Section Khulʿ—divorce in exchange for a specified consideration—is permissible. By it the woman gains control over herself and the husband has no right to take her back unless a new marriage contract is concluded. Khulʿ is valid whether she is ritually pure or menstruating, and once it has taken place no further divorce pronouncement attaches to the woman who has taken khulʿ.

Section Divorce (ṭalāq) is of two kinds: explicit and implicit. The explicit form is confined to three expressions—“ṭalāq” (divorce), “firāq” (separation), and “sarāḥ” (release); it is effective without any need for intention. Implicit divorce covers every wording that could refer to divorce or to something else, and it becomes effective only when the husband intends divorce.

Women, with respect to sunnah-compliant and innovative (bidʿah) divorces, fall into two categories. The first is made up of those who menstruate. For them, the sunnah is to pronounce divorce during a period of purity in which no intercourse has occurred; the bidʿah is to pronounce it while she is menstruating or during a purity in which intercourse has already taken place. The second category comprises four women for whom there is neither sunnah nor bidʿah in their divorce: a minor girl, a menopausal woman, a pregnant woman, and a woman released by khulʿ before consummation has taken place.

Section A free man holds the right to three pronouncements of divorce, whereas a slave may pronounce only two. An exception clause is valid if it is attached directly to the wording of divorce, and a divorce may validly be made dependent upon a description or a condition. A divorce uttered before the marriage contract does not take effect. Divorce does not take effect from four persons: a child, an insane person, one who is asleep, and one who is coerced.

Section If a man divorces his wife once or twice, he may take her back so long as her waiting period (ʿiddah) has not ended. Should the waiting period expire, he may remarry her with a new contract; she then returns to him with whatever number of divorces remain. If he divorces her three times, she is not lawful for him again until five conditions have been met: (1) her waiting period from him has ended; (2) she marries another man; (3) that man consummates the marriage with her; (4) they subsequently separate so that she becomes definitively separated from him; and (5) her waiting period from that second marriage has also ended.