The Jurisprudential–Legal Study of the Effect of Apostasy on Dowry

The requirement of marriage contract and its importance causes that its dissolution limits to specific cases and its annulment is not possible for occasion or occasions and it is not dependent on couple’s will. Involuntary termination is one of dissolution of marriage and of its occasions is apostasy (Arabic: ارتداد irtidad). The state of dowry (Arabic: مهر mahr) is one of the important issue in the dissolution of marriage for one of the parties’ apostasy that it has not been mentioned in the rules of Iran. And the judges and law scholars must refer to the opinions of the Islamic jurists to obtain the verdict of issue. The inexplicitness of the legislature to state the verdict of the issue and the disharmony of the jurists’ opinions with considering different assumptions of the problem, it is necessary to be made research to answer this question what the duty relating to dowry is at the circumstance of the apostasy of one of parties in Iranian legal system and Shia fiqh. It was studied this subject through a descriptive-exploratory research. Findings show that at the lack of stating the verdict of the issue by the legislature it should be refer to the jurists’ opinions. At the study of the jurists’ opinions it was revealed that according to different aspects of the issue it has been presented different attitudes that the present pater has attempted to examine the opinions and criteria and verdict of the issue in different circumstances.