The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Do not divorce women unless you have cause to doubt them, because Allah does not favor those who merely look for new experiences." The Prophet (pbuh) also said: "The lawful thing which Allah hates the most is divorce." Shariah requires a man who wants to marry more than one wife to do justice to all his wives and treat them the same. However, some take advantage of the fact that Islam permits polygamy. They marry women and then divorce them just to marry another. Some scholars say such acts are prohibited in Islam. Misyar marriages have become increasingly common in the Kingdom. They are unions in which women waive most of the rights that they would otherwise enjoy in a normal marriage. Men who enter such unions are often already married and keep their misyar marriages secret so that their first wives do not find out. In fact, misyar is taken up by men looking for new experiences, men who are only after sex. Even the women who agree to get married in this way do it for money and money only. The majority of renowned scholars prohibit this type of marriage because it conflicts with the main purpose and objectives of a lawful marriage, which is to build a family and preserve the human race. Misyar marriages have become a negative practice and have given men and women an excuse to enter into new experiences for the sake of money. Nowadays, many men enter into misyar marriages and marry more than one woman just for sex. Once they have quenched their animalistic sexual desire, they divorce the women. Some of them do not divorce women but leave them suspended and only divorce them if they return their dowry. These men then do the same with other women. Abdulrahman Al-Lahim, a well-known lawyer, has called on the authorities to ban misyar marriages because some men are taking advantage of it to fulfill their sexual desires and deceive women by paying them a dowry and then taking the dowry from them as a condition for divorce. He suggested that polygamy should only be permitted if the husband meets certain conditions such as proof that he is financially capable of providing for a second wife and proof that he is not marrying again just to fulfill his sexual desires. The third condition is the consent of the first wife. This is the only way we can prevent the above negative practices associated with misyar marriages.
