What is mehr?
Mehr (mahr) is a gift the husband must give his wife because of the nikah. The Qur'an commands it in Surah An-Nisa (4:4). It belongs to her alone: neither her husband nor her family may take it without her free consent. It is not a price for her, and it is the opposite of dowry, which Islam does not ask of a bride's family.
The minimum and Mehr-e-Fatimi
- Minimum mehr: in the Hanafi school, 10 dirhams of silver, about 30.6 g (2⅝ tola). A mehr agreed below this is raised to the minimum.
- Mehr-e-Fatimi: 500 dirhams of silver, about 1,530.9 g (131¼ tola). Sayyidah 'A'ishah described the mehr the Prophet ﷺ gave his wives as twelve and a half uqiyah, which is 500 dirhams (Sahih Muslim 1426). Many families choose it as a blessed amount.
- There is no fixed maximum, but the sunnah is to keep mehr within what the groom can truly pay. An amount that is never meant to be paid is a debt he will still owe.
Prompt and deferred mehr
Mehr can be paid at the nikah (mu'ajjal, prompt) or later (muwajjal, deferred), or part now and part later. Deferred mehr remains a debt on the husband until it is paid, and it becomes due at once on divorce or death. Writing it in grams of silver or gold, rather than only in money, helps it keep its value over the years.
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