And if the owner simply has intercourse with his slave-girl, that does not make the thrice-divorced woman lawful for her former husband. Should a man marry her on the express condition that she become lawful again to her first husband, the marriage is reprehensible; nonetheless, if he divorces her after consummation she does become lawful to the first husband.

When a man divorces a free woman once or twice, her waiting period ends, she marries another man, and then she returns to the first husband, she comes back with a full allowance of three divorces; the second husband wipes out any earlier divorces just as he would wipe out a triple divorce. Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, however, holds that divorces fewer than three are not erased.

If the first husband had divorced her three times and she later says, “My waiting period ended, I married another man, he consummated the marriage with me, then divorced me, and my second waiting period has now finished,” and the elapsed time could reasonably accommodate all that, the husband may accept her statement so long as he is, on balance, convinced that she is telling the truth.