Back to search

Does a divorce pronounced before consummation and legitimate privacy count as one of the three divorces, or does the wife still have three divorces after remarrying with a new contract?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If a man divorces his wife with one or two pronouncements, and her 'iddah (waiting period) ends, then he remarries her with a new contract, she returns to him with the remaining pronouncements.

However, if he divorces her with one or two pronouncements, then she marries someone else and he separates from her, and then she returns to her first husband with a new contract, scholars have differed. The majority of them (including Malik, Shafi'i, and Ahmad) hold that she returns to him with the remaining pronouncements, while Abu Hanifa holds that she returns to him with three pronouncements.

The case in question is the second scenario, meaning the wife returns to her husband after a divorce that did not reach three pronouncements, and thus he still has two pronouncements remaining.

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

Read the full answer on Ftawy