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Does a divorce take effect if the wife downloads a deleted program onto the same mobile phone or onto another mobile phone after the husband said, "By divorce, if you download this program, you are divorced," while he was in a state of anger and his intention was to threaten?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The majority of scholars hold that if someone swears by divorce and then breaks that oath, his wife is divorced, whether he intended to cause a divorce or merely to threaten. However, Sheikh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah is of the view that one who swears by divorce for the purpose of threat is bound by an expiation for an oath (kaffarat yameen) and is not bound by divorce. The relied-upon fatwa is the opinion of the majority. Therefore, if the wife downloaded the program on her mobile phone, a divorce occurs. But if she downloaded it on another phone, the matter differs depending on the husband's intention. If a divorce occurs and it is not the third, he may reconcile with his wife during her waiting period (iddah), while noting that the legitimate oath is to swear by Allah the Almighty, and swearing by divorce is among the oaths of the wicked.

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

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