Back to search

Does a divorce issued by the husband from outside the home via phone three times take effect, followed by his repeating the word of divorce verbally several times at home? And is this considered one divorce or more? And is it permissible to take the wife back after three days based on her insistence?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Gathering the three divorces (talaqat) in a single utterance or in one session, without reconciliation or a new marriage contract, is forbidden according to the majority of scholars. They base this on the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) anger when a man divorced his wife three times at once, and on Allah's saying: "Divorce is twice."

Scholars differed regarding the validity of such a divorce. The majority hold that it counts as three divorces. However, Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and his student Ibn al-Qayyim, along with groups from the four schools of thought and the Dhahiris, chose the view that it counts as a single divorce. Their evidence includes the hadith of Ibn Abbas in Sahih Muslim, which states that the triple divorce was considered one during the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), Abu Bakr, and part of Umar's caliphate, as well as the hadith of Rukanah, who divorced his wife three times, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) made it one.

They also argued that the Lawgiver forbade this type of divorce, and prohibition implies invalidity. Therefore, it is permissible to adopt the view of those who ruled that it counts as a single divorce, while being aware that the more scrupulous approach is to follow the opinion of the majority.

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

Read the full answer on Ftawy