Book of Divorce
Introduction
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Book of Divorce
Divorce is permissible when there is a genuine need; it is disliked when no need exists; it is recommended when harm is involved; it is obligatory in the case of īlāʾ; and it is forbidden when done in an innovated, unlawful manner.

A divorce pronounced by a legally accountable husband, or by a discerning minor who understands what he is saying, is valid.1 If a man loses his reason for an excusable cause, his divorce does not take effect, whereas the opposite holds for one who loses his reason through his own sinful act. A divorce forced upon a man through unjust coercion—by inflicting harm on him or his child, the seizure of property that would injure him, or the threat of any of these from someone capable of carrying it out and whom he believes will do so2—does not take effect if he utters it only in submission to the threat.

A divorce is effective even in a marriage whose validity is contested, and when pronounced by an enraged husband. His agent is like himself: the agent may pronounce a single divorce whenever he wishes unless the husband stipulates a specific time or number. The wife, when empowered, is like his agent in divorcing herself.

Section
If a husband pronounces one divorce during a menstrual-free period in which he has not had intercourse with her and then leaves her until her waiting period finishes, that is the Sunnah. In that situation, pronouncing three divorces at once is forbidden. If he divorces a woman he has had intercourse with during her menstruation, or in a purity period in which he did have intercourse, such a divorce is an unlawful innovation; it nevertheless counts, and it is recommended that he take her back.

There is neither Sunnah nor bidʿa divorce for a minor, a menopausal woman, a wife with whom intercourse has not occurred, or a woman whose pregnancy is already evident.