she speaks to Zayd. She then marries another husband, who separates from her; thereafter, her first husband marries her again, and she speaks to Zayd. According to the majority, she is not divorced, whereas according to the author’s view, she is divorced, because his words, “then irrevocably separates from her,” are general. There is no doubt that the majority’s view is more correct in this case, owing to the strength of its reasoning.

There is another view: that the condition never resumes effect, even if the irrevocable separation was through something other than three divorces. They say that the apparent intent when a man says to his wife, “If you speak to so-and-so, you are divorced,” is that he intends it to apply within this marriage. It would not normally occur to him that it should remain operative even if he divorced her and later married her again. Moreover, once she has become irrevocably separated from him, her ties to him have been severed. The contingency related only to a previous marriage, and she became irrevocably separated from that previous marriage; this is a new marriage, so she is not divorced. For Allah, Exalted is He, has only made divorce applicable after marriage. He says: “O you who believe, when you marry believing women and then divorce them...” [al-Ahzab: 49] Thus, there is no divorce before marriage, whereas in this case he made the divorce contingent during a previous marriage, before the second marriage.

Thus, we have three views:

The first is that the condition resumes effect without qualification; this is the established school position.

The second is that it never resumes effect.

The third is the view of the majority: it does not resume effect if she became irrevocably separated through three divorces, but it does resume effect if the irrevocable separation was through fewer than three divorces.

All of this applies where the condition occurs during the period of irrevocable separation. But if it does not occur—for example, if he says, “If you speak to Zayd, you are divorced,” then divorces her and she becomes irrevocably separated from him, then he remarries her before she speaks to Zayd, and she speaks to Zayd after the remarriage—