The Obligation to Fulfill the Conditions Between the Two Spouses

Question:
What is your opinion, Your Eminence, regarding the list that the bride's family writes for the groom, which includes the dowry and other items, such that if he divorces her, she has the right to all of this? Is this correct?

Answer:
There is nothing wrong with what they agree upon, but they should not be strict. They should be lenient with the husband so that they do not turn people away from marriage, and from their daughters. The woman's family should not be strict in these matters. As you heard in the seminar, the preachers and advisors have worked hard on this issue, but few have responded.
What is prescribed for the believer is not to be extravagant in the mahr (bridal gift) or the walimah (wedding feast), neither on the part of the husband nor the wife. Rather, the families of both the husband and the wife should cooperate in being economical and avoiding extravagance, so that the way is opened for people to marry, and so that marriage becomes easy for young men and young women.
As for being extravagant in mahr and in wedding feasts, all of these are obstacles—as has been mentioned more than once—that these are obstacles that should be removed. Believers should be discerning, and they should know their affliction and know their disease, so that they may know their cure.
There is no doubt that among the diseases is being extravagant in mahr, being extravagant in wedding feasts, and being extravagant in hiring female singers and entertainers who are harmful and not beneficial, and we seek refuge in Allah. In this regard, believers, both men and women, should cooperate: the husband and his family, the wife and her family, the neighbors, and the relatives should cooperate in everything, from reducing the mahr and not being extravagant in it, to reducing the wedding feasts, so that the walimah is a light occasion for the couple and their relatives without waste, so that neither these nor those are burdened.
As for when they agree on a list where he gives so much and so much, ten thousand riyals, five thousand riyals, a bedroom, jewelry of such and such, and they agree on it between them, there is nothing wrong with it; they agreed on this. Muslims are bound by their conditions, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: It is agreed upon that it is authentic. The most deserving of conditions to be fulfilled is that by which the husband makes lawful the wife's private parts. So if he conditions something for her, conditions a specific item for her, or conditions a known amount of dirhams, and the marriage takes place on that basis, he must fulfill it, and he has no right to delay it, because he made her private parts lawful through this matter.