945 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: “When four months have elapsed, the man who has sworn an oath of abstention is detained until he pronounces divorce; the divorce does not take effect unless he actually pronounces it.” Al-Bukhārī recorded it. (1)

Lexical note
– wuqqifa: both waqqafa and awqafa are acceptable forms, yet the idiomatic Arabic is waqqafa without the prefixed alif. The term has several shades of meaning; here it signifies that the judge restrains the mūlī (the man who has taken the oath) from persisting in his abstention—he must either resume marital relations or divorce.

Points derived from the two traditions
1 – Al-Bukhārī and Muslim relate from ʿĀʾishah that “the Prophet ﷺ took an oath of abstention from his wives for a month, yet he descended after twenty-nine days.” Scholars have differed over the reason for this ʾilāʾ; in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Jābir reports that it was prompted by their request for additional maintenance.
2 – The Prophet ﷺ was the most forbearing of people, the broadest in character, and the finest in his conduct with his family. He therefore employed ʾilāʾ only as a form of discipline, so that his wives would be the most upright and well-mannered of women; for a minor lapse in the virtuous is considered major.
3 – The Prophet’s ﷺ oath counts among the permissible forms of ʾilāʾ, for he limited it to one month.
4 – When a man swears ʾilāʾ from his wife for four months, she must wait out that period and may not demand that he return sooner. Once the four months have expired, she may then require him to resume conjugal relations; if he does so