The Prophet's last prohibition of mut'a...

The Prophet's last prohibition of mut'a, which took place after the conquest of Mecca, embraced all the previous occasions on which mut'a was permitted. None of the transmitters of hadi'th say that the Prophet permitted mut'a while he and his were together in their homes and not travelling. As for the hadith of Sabra, which states that the Prophet permitted mut'a at the Farewell Pilgrimage in the year 10/632, al Tahawi acknowledges that this is not in keeping with the other hadi'th.

But having investigated all the traditions in this regard, he has found that another hadi'th almost identical to that of Sabra, but related by 'Abd al-'Aziz, places this occasion at the conquest of Mecca, when the men complained of separation from their wives and the Prophet gave them permission to practice mut'a. They could not have complained of such separation during the Farewell Pilgrimage, since all of the wives were present, and the single men could have taken permanent wives in Mecca.

So the special situation that existed during the other journeys and battles was lacking. However, it is possible that the date of Sabra 's hadi'th is correct; in this case we can explain the situation as follows: Since the Prophet usually permitted mut'a during journeys away from Medina, in this case also he permitted it; but then he banned it for the final time wanting all the Muslims to know about it, for all of them were present for the Farewell Pilgrimage.

There is also the fact that the Meccans were in the habit of practicing mut'a widely. Thus the Prophet banned mut'a in Mecca so that they would understand that they could not continue in their former custom, The Shi'i answer to the Sunni argument on the basis of hadi'th can be summarized as follows: [^44] The hadi'th demonstrating that mut'a is forbidden are in conflict with those that show it is permitted.

They also conflict with hadi'th that show that mut'a continued to be permitted during the times of the Prophet, Abu Bakr, and 'Umar, up until the time that 'Umar banned it. The correct course of action is to prefer those hadi'th which establish its permissibility, for a number of reasons: The hadi'th indicating mut'a's permissibility outnumber those which show that it is banned.

Everyone agrees that the hadi'th indicating that mut'a was permitted at certain times are authentic, but this is not the case concerning those which indicate that it was banned.