This principle is important: if there is consensus on an issue, then no one’s opinion carries weight in the face of consensus. Hence, when Shaykh al-Islam—may Allah have mercy on him—would state a view, he would say, “This view is correct, unless consensus precludes it”; or he would say, “If anyone has held this view, then it is correct.” But where there is no consensus, the point of reference is the Quran and the sunnah. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Muslims are bound by their conditions, except a condition that makes lawful what is unlawful or makes unlawful what is lawful.” This condition neither makes the unlawful lawful nor the lawful unlawful.

Question: If he says, “Whenever I take you back, you are divorced,” and then takes her back, does the divorce take effect or not? According to the madhhab, it is valid, because this is a conditional divorce, and making divorce conditional is permissible, as has preceded. But if he says, “If I divorce you, then I have taken you back,” this is not valid, because a revocation cannot be made conditional.

“If she becomes pure from her third menstrual period but has not performed ghusl, he may take her back, ……”

His statement, “If she becomes pure from her third menstrual period but has not performed ghusl, he may take her back”: This is an issue to which we must pay attention. For example, a woman is divorced and her waiting period is three menstrual cycles. If she becomes pure from the third menstrual period but has not performed ghusl, her husband may take her back. Thus, the limit is not merely that she becomes pure from the third menstrual period; rather, it continues until she performs ghusl. Consider how the Lawgiver’s love of reconciliation, harmony, and concord has led to this ruling: perhaps, when she becomes pure from her menstrual period and is again fit for intercourse, her husband may desire her and take her back.

The scholars have two views on this issue. It is among the major questions in which the evidence is nearly evenly balanced. Some scholars hold that he may not take her back once she becomes pure from her third menstrual period, due to the saying of Allah, Most High: “Divorced women shall wait by themselves for three menstrual periods.”