Divorce, then, unfolds in three successive stages:

1. The first is a revocable divorce, serving as a trial separation for a fixed period during which both spouses can reflect. If feelings of affection and love remain, the husband may take his wife back and they can resume life together.

2. The second is likewise a revocable divorce, providing a further opportunity to test their resolve. Should they wish to rebuild their marital life, the door to reconciliation is still open.

3. The third is an irrevocable divorce that is not reversible unless the wife first marries another man. Having separated twice already without achieving harmony, the couple now stands permanently apart and the rift between them has become deep. In such circumstances, divorce is a mercy, sparing both parties the misery of constant discord.

Divorce may fall under any of the five legal rulings:

1. Disliked when the marriage is sound; according to Abū Ḥanīfah it is unlawful in this situation.

2. Permissible when genuinely needed—such as the wife’s bad conduct or harm suffered by the husband in keeping her.

3. Recommended if the wife is being harmed by the continuation of the marriage, the very case that calls for khulʿ (dissolution initiated by the wife); Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn held it obligatory in this instance.

4. Obligatory in the case of ʿīlāʾ (an oath of abstinence) if the husband refuses to return to marital relations; it is also obligatory, on the sounder view, when the wife neglects a religious duty or abandons chastity—an opinion likewise championed by Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn.

5. Unlawful when the divorce is innovated (ṭalāq bidʿī), such as divorcing during menstruation or post-natal bleeding, in a purity during which intercourse occurred, or pronouncing triple divorce at once—whether in a single statement or multiple statements without an intervening revocation or remarriage.