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Does divorce occur if the wife takes something from her husband's house without his knowledge, remembering his threat of divorce in the form of "You are divorced if you take anything from my house without my knowledge" or "You are divorced if you take anything from my house without my permission," then the wife forgets this threat and takes out something else? And does divorce recur every time she does that? And what is the ruling on someone who swore an oath of divorce and then he or his wife forgot, or forgot the wording of the oath? And if divorce occurs, what must be done to take the wife back?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Firstly: It is not permissible for you to prevent your wife from disposing of her gold by gifting or selling it, even if it is all of the gold. This is the preponderant view of the majority of scholars.

Secondly: You are not obliged to divorce your wife if she takes something out of your house without your permission, even if this happens repeatedly, due to the doubt regarding the suspension of divorce, and the original state is the continuation of the marital bond. This ruling applies to someone who swore an oath of divorce but then forgot the wording of his oath.

Thirdly: The expiation for the oath that you performed is not binding upon you because the breach of the oath did not occur. Even if the breach had occurred, it would still not be binding according to the view of the majority of scholars.

Fourthly: A conditional divorce cannot be revoked according to the majority of scholars, including the four schools of thought, in contrast to Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah.

Fifthly: If someone makes a divorce conditional on something, and his wife does it out of forgetfulness, the divorce has occurred according to the majority of scholars, in contrast to the Shafi'is and one narration from the Hanbalis, which is also the view of Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah.

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

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