an oath for which he must offer expiation.” (1) This is the first case.

The second case is that he intends divorce by it. Thus, by saying, “You are forbidden to me,” he intends to separate from her. This is a divorce, because the wording is capable of effecting separation. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Actions are only by intentions, and every person shall have only what he intended.” (2)

The third case is that he intends ẓihār by it—that is, that she is forbidden to him. This is a point over which the scholars differ.

Some scholars say that it constitutes ẓihār, because the meaning of the one who pronounces ẓihār saying to his wife, “You are to me like my mother’s back,” is: “You are forbidden to me.” However, he has likened her to the highest degree of prohibition—the back of his mother—because the person most severely forbidden to him is his mother.

Other scholars say that it does not constitute ẓihār, because saying, “You are to me like my mother’s back,” is not like saying, “You are forbidden to me.” The former is more heinous and more repugnant; thus, the ruling is confined to it and cannot be extended by analogy to what is less severe. Yet what appears correct—and Allah knows best—is that they are equivalent: that is, intercourse with you is forbidden to me, just as my mother is forbidden to me. It is therefore ẓihār.

His statement, “Or, ‘You are like my mother’s back’; this is ẓihār, even if he intends divorce by it,” is because this is what the Quran has stipulated. If we were to say that, when a man says to his wife, “You are to me like my mother’s back,” while intending divorce, it is a divorce, we would have ruled concerning