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Does divorce occur if the husband says "upon divorce" and then pauses without completing his statement?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If a husband says: "Divorce be upon me" and then falls silent, nothing is incumbent upon him, and no divorce occurs thereby. This is the correct view. Some scholars believe that divorce does occur thereby, while others consider it an oath.

Sheikh Ibn Uthaymeen holds the view that the statement "Divorce be upon me" is neither a divorce nor an oath unless the subject of the oath is mentioned, such as "Divorce be upon me if I do such-and-such."

However, if it becomes customary among people that this phrase signifies divorce, then it would indeed be a divorce, because people's speech is interpreted according to what they understand from their customary language.

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

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