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The question

Is a wife forbidden to her husband if she refuses his intimacy on the grounds of fatigue, and does his warning to her of prohibition take effect?

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Source: FtawySummary from Ftawy's records · added here Sep 2, 20261 min readAlso available in العربية
The answer

Your statement to your wife, "If I do not sleep with you tonight, you will be forbidden to me," carries two possibilities:

1. A promise of prohibition: In this case, nothing is binding upon you.

2. An immediate execution of prohibition: If you intended divorce, then it is a divorce. If you intended ẓihār (a form of conditional divorce where a husband declares his wife to be like his mother or another unmarriageable relative), then it is ẓihār. If you intended an oath or did not intend anything specific, then an expiation for breaking an oath (kaffārat yamīn) is binding upon you. This applies if you swore concerning your own action.

However, if the intention was that you swore concerning her action (e.g., "If you do not allow me to sleep with you tonight"), and she knew about it but then did not allow you, due to ignorance (of the consequence), then nothing is binding upon you, based on what some Shafi‘i scholars have favored, because she did not cause you to break your oath intentionally.

Summary from Ftawy's records · added here

Reviewed by El Fatwa's sharia committee.

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Ftawy
Original fatwa ID
122999
Added here
. This is when the answer was added to El Fatwa, not the fatwa's date.
Text
Summary from Ftawy's records, reviewed by El Fatwa's sharia committee.
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