Divorce in the present tense is effective only with intention
Fatwa No: 198269

Question

I recontacted because I did not find any cases similar to mine in your answers offered. The triple divorce without intention of divorce was never asked. I would have a precision and an opinion on your part. I Repeat 3 times "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" three times but in those I did not intend to initiate divorce. I say this with no intention of divorce. I did not trigger a second and a third divorce but I do not insist on the first divorce since I did not want a divorce. All I knew was that if I ever wanted a divorce once, I would have repeated 3 times "I divorce you" I saw that repeating "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" three divorces were as if you did not insist on the first divorce, but in my case I could not focus on the first divorce because I did not want to cause any divorce! So while believing that divorce was triggered by repeating 3 times "I divorce you" with intent to divorce, if I repeat 3 times without any intention of divorce, what happens there? I need an answer in order to live peacefully.

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, the Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.

 

First of all, you should know that we are very precise in what we write and in the Fataawa we refer the questioner to. It might be that we detailed the matter and gave an answer that included some probabilities as you did not specify a certain case to us, so that you may compare your case against one of the probabilities that we mentioned. Thus, the matter lies in your hands firstly and lastly. You are the one who issued divorce and you know best your intention when issuing it, among similar considerations.

However, the Fatwa of the Mufti and the ruling of the judge do not make what is forbidden lawful or make what is lawful forbidden. It is confirmed that Umm Salamah narrated that the Prophet said: “I am only a human being, and you people (opponents) come to me with your cases; and it may be that one of you can present his case eloquently in a more convincing way than the other, and I give my verdict according to what I hear. So if ever I judge (by error) and give the right of a brother to his other brother, then he (the latter) should not take it, for I am giving him only a piece of Fire.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

If the matter is as you mentioned, that you said to your wife: “I divorce you” and you repeated this three times, then divorce in the present tense does not take place except with intention, and we referred you in this regard to Fatwa 92476.

Therefore, if you did not intend to divorce your wife by saying that statement, then divorce does not take place.

Allaah Knows best.

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