Highlight · 30 August 2026
Ijab & Qabul — the words that make a marriage
الإيجاب والقبول
Not the engagement, not the feast, not the registration. A marriage is concluded by an offer and an acceptance, spoken before witnesses.
A nikah is not concluded by love, by the engagement, by the feast, or by the paperwork. It is concluded by two sentences — an offer spoken by the bride's guardian and an acceptance spoken by the groom, heard by witnesses. Everything else surrounds those two sentences.
Allah calls the bond mīthāqan ghalīẓan, a solemn covenant — the same phrase used of the covenants taken from the prophets (4:21). And the Prophet ﷺ pronounced such an offer himself: to the man who owned nothing, "I have given her to you in marriage for what you have of the Qur'an."
An offer, then an acceptance
The walī — her guardian — speaks the offer, or a representative does so on his behalf, which is why an official often says it. The groom answers with his acceptance. Two witnesses hear both, and the mahr is named — it is her right, paid to her.
Any language the parties understand. Arabic is not a condition.
It cannot proceed over her refusal
A previously married woman must give clear agreement; a virgin is asked too, and her silence counts as permission — the Prophet ﷺ said so when ʿĀʾishah pointed out that she would be shy.
When a father imposed a marriage on his daughter, the Prophet ﷺ annulled it.
Witnessed, and announced
The contract is spoken before witnesses and the marriage made known. That publicity is what separates a nikah from a secret arrangement, and it is why the mahr named aloud becomes provable.
The acceptance "in one breath"
Grooms are often made to repeat the acceptance until it comes out in a single breath. No text requires that. What the texts establish is an offer and an acceptance, heard clearly by the witnesses. The measures of separation found in the fiqh books are the reasoning of later scholars, who differed over them; the one-breath rule is a custom grown on top of that reasoning.
Follow whatever procedure the one conducting your contract directs — but the nervousness itself invalidates nothing.
Qur'an: An-Nisa 4:21 (a solemn covenant) · An-Nisa 4:4 (the mahr as her right) · Ar-Rum 30:21 (tranquillity, love and mercy).
Hadith: the Prophet ﷺ pronouncing the marriage — Sahih al-Bukhari 5087 · her consent, and silence as the shy bride's permission — Sahih al-Bukhari 5136 · the imposed marriage annulled — Sahih al-Bukhari 5138 · "there is no marriage without a guardian" — Sunan Abi Dawud 2085 · announcing the marriage — reported by Ibn Majah.
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