Marriage without Wali – The Hanafi Perspective
By Ebrahim Saifuddin
Introduction
Women require a wali (guardian) who ensures and secures their rights. The question over here is whether the woman needs permission from her wali to marry or whether she has the right to marry anyone whom she likes without permission. The Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali schools say that nikah entered into by a woman herself, without the permission of her wali, is invalid and void. The Hanafi ruling on this matter is that a woman can enter into a marital contract by herself without permission from her wali. The definition of such a “woman” will come later on and it does not incorporate every woman.
The position of all the four schools in Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama’a is that the rulings of all four schools of thought are valid. However, the ghair muqallid accuse the Ahnaf of following an opinion contrary to hadith. This allegation of theirs is quite baseless and it is only due to their superficial knowledge of hadith as well as of the ruling of the Hanafi school that they raise such allegations.
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