Mahr Calculator
Today's value of a precious-metal-weight Mahr — live gold/silver prices, Shar'i minimum, Azwaj an-Nabi and Fatimi presets, prompt or deferred.
Maliki puts the minimum at 3 dirhams and Mahr Fatimi at 500. Shafi'i and Hanbali set no minimum at all: anything of genuine value counts, including non-material Mahr such as teaching the Quran, and both also favour 500 dirhams for Mahr Fatimi. Hanafi and Maliki require the Mahr to be material — property, cash or goods.
This calculator shows today's value of a Mahr (Islamic dower). The three traditional benchmarks — Shar'i minimum, Mahr Azwaj an-Nabi and Mahr Fatimi — are all priced in silver, because that is the metal the dirham figures behind them are stated in. Choose Custom to enter your own weight in either silver or gold, or switch to a flat currency amount. Mark it as prompt (paid at marriage) or deferred (owed later); a deferred Mahr that was never paid becomes a debt the husband's estate owes the wife, settled before any inheritance is distributed.
How to Use This Mahr Calculator
Pick a Mahr type — Shar'i Minimum (the Hanafi floor, 10 silver dirhams), Mahr Azwaj an-Nabi (the Prophet's ﷺ standard, 500 silver dirhams), Mahr Fatimi (480 silver dirhams), or Custom to enter your own weight and choose gold or silver. The calculator fetches live gold and silver prices automatically; use the manual override field if you'd rather enter your own price per gram, or if the live price is temporarily unavailable. Prices are fetched in USD — enter a currency conversion rate above if you want the result in your own currency.
Mark whether the Mahr is prompt (paid at or shortly after the marriage contract) or deferred (owed later). This doesn't change the calculated value, but it changes what the number means for estate planning — a deferred Mahr still owed at death is a debt against the estate, not an inheritance share.
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What Is Mahr? The Islamic Dower Explained
Mahr (مهر) is a mandatory gift the husband gives the wife as part of the marriage contract (nikah) — not a symbolic gesture, but a legal and financial right the Quran establishes directly:
وَآتُوا النِّسَاءَ صَدُقَاتِهِنَّ نِحْلَةً
"And give the women [upon marriage] their [bridal] gifts graciously." (Surah An-Nisa 4:4)
The word used, nihlah, means a free, willing gift — not a fee, not a transaction, and not something owed to anyone but the wife herself. Mahr becomes her exclusive property the moment it is due, and no one else — not her husband, her father, her brothers — has any right to spend it or claim it without her free consent.
Prompt (Muqaddam) vs. Deferred (Mu'akhkhar) Mahr
Couples typically split the Mahr — or agree to pay it entirely as one or the other — into two categories:
| Type | When It's Paid | Treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Prompt (Muqaddam) | At or shortly after the marriage contract | Paid in full up front — no ongoing obligation |
| Deferred (Mu'akhkhar) | Later — commonly on divorce or the husband's death | Remains an outstanding debt owed by the husband (and, after his death, his estate) until paid |
A deferred Mahr that is still unpaid when the husband dies does not disappear and is not folded into Faraid — it is settled as a debt of the estate first, exactly like a bank loan or unpaid bill, before any heir (including the wife herself, in her separate capacity as an heir) receives a Faraid share. See our guide on what is paid before inheritance is distributed in Islam for the full order, and how Mahr works when a husband has multiple wives — each wife's Mahr is settled as a separate, independent debt.
Four Traditional Benchmarks for Setting a Mahr
Rather than negotiating a figure from nothing, many Muslims use one of a small set of traditional benchmarks — the calculator above offers a quick-fill for each:
| Type | Basis | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Shar'i Minimum | Hanafi floor — 10 silver dirhams, the least a Mahr may validly be | ~30.61g silver |
| Mahr Azwaj an-Nabi | The Prophet's ﷺ standard Mahr to most of his wives — 500 silver dirhams | ~1,530.9g silver |
| Mahr Fatimi | Given by Ali (RA) to Fatimah (RA) — 480 silver dirhams, the narration major contemporary Hanafi research bodies hold to be most authentically established (some narrations: 500) | ~1,469.66g silver |
| Custom | Any amount both parties genuinely agree to | — |
Only the Shar'i Minimum is a genuine floor — a husband cannot validly agree to less than 10 silver dirhams. Mahr Azwaj an-Nabi and Mahr Fatimi are benchmarks some couples choose to follow out of religious preference, not legal requirements — Islamic law sets no fixed maximum for Mahr, and a couple may agree to any amount both find fair, provided it is genuinely agreed and not coerced.
Correcting a Widely Repeated Mix-Up: Mahr Fatimi Is Not 87.48 Grams of Gold
A figure of 87.48 grams of gold is widely circulated online as "Mahr Fatimi." That figure is actually the separate gold Nisab threshold this site's own Zakat Calculator uses — it corresponds to 200 dirhams of silver, not the dirham count that defines Mahr Fatimi. Mahr Fatimi is stated in silver dirhams, so this calculator prices it in silver: 480 dirhams ≈ 1,469.66 grams of silver, at the Hanafi standard of 3.0618g of silver per dirham. Major contemporary Hanafi research bodies hold 480 to be the most authentically established narration, though 500 is also reported — which is why Mahr Fatimi and Mahr Azwaj an-Nabi (500 dirhams) are close but not identical. You may also see a gold-weight equivalent quoted, derived from the classical nisab parity (87.48g gold ≡ 612.36g silver, about 7:1). That parity described the classical era; gold today trades near 68:1 against silver, so pricing a classically-derived gold weight at current market rates overstates the amount by roughly ten times. We price the silver figure for that reason.
Regional Norms and Wide Variation
What counts as a "typical" or "good" Mahr amount varies enormously by country, community and family custom — there is no single correct figure worldwide. Some communities favour modest, mahr-fatimi-style amounts as a matter of religious preference; others set substantial sums as a matter of social status or family expectation, a practice several scholars caution against since it can price marriage out of reach and drift toward the very extravagance the Sunnah discourages. What Islamic law requires is not a specific number, but that the amount is genuinely agreed between the couple, clearly recorded in the marriage contract, and honoured — whether that record is a formal nikah document or, for older or informal marriages, whatever written or witnessed evidence exists.
Can a Wife Waive or Return Her Mahr?
Because Mahr belongs to the wife exclusively, only she can choose to reduce, delay, or forgive it — no one else's consent decides this. The same verse that establishes Mahr as a right continues: "But if they give up willingly some of it, then take it and enjoy it" (Surah An-Nisa 4:4), explicitly permitting a wife to waive part or all of her Mahr if she does so freely. A waiver made under pressure — from a husband, in-laws, or family expecting her to "give it back" as a condition of the marriage proceeding — does not meet this standard and is not considered valid by the majority of scholars, since the verse ties the waiver to willingness, not to social expectation. In practice this matters most at two points: during marriage negotiations, where some families pressure a bride into accepting a token Mahr she would not otherwise choose, and at divorce, where a husband may ask the wife to waive an unpaid Mahr as part of a khula settlement — permissible only if she agrees freely, not as leverage to secure the divorce.
Mahr Is Not a Dowry
The two are frequently confused, but they run in opposite directions. A dowry, in the historical and South Asian cultural sense, is paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family — and can carry serious social and legal problems in the traditions that practise it. Mahr is paid by the groom to the bride, belongs to her alone, and is a right established by the Quran, not a cultural custom layered on top of the marriage. See our companion post Mahr vs. Dowry: Why They're Opposites, Not the Same Thing for the full comparison.
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