the scholars of transmission who has authenticated the report attributed to the Companions which says that khulʿ is an irrevocable divorce counted among the three.
The report from ʿAlī and Ibn Masʿūd is very weak, whereas the narration from Ibn ʿAbbās that khulʿ is a separation (fasakh) and not a divorce is, by the unanimous judgment of the hadith experts, among the soundest and most reliable chains.
The jurists who relied on what they thought were authentic Companion reports to argue that khulʿ is a single irrevocable divorce merely assumed those reports to be sound; they did not possess the critical expertise in assessing chains of transmission that Aḥmad and scholars of his calibre had.
The practical upshot of the dispute is clear: if khulʿ is deemed a divorce, it consumes one of the husband’s three pronouncements; if it is deemed a dissolution, it does not reduce the remaining number of divorces.
Benefits
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The well-known view in Imām Aḥmad’s school is that the husband cannot be compelled to accept khulʿ; it is simply recommended that he grant it when the wife requests it.
Shaykh Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Āl al-Shaykh notes another opinion: the judge may oblige the husband to accept khulʿ when harmonious life between the spouses is impossible, according to the judge’s own ijtihād. Al-Furūʿ records that some judges in Greater Syria compelled certain respected Maqdis families to do so.
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Al-Wazīr said: There is consensus that khulʿ is valid even when relations between the spouses are outwardly sound.
Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn (Ibn Taymiyyah) comments: The khulʿ legislated in the Qur’an and Sunnah is where the wife dislikes her husband and ransoms herself by returning the dowry, or part of it, just as a captive ransoms himself. If, however, both spouses still desire one another, this is a novel form of khulʿ unknown in Islam. Aḥmad and the four Sunan compilers relate, through the narration of Thawbān, that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Any woman who asks her husband for divorce without a pressing reason is forbidden the fragrance of Paradise.” The outward sense