[citation needed] The length of a temporary marriage varies and can be as brief as an hour or stipulated as long as ninety-nine years.
For example, a traveling merchant might arrive at a town and stay for a few months, in that period he may marry a divorced widow, and they would take care of each other.
Although in modern times such a thing is considered obsolete, due to the availability of fast travel, and primarily exists in Iran and Shia regions for sexual pleasure reasons as a means of Halal dating.
[18][19][20] According to al-Raghib al-Isphahani,[19] Abu Dawood al-Tayalisi, and Qadhi Sanaullah Panipati, were major scholarly personalities born of Mut'ah.
[7][1] The Twelver Shias give arguments based on the Quran, hadith (religious narration), history, and moral grounds to support their position on mut'ah.
[citation needed] Julie Parshall writes that mut'ah is legalised prostitution which has been sanctioned by the Twelver Shia authorities.
[22] According to Zeyno Baran, this kind of temporary marriage provides Shi'ite men with a religiously sanctioned equivalent to prostitution.
[23] According to Elena Andreeva's observation published in 2007, Russian travelers to Iran consider mut'ah to be "legalized profligacy", which is indistinguishable from prostitution.
[a] These views are contested by others, who hold that mut'ah is a temporary wedlock option in Islam for avoiding illegal sex relations among those Muslims whose marriage is legitimate but, for certain constraints, they are unable to avail it.
[25][26][27][28] In authentic hadith found in Sahih Muslim 1407, Ali himself corrected Ibn Abbas regarding nikah mut'ah that the prophet Muhammad forbade it forever on the day of Khaibar: 'Ali (Allah be pleased with him) heard that Ibn Abbas (Allah be pleased with them) gave some relaxation in connection with the contracting of temporary marriage, whereupon he said: Don't be hasty (in your religious verdict), Ibn 'Abbas, for Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) on the Day of Khaibar prohibited that forever - along with the eating of flesh of domestic asses.Ali also narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari 4216 that it was forbidden by the prophet Muhammad at Khaibar: Narrated `Ali bin Abi Talib: On the day of Khaibar, Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) forbade the Mut'a (i.e. temporary marriage) and the eating of donkey-meat.Because of these narrations (and many others forbidding it), all Sunni scholars consider it forbidden until the Day of Judgement, and that anyone who does not consider it forbidden either have not heard the authentic hadith on the topic yet or are following their own whims and desires and twisting interpretations of the Qur'an.
[29] During the sixteenth century, during the reign of Akbar, the third emperor of the Mughal Empire who started the religion Din-i Ilahi, debates on religious matters were held weekly on Thursdays.
When discussing nikah mut'ah, Shi'ite theologians argued that the historic Sunni scholar Malik ibn Anas supported the practice.
[7][30] According to Sunni Arab jurisdiction of Jordan; if the nikah mut'ah meets all other requirements, it is treated as if it were a permanent marriage (i.e. the temporary conditions are invalid and void).
[36] In Ba'athist Iraq, Uday Hussein's daily newspaper Babil, which at one point referred to the Shi'ites as "Rafida", a sectarian epithet for Shia,[37] condemned Wahhabi clerics as hypocrites for endorsing Misyar while denouncing Mut'ah.
[22] Dawoud el-Alami, a lecturer at the University of Wales, wrote that the recent resurgence in the practice of mut'ah among Iraqi and Iranian Shi'tes was equivalent to "disguised prostitution".