguing from Sunni sources that it is not categorically haram. Mufti says this was also the view of Ibn Ashur, that it is based on need, of Ibn Taymiyya's grandfather [?], and of early authorities beginning with companions such as Ibn Abbas and Imran ibn Husayn, and wonders why Hanafi books down to al-Hidayah attributed the view to Imam Malik. Mufti says the majority of Sunni Muslims today consider it haram and a minority do not; whoever follows those who call it haram should treat it as haram, and it is nothing to fight over. Mufti rejects the emotional argument 'would you let your mother do it', and stresses Ibn Ashur's standing as a scholar respected across denominations, comparing him to Shah Wali Allah. Mufti contrasts this with marrying while secretly intending divorce, which he says most Sunni schools and Ibn Abd al-Barr treat as not haram but which to him is haram because it deceives the woman, and closes by saying Sunni Islam is made of many schools and its diversity is a strength.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedCan you give insight into the validity of mut'ah from the Sunni point of view?
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says mut'ah is one of those matters where, if you follow those who say it is haram, it is haram for you, and that it is not something to fight over.
“it's one of those things that if you follow those that say it's haram then it's haram if you don't you don't”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine0:00 to 9:02 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
mufti much love from australia i would love to know if you can give insight into the validity of mutaha from the sunni point of view today i don't know if i could really go into that today but i will briefly say i have got um i believe some videos on it on youtube if you watch them um there there has been research done um there's a very good book by a contemporary maliki sunni uh scholar of from morocco um
and it's called sunni and it's an amazing book a very detailed study and he he has some lectures on youtube which you can watch as well they are in arabic he has one debate with the salafi scholar as well um and it's it's definitely although the debate is kind of okay because as debates go they're not often healthy but it's still a good overview so he is showing from sunni thought that
is actually not haram and that has been the opinion of certain other scholars in the past including um the great maliki legend of the 20th century ibn ashur one of my indirect teachers through and so that's also his opinion that it's not it's based on need and not something that is categorically haram um and it was also the opinion of ibn tamiya's granddad much the dean of nataemia and it has been the opinion of several sunni authorities in very early islam
beginning with the companions of the prophet salallahu salem like ibn abbas and some people challenge whether it was if not but whether even abbas left the view or not uh but it was the view of other imran ibn hussein and a few other companions and then some of the and but then it becomes a political issue um some people had claimed it was imam malik's view hence the hanafiya continued to in all their books write that it was imam malik's view up until even in the hidayah they say
i've always been intrigued what made them like they must have been you know like people say oh they just didn't know the mother of imam i find that a hard sell you know because i feel that there must have been certain voices that had reached them that were maliki that must have echoed that for them to believe it it i mean they say you know it's it could just be ignorance it could be but i um i don't know i find it
much more than that because i can see this um this discussion in the background so that's where it is i hope that's a bit of an and people so today the majority of muslims sorry sunni muslims majority of sunni muslims consider it haram and there is a minority that considered not haram and i would say look it's one of those things that if you follow those that say it's haram then it's haram if you don't you don't i don't think this is not something to fight over this is not something to
and there's no need to be so you know people one of the things is people get very um emotional with their arguments like they will say well if it's halal would you let your mother do it i mean this isn't absurd and it's an argument from the heights of insecurity not everything that is in islam is about your mother or your sister or your father don't make it about you it's about islam and it's about what the
scholars of islam may disagree like um is in 30 volumes he was deemed the sheikh islam of the 20th century i mean he's not a small figure he's somebody loved by everyone even the selfies or the you you can't name a sect except or a denomination except they have to respect him i mean and that's rare in islam that you get scholars that everybody kind of still admires it's it's i'm telling you it's very very especially in recent times so you could get great scholars
so but one denomination will hail him and another one will say oh no he was a jahil so you could and some people would say he was this you know this person was that and so not every so you could take that you could take the world today pick a scholar and somebody will call him a jahil and somebody will call himself islam but he is one of those figures that everybody for the most part they've respect regardless of them not agreeing with him like he has this position of oh it's a bit like shaoli allah dahalawi you know from the indian subcontinent it
doesn't matter if your brailwi diobandi alle hadees or whatever everybody writes shaolia ladder you know it's like how did that happen but it it did so you get that sometimes you get people who everybody just has this respect for even if they don't agree with them so he is like then he's a huge figure you know it's not just a so and i'm not saying people could say look he and maybe you got it wrong and that's fine you don't have to believe it it's not your view this is a view and
you have the other view so if you subscribe to the view that it's something is haram then you should not be doing that because you believe it's haram okay and people say well you know by saying by showing you could lead people astray but if in islam is a mercy the schools of felk all disagree you know what do you want to do throw away the methods of islam even on this so for example even on suffer from the hanafi method what was his opinion you know one could argue it's still very similar what about the ruling in islam that you could marry a woman
by deceiving her that you're not that you just in your mind are thinking this is a temporary thing but you're not telling her so once you've married her and after the weekend or after whatever you decide to just say the the math herbs the sunni schools for the most part consider that halal and to me that would be haram and to other ulama that would be haram because you're deceiving you're conning a person and you you and you're obviously shattering the trust and faith so that ought to be that is
but yet ibn abdulbar imam now we all these people write on it they say nothing wrong that's not they'll say that you know they may they may say um you know it's not we don't like it some of them might say okay we don't like it but it's not haram they'll make it clear that it's not haram ibn adelbar has a whole section on it so this thing which today people may call nikhil missile or some people call it whatever but this or the classical word for it as in this is in the classical fit books if you want to search it you see so sunni islam is made up of
loads of different schools of thought you have the hambalis the shafi's the malikis the hanafi's and each of these schools has sub-schools so to say that oh we sh you know we don't want differences in islam you don't know islam unfortunately because islam celebrates i mean it's a beautiful diversity it's a strength of islam that people within it have so many opinions
Paragraphs overlapping 0:00 to 9:02. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2022-03-19-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/2kqbncu09ym/s/1/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2022, March 19). Is mut'ah (temporary marriage) haram for Sunni Muslims? [Video, segment 2022-03-19-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/2kqbncu09ym/s/1/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2022. "Is mut'ah (temporary marriage) haram for Sunni Muslims?" Video, segment 2022-03-19-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded March 19, 2022. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/2kqbncu09ym/s/1/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2022-03-19-S01, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Is mut'ah (temporary marriage) haram for Sunni Muslims?}}, year = {2022}, month = {3}, date = {2022-03-19}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/2kqbncu09ym/s/1/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/2kqbncu09ym/s/1/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2022-03-19-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
Something wrong here?
Tell us what is wrong and it will be checked against the recording. Nothing changes until a person has reviewed it.
Sending a note needs JavaScript, which is off or unavailable in this browser. Nothing has been sent.
No name, email address or account is asked for or stored, and the inbox does not store your IP address. For rate limiting it keeps an unreadable fingerprint of your connection for 48 hours, and our database provider's own logs record connections as every website's do. Only your note, its kind, the page and the moment in the recording are kept, for review.