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What is the ruling on an oath of divorce stated as: "We will not enter your house or the living room again," knowing that the house was entered and sat in?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The majority of jurists—and this is the established ruling—hold that swearing by divorce results in the occurrence of divorce upon breaking the oath, regardless of whether the intent was to effect a divorce, to threaten, or anything else. Therefore, divorce has occurred by your entering the room, and you may take back your wife if the three divorces have not been completed.

However, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah holds that swearing by divorce, when the intention is not to effect divorce but rather to threaten or emphasize, takes the same ruling as swearing by Allah. Thus, upon breaking the oath, the swearer must offer expiation for an oath (kaffarat yamin), and divorce does not occur.

If you entered the room forgetting your oath, some scholars, including the Permanent Committee for Issuing Fatwas, have favored the view that breaking the oath does not occur in such a case.

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

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