MISHKAT

MISHKAT

An Anthropological Analysis of the Ḍayzan Marriage in the Holy Qur’an Revelation Context

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Ahmad Pakatchi 1
Mohammad Hasan Shirzad 2
Mohammad Hossein Shirzad 3
1 Associate Professor, Research Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Mazandaran University, Babolsar, Iran (corresponding author)
3 Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Mazandaran University, Babolsar, Iran
10.22034/mishkat.2024.448488.2322
Abstract
It seems that Ḍayzan was one of the customary marriages in pre-Islam Arab culture. In this type of marriage, the deceased person's wives are inherited by one of his close relatives, in most cases his son or his brother, and they marry him without dowry. Interpretation scholars, citing some traditions, believe that a number of Qur'anic verses related to the custom of Ḍayzan have been revealed and have criticized the age of ignorance marriage. This research has tried to analyze the origins of this marriage in ignorance culture by applying the cultural anthropology approach and investigate the reasons for its rejection in the Qur'anic culture. The results show that the formation reason of Ḍayzan in pre-Islam Arab culture was knowing marriage as an economic transaction. As a result, the dowry, as the purchase price of a woman, was paid to her father. However, because in the Qur’anic culture, a woman is recognized as the owner of dowry and an independent being who is not owned by a man, this marriage has been banned.
Keywords
marriage in the Qur’an
Ḍayzan marriage
dowry
knowing marriage as an economic transaction
ignorance Arab culture
cultural anthropology
Subjects
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