Thus, if a man says to his wife, “If you speak to Zayd, you are divorced,” and she speaks to him while still married to him, she is divorced. If he then takes her back and she speaks to him again, she is not divorced, because the contingent divorce was exhausted by the first occurrence; thus, its occurrence the second time is no longer a condition upon which divorce is contingent.
If someone asks: What is the difference between this case and the first case?
The answer is that, in the first case, the condition occurred while she was no longer married to him, so the subject was not susceptible to the ruling, and the divorce therefore did not take effect.
His statement, “then irrevocably separates from her,” includes both an irrevocable separation effected by three divorces and one effected by less than three. An irrevocable separation through three divorces takes place as soon as he says, “You are divorced three times.” An irrevocable separation through fewer than three divorces occurs when the waiting period ends, or when the divorce is in return for compensation. The author’s words encompass both cases: whether the irrevocable separation was through three divorces or fewer, as long as she has become irrevocably separated from him and the condition occurs during that separation. If he then marries her a second time, the condition resumes effect.
The majority of the scholars said that if the irrevocable separation resulted from three divorces, the condition does not resume effect, because the legal consequences of the first marriage came to an end with the three divorces. Thus, if he divorces her three times, she then marries another husband, the second husband subsequently separates from her, and the first husband then remarries her, she returns to him having no divorces remaining.
Accordingly, if the condition occurs in the new marriage, the wife is not divorced. For example, a man says to his wife, “If you speak to Zayd, you are divorced,” while he has only one divorce remaining. He then gives her the third divorce, and before the waiting period ends