Marriage in Islam

In Islam, nikah (نِكَاح nikāḥ) is a contract between two people. Both the groom and the bride are to consent to the marriage of their own free wills. A formal, binding contract – verbal or on paper – is considered integral to a religiously valid Islamic marriage, and outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom and bride. Divorce in Islam can take a variety of forms, some executed by a husband personally and some executed by a religious court on behalf of a plaintiff wife who is successful in her legal divorce petition for valid cause. Islamic marital jurisprudence allows Muslim men to be married to multiple women (a practice known as polygyny). In addition to the usual marriage until death or divorce, there is a different fixed-term marriage known as zawāj al-mut'ah ("temporary marriage") permitted only by the Twelver branch of Shi'ite for a pre-fixed period. There is also Nikah Misyar, a non-temporary marriage with the removal of some conditions such as living together, permitted by some Sunni scholars. In Islamic law, marriage – or more specifically, the marriage contract – is called nikah, which already in the Quran is used exclusively to refer to the contract of marriage. In the Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, nikah is defined as "marriage; marriage contract; matrimony, wedlock". (In some marriages in some predominantly Muslim cultures such as in Pakistani culture, there may be a delay between the nikkah and the actual enjoinment of the couple. This is called rukhsati in desi culture— i.e. when the wife leaves her family's home to move in with her husband, having been assured that her husband has obtained a good job and home and has received her mahr. This should not be confused with Islamic tradition though, as it is a distinctly cultural practice). In Arabic-speaking countries, marriage is commonly called zawāj (زواج, from the Quranic term zawj (زوج), referring to a member of a pair), and this term has recently gained currency among Muslim speakers of other languages as well.