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What is the religious ruling regarding a divorce that occurred against the husband's will after he was threatened, and was not carried out by the original registrar (Ma'dhun) who was prosecuted and warned of dismissal, and who did not sign the divorce certificate, and the two witnesses were the wife's brothers, and it was affirmed that the divorce was without pressure or coercion despite the absence of anyone from the husband's family?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The fundamental principle is that the divorce of one under duress does not take effect. Therefore, if you predominantly believe that those who threatened you are capable of carrying out their threat, and that you are unable to fend off the harm from yourself, then this is considered duress, and divorce does not occur under such circumstances. However, if you predominantly believe that they are incapable of carrying out their threat, or that you are capable of fending off their harm, then this is not considered duress, and divorce would take effect at that time. For duress to be established, it is stipulated that the coercer must be capable of carrying out the threat, that the coerced person must be unable to resist, that the coerced person must predominantly believe the threatened outcome will materialize, and that the threat must be immediate. Registration or witnessing is not a requirement for divorce to take effect; rather, it is recommended.

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

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