Hilf (alliance and inheritance by alliance)

الحِلف

Hilf is lexically a covenant or alliance for mutual support; in pre-Islamic Arabia alliances bound an individual to a clan, two individuals, or two clans, as in the alliance of the perfumed and the alliance of the virtuous. ^{1 2 3} The ally protected his partner and bore his offences, and Islam forbade alliances for wrong or for inheritance beyond blood kin. ^{3 4} The hadith 'no alliance in Islam, and whatever alliance existed in the age of ignorance Islam only strengthened' is read by some as forbidding alliances for inheritance and support in wrong, and by others as allowing alliances for good and for right. ^{4 5} Inheritance by alliance was first practised and then abrogated, and the jurists differ on the abrogating verse. ^{5 6} The majority hold inheritance by alliance abrogated; the Hanafis, al-Hakam, Hammad and a report from Ahmad hold it survives after the other heirs. ^{6 7} For the Hanafis an alliance holder pays the blood-money for his patron and cannot shift his loyalty without consent; the majority deny that any blood-money arises from alliance. ⁸ An alliance between two groups is allowed by some scholars for mutual support in right and the removal of wrong, and forbidden by most on the apparent reading of the hadith. ^{8 9} The entry closes at the next headword, halq (حلق), on p.7261.