Does a divorce oath take effect if a husband asks his wife to break the television screen, then sends her a message saying, "If you don't break the screen, you are divorced," with the intention of the screen reaching his family, and the wife does not see the message until two days after the screen was delivered?
Writing a divorce by way of a metaphor (kinayah) does not effectuate divorce unless accompanied by intention. If you did not intend to send it nor to divorce, then nothing is incumbent upon you. However, if you intended divorce, then it takes effect due to the non-occurrence of what her divorce was conditioned upon, which is breaking the screen. Some scholars are of the opinion that divorce does not take effect if the wife was ignorant or forgetful of what her husband conditioned her divorce upon. And if your intention was "if the screen does not arrive" and you wrote "if the screen does not break" by mistake and oversight, and the screen has indeed arrived, then nothing is incumbent upon you.
Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026
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