Abu Jaʿfar’s discourse is of this very kind—plentiful and beneficial.

Abu ʿAli al-Tanūkhī reports in his book al-Nashwār, citing ʿUthmān ibn Muḥammad al-Sulamī, who said:

“I was told by Ibn Manjū the commander, who was told by a servant of Ibn al-Muzawwiq:

‘My master bought a slave-girl and married her to me. I loved her while she loathed me, until I lost patience and said to her, “You are divorced three times; do not speak to me about anything, for whatever you say to me I shall say the like to you—how much must I bear of you?”

‘Immediately she retorted, “You are divorced three times!” I was left in despair, and someone directed me to Muḥammad ibn Jarīr. He said to me, “Remain with her after you say to her: ‘You are divorced three times if I divorce you.’ ” ’

He judged this answer sound.

The Hanbalī shaykh Ibn ʿAqīl mentioned the incident and added: another solution is that the husband simply echo her exact words, saying “anta ṭāliq thalāthan” (you are divorced three times)—pronouncing the tāʾ with fatḥ—so he would not violate his oath.

Abu’l-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī said: He was not obliged to utter that reply immediately; he may defer it until just before death.

I say: If he were to say, “You are divorced three times,” intending it as a question, or meaning that she was released from restraint, or referring to the pangs of childbirth, no divorce would in reality take place.

A further answer, based on the principle of considering the cause of the oath and the swearer’s intention, is that he was under no duty to repeat to her what she had said, for the circumstances clearly imply an exception. His only aim was that, should she say something that harmed him, he would harm her in kind; but had he answered her with a pronouncement of divorce, she would have rejoiced and he would have been hurt.

This is like the implicit exclusion from the Almighty’s words, “She has been given everything” (Q 27:23): the context plainly shows that she had not been given a beard or male genitalia.

Likewise, it is necessarily excepted—an exception the swearer could never have intended—that if he vowed, “Do not say anything to me except that I will say the like to you,” and she then lapsed into unbelief or cursed the Prophets, it would be commendable for him not to reply in kind.

A group of jurists then say that he does not break his oath unless—Allah forbid—