Stranger, outsider (ajnabi)

Ajnabi in the lexicon is a stranger, someone foreign in fact or in meaning. Jurists give no single definition; the word is read in each place by its context. ¹ Its senses include a relative with no kinship tie, and one outside a contract or other matter. ¹ A person with a relation to a matter becomes a stranger when the cause ends, when an obstacle arises, or by a judgement; for example, the divorced wife, the apostate spouse, and a ward held to be incompetent. ² When a person with a relation and a stranger are both present, the person with the relation has priority. ² A person who acts for another without authority is called a fudul, and jurists differ on whether his act is valid. ³

A person with a relation to a matter becomes a stranger when the cause ends, such as divorce or the rescission of a sale, when an obstacle arises, such as apostasy of one spouse, or by judgement, such as restraint of a spendthrift. ²

The stranger may not look at a woman's adornment and body, according to some jurists, or at more than her face, hands and feet, according to others. He may not touch her or be alone with her, on the hadith forbidding entry to women and forbidding a man to be alone with a woman without a mahram. In one weaker Hanafi view it is forbidden to hear her voice. ^{4 5}