Jāhilī Marriage Forms

The four forms of marriage in the Jahiliyya: the unlawful, the istibda' marriage, the group marriage, and the badal marriage; Islam abolished them all except the first.

Abu Dawud related from A'isha that marriage in the Jahiliyya was of four kinds: a marriage on the pattern of people's marriage today; the istibda' marriage — a man sending his wife to another man to conceive by him, seeking nobility of offspring; a marriage in which a group under ten men gather and lie with a woman, and when she conceives and gives birth the child is attributed to whom she indicates; and open prostitution-marriage ¹.

They also had the badal marriage: a man saying to his fellow, "Give up your wife and I will give up mine — and I will give you more" ².

Islam abolished all these forms except the first, and forbade marrying what the fathers had possessed: "Do not marry women whom your fathers married" (al-Nisa' 22) ².