Chapter: Divorce in the Past and the Future

If he says, “You are divorced yesterday,” or, “Before I married you,” and he does not intend it to take effect at the present time, it does not take effect. But if he means a divorce that had previously issued from him, or from Zayd, and this is possible, his statement is accepted, ............

His statement: “Divorce in the past and the future.” He did not mention the present, because that is the basic case: a person only pronounces a divorce that takes effect in the present. Yet he may pronounce divorce with reference to the past, or with reference to the future.

Know that, since scholars write their works for instruction and training, they mention issues which may never occur, or which, if they do occur, are rare. They have even discussed such cases as a person dying while leaving behind twenty grandmothers, or bequeathing imaginary things. They mention such matters as exercises for the student.

His statement: “If he says, ‘You are divorced yesterday.’” She is not divorced, because divorce is a legal act of initiation, and such an act cannot relate to the past. It must necessarily coincide with the utterance or come after it. A divorce in the past is instead a report. So, if it is a report, was she divorced yesterday? He did not divorce her, and therefore it does not take effect—unless he says, “You are divorced as of yesterday,” intending to report a divorce he had pronounced yesterday; in that case, the divorce takes effect by virtue of yesterday’s divorce.

His statement: “Or, ‘Before I married you.’” Likewise, it does not take effect, because there can be no divorce except after marriage.

His statement: “And he does not intend it to take effect at the present time, it does not take effect.” But if he intends it to take effect at the present time, saying, “By my words, ‘You are divorced yesterday,’ I mean to exaggerate in