‘Ali reported the Prophet as saying, “There is no divorce before marriage, no manumission till one has possession, no continuous fasting, no orphan hood after the age of puberty, no suckling after weaning, and no silence all day up to the night”.* * Observing a complete day's silence as a religious practice is rejected. It is transmitted in Sharh as-sunna.

Allah's Messenger (SAW) said, "There is no divorce except after marriage, and no freeing (of a slave) till one has possession (of one)." [Reported by Abu Ya'la and al-Hakim graded it Sahih (authentic), but it is Ma'lul (containing a hidden defective).

Yahya related to me from Malik that he heard Rabia ibn Abd ar- Rahman say that a slave could marry four women.

Malik said, "This is the best of what I have heard about the matter."

Malik said, "The slave differs with the muhallil if the slave is given permission by his master for his ex-wife. If his master does not give him permission, he separates them. The muhallil is separated in any case if he intends to make the woman halal by marriage."

Malik said, "When a slave is owned by his wife or a husband owns his wife, the possession of each of them is rendered void without divorce. If a man, for instance, is married to a slave-girl, and then he buys her, he must divorce her as a matter of course. They can then re- marry. If they re-marry afterwards, that separation was not divorce."

Malik said, "When a slave is freed by his wife who owns him and she is in the idda-period from him, they can only return to each other after she has made another marriage."

In Sharh as-sunna it is related that the Prophet restored a number of women to their husbands by the first marriage when they had both accepted Islam after the change of religion and dwelling. Among them was the daughter of al-Walid b. Mughira, the wife of Safwan b. Umayya. She accepted Islam on the day of the Conquest, but her husband fled from Islam. Then his cousin Wahb b. ‘Umair was sent to him with God’s Messenger’s cloak as a guarantee of security to Safwan, and when he came God’s Messenger granted him a respite of four months before accepting Islam, so she stayed with him. Umm Hakim daughter of al-Harith b. Hisham, the wife of Ikrima b. Abu Jahl, accepted Islam in Mecca on the day of the Conquest, but her husband fled from Islam and went to the Yemen. Umm Hakim journeyed and came to him in the Yemen, and when she invited him to accept Islam he did so, and they remained married. Malik transmitted it in mursal form on the authority of Ibn Shihab.