Said to His Wife ‘I'll Divorce You’ and ‘You are free’

18-11-2021 | IslamWeb

Question:

I said to my wife that I'll divorce you, meri taraf se farigh ho tum (you are free of me). Tell him you are single. is this a divorce. The sareeh statement clearly shows that I was threatening her with the divorce in future, the implicit words just came. I probably meant like we are done etc with the implicit statement. The last sentence I remember when I said single it was more like a slip of the tongue as I meant like tell him you are available as I'll divorce you and it's over something like that.

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

Your saying to your wife: “I will divorce you” is only a threat of divorce, so divorce does not take place with this statement.

Ibn Taymiyyah said in Majmoo’ al-Fataawa:

“The promise of divorce is not effective even if the wordings used are many, and it is neither obligatory nor desirable to fulfil this promise.” [End of quote]

Your saying to her after that: “You are free” and “Tell him that you are single” are metaphors of divorce, so divorce does not take place without intention.

Therefore, since you did not intend to initiate divorce to your wife, then divorce did not take place.

For more benefit that metaphors of divorce lead to divorce if husband intended divorce, please refer to Fatawa 332467, 327250 and 432442.

Allah knows best.