Iqtisar (a ruling taking effect only at the moment it arises)

In the jurists' usage, iqtisar means that a ruling takes effect when its cause arises, and not before or after it, as with an immediate divorce. Ibn 'Abidin defines it as a ruling taking effect at the present moment. ^{1 2}

Al-Haskafi lists four ways: inqilab, iqtisar, istinad and tabyin. Inqilab is when something that was not a cause becomes one, as when a conditional divorce takes effect once its condition is met. ²

Istinad is a ruling taking effect now and then tracing back to an earlier time, provided the subject remains throughout, so it has retroactive effect. Iqtisar has none. ^{2 3} Some modern writers propose the terms fasakh and infisakh for dissolution by istinad, and inha' and intiha' for dissolution by iqtisar. ³

The Shafi'is distinguish a dissolution that removes a contract from its origin from one that removes it from its time. The second group includes dissolution for a defect in the goods, for bankruptcy, revocation of a gift, and annulment of a marriage for a defect. The sounder view in each case is that it takes effect from that time. ^{3 4}

Tabyin is when a ruling is shown to have held from an earlier time. A man who makes a divorce depend on a condition, and then the condition is found to have been met the day before, is divorced from that earlier day. Tabyin differs from iqtisar, where the ruling holds only from the present. ⁴

Iqtisar covers immediate contracts such as sale, salam, hire and qirad, and immediate dissolutions such as divorce and manumission. Where a dissolution has retroactive effect, it falls under istinad. For example, a man who says "you are divorced a month before so-and-so dies" is not divorced until that person dies a month later, and then the divorce is traced back to the start of the month. ⁴