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Is a wife unlawful to her husband if he constantly swears an oath of divorce against her by saying, "You are divorced by three," then apologizes and reconciles with her?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If a husband utters an explicit, immediate, and unconditional triple divorce to his wife, then it counts as three divorces according to the majority of scholars. If he swears by triple divorce, or makes it conditional on an event and then breaks his oath, the fatwa (religious edict) we adopt is that it counts as a triple divorce, resulting in an irrevocable divorce (baynunah kubra), and this is the opinion of the majority of scholars.

However, Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah holds that the ruling on swearing by divorce, when the intention is not to effect a divorce but rather to threaten or emphasize, is the same as swearing by Allah. If one breaks such an oath, an expiation for breaking an oath becomes obligatory, and no divorce occurs. When divorce is intended, he believes that uttering the word "triple divorce" counts as a single divorce.

It is advisable to present such matters to trustworthy scholars. It should be noted that a permissible oath is sworn by Allah Almighty. As for swearing by divorce, it is an oath of the corrupt, and it may lead to undesirable consequences.

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

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