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What is the ruling if a husband says to his wife: "I divorce you if you do not come down and obey your husband, you will not stay in this house," if his intention was to threaten her, and then she refused and did not come down – does the divorce occur?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Your statement to your wife, "By divorce, if you don't come down and obey your husband, you won't stay in it," is an oath of divorce and a conditional statement. If you did not intend divorce by it, but rather intimidation and urging her to come down, then its ruling, according to the preponderant opinion, is that of an oath. If you break it, you must offer an expiation for an oath. The expiation for an oath is feeding ten needy persons, or clothing them, or freeing a slave. If you cannot find any of these, then fasting for three days. If your intention by "you won't stay in it" was that she should not spend the night and remain in the house until morning, and she left and did not spend the night, then you have not broken your oath and nothing is incumbent upon you.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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