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What is the religious ruling regarding a wife arriving home at 5:30 PM, when her husband had sworn by triple divorce that she be home at exactly 5:00 PM upon her departure to her family's house?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

First: An oath sworn by divorce is subject to the same ruling as a conditional divorce. If the one who swears by divorce breaks his oath, his divorce takes effect according to the majority of scholars, unless he did not intend divorce.

Second: The majority of scholars hold that pronouncing divorce three times, whether in a single utterance or a single session, constitutes a triple divorce, contrary to those who consider it a single divorce.

Third: Whoever makes a triple divorce conditional on his wife doing or refraining from something, and she does it, then he has broken his oath, and his wife becomes irrevocably divorced from him (baynunah kubra), unless he had an intention that contradicted the apparent meaning of his words. The Shafi'is are of the opinion that the husband does not break his oath if the wife does or refrains from the action out of forgetfulness or compulsion.

Fourth: Due to the significant disagreement on this matter, and because the answer depends on the intention of the one who swore the oath and the reason for the wife's delay, the questioner is advised to present the matter verbally to scholars.

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

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