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Can one retract an oath of divorce by saying: "By divorce, you will not buy such-and-such for a year"? And what is the obligatory expiation if one does not remember the intention of divorce or threat at the time of the oath?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The fatwa (religious edict) states that an oath sworn by divorce leads to its occurrence upon breach, whether the intention behind it was actual divorce, threat, or anything else. This is the view of the majority of scholars. However, Ibn Taymiyyah holds that if an oath by divorce was not intended to entail the suspension of divorce, then its ruling is that of an oath by Allah, meaning an expiation for an oath (kaffarat yamin) becomes obligatory upon breach, and the divorce does not occur. Accordingly, it is not possible to retract the oath, and divorce will occur if the wife breaches it, or an expiation for an oath becomes obligatory according to Ibn Taymiyyah's view.

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

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