From this we may derive a broad and beneficial principle: when a servant intends to enter into any undertaking—especially matters that entail numerous rights and obligations, or positions of authority great and small, or other weighty affairs—he should proceed deliberately. He must examine himself and consider the eventual outcome; if he finds within himself the strength to carry it out and is confident that he can fulfil all the rights involved, then let him advance, relying upon Allah. Otherwise, let him hold back and preserve his safety by avoiding hazardous ventures.
• Allah has commanded husbands either to keep their wives in kindness or to release them in kindness. If he keeps her, he must do so with good companionship; if he separates from her, the parting must follow the dictates of the Sharia with composure—free of anger, insults, and hostility between him and her or between him and her family.
Releasing in kindness includes giving her a sum of money by which she may benefit, have her feelings soothed, and leave her husband grateful. A separation conducted in this manner brings only good consequences for both sides.
• Once the Creator had set forth these noble rulings with the utmost clarity—so that His servants might know them, act upon them, observe their limits and not transgress them, for He did not reveal them in vain but in knowledge, truth, benefit, and earnestness—He forbade treating them “as a mockery” [al-Baqarah 2:231]. To make sport of them is to brazenly violate them and refuse to comply with their obligations, such as harming one’s wife by suspending her between retention and release, or multiplying divorces and pronouncing the threefold divorce in a single sitting.
• He further said, “Remember Allah’s favor upon you” [al-Baqarah 2:231]: do so with the tongue in praise and thanksgiving, with the heart in acknowledgement and affirmation, and with the limbs by employing His favors in obedience to Him—especially the favor of what He has sent down to you of the Book and the wisdom. For in the Quran and the Sunnah are clarifications of truth and guidance away from error, of the lawful from the unlawful, and of everything people need in their religious and worldly lives. This obliges the servants to render Him abundant thanks, fulfil His right, and submit to His judgments.