She replied, “Yes.” The Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—then said, “Take back the garden and pronounce over her a single divorce,” and he instructed him to separate from her. Reported by al-Bukhari.

As for the scholarly consensus, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said: “We know of no one who disagreed on this except al-Muzani, who maintained that the verse is abrogated by Allah’s words: ‘If you wish to exchange one wife for another and you have given one of them a treasure, do not take anything from it’ (Q 4:20).”

For a khulʿ to be valid, several conditions must be met: the compensation must be offered by someone legally entitled to dispose of his or her property; it must be initiated by a husband who is competent to effect divorce; the husband must not oppressively constrain her into offering the compensation; and the wording must explicitly mention khulʿ. If instead he uses the wording of divorce, or an allusive phrase intending divorce, it counts as an actual divorce. He then loses the right of revocation, though he may remarry her with a new contract—even if she has not married another man in the meantime—provided that his earlier pronouncements have not already reached the total of three divorces.

However, if the formula employed is that of khulʿ, annulment, or redemption and he does not intend a divorce thereby, it is deemed an annulment and does not diminish the remaining number of divorces. This is related from Ibn ʿAbbās (Allah be pleased with him), who argued from Allah’s words: “Divorce is twice” (Q 2:229); then, “There is no blame upon them regarding what she gives to secure her release” (Q 2:229); and then, “If he thereafter divorces her, she is not lawful for him after that until she marries another husband” (Q 2:230). The passage first mentions two divorces, then khulʿ, and then another divorce; had khulʿ itself been a divorce, it would have been a fourth. Allah knows best.