Accordingly, legal disposition is broader in scope than voluntary donation, because it is valid from someone whose voluntary donation is not valid.

Let us consider khulʿ: is it a voluntary donation, or is it a legal disposition and an exchange?

The answer is that khulʿ is, in reality, a voluntary donation, because the wife voluntarily gives her husband what she offers in return for the khulʿ. Although there is something received in exchange, it is fundamentally a voluntary donation.

Thus, if a wife is not legally permitted to make voluntary donations—such as one who is under legal restriction—and she wishes to seek khulʿ from her husband, she may not do so, because her voluntary disposal of her wealth is invalid.

His statement, “or an unrelated person,” means that an unrelated person may voluntarily offer the compensation for khulʿ, so that the husband grants his wife a khulʿ. For example, someone may come to the husband and say, “Grant your wife a khulʿ, and I will give you one thousand riyals.” This is valid.

If someone were to ask, “What does an unrelated person have to do with the woman?” If he were her father, brother, or a similar relative, we would say that they voluntarily offered the compensation for a beneficial purpose. But what interest does an unrelated person have in doing so? For this reason, some scholars said that it is not valid for an unrelated person to offer the compensation for khulʿ, because he gains nothing from it.

However, the correct view is that it is valid for an unrelated person to do so. An unrelated person’s voluntary provision of the compensation for khulʿ falls into categories:

The first is that it is in the husband’s interest—for example, when he knows that the husband is weary of his wife, no longer wants her, and dislikes her, yet is unable to part from her because he has given her a large bridal gift, leaving him in a predicament. In such a case, we say: if an unrelated person voluntarily offers