There remain some important issues mentioned in al-Rawḍ. One is his statement: “Whoever divorces in his heart, the divorce does not take effect” (1). Thus, if a person inwardly resolves to divorce his wife, the author of al-Rawḍ says that the divorce does not take effect, based on the Prophet’s ﷺ saying: “Allah has pardoned my ummah for what their souls whisper to them, so long as they do not act upon it or speak of it” (2). This man merely entertained the thought of divorce; therefore, no divorce takes effect. Furthermore, divorce is a dissolution, and a dissolution must be effected verbally, just as a contract must be verbally concluded.

Likewise, he says: “If he utters it or moves his tongue, it takes effect.” If he actually utters it, the divorce takes effect—there is no issue in that. But if he merely moves his tongue without uttering anything, the author says that the divorce takes effect. The correct view, however, is that it does not take effect, since no verbal utterance occurred, and divorce requires verbal utterance.

If he suffers from obsessive misgivings and the words, “My wife is divorced,” slip from his tongue without intent, the divorce does not take effect. Even if he intended divorce but said it in order to rid himself of these obsessive misgivings, the divorce does not take effect, because he is under compulsion. The Prophet ﷺ said: “There is no divorce under constraint” (3).

If it is asked: Suppose a man afflicted with obsessive misgivings regarding purification doubts whether anything has exited from him or not, so he says, “I shall urinate until I am certain that I have invalidated my purification,” and then urinates. He is then in a state of ritual impurity. Is this not analogous, since in both cases he did so in order to ward off obsessive misgivings? We say: Ablution is invalidated by this, whether it occurred voluntarily or involuntarily, unlike divorce. That is the distinction.