Moreover, if he swears using an oath formula, such as saying, “My slaves are free—I shall certainly do so,” or, “My wives are divorced—I shall certainly do so,” this is equivalent to saying, “My wealth is to be given in charity—I shall certainly do so,” or, “I am bound to perform Hajj—I shall certainly do so.”

What further demonstrates their equivalence is that al-Shāfiʿī based his position on conditional divorce upon the compensation given in khulʿ. He said in al-Buwaytī—an Egyptian work and one of his finest books:

“Jurists call a divorce made contingent upon a cause ‘a divorce subject to a qualification,’ and they call the condition itself a ‘qualification.’ They say, ‘If the qualification comes into effect during the period of irrevocable separation,’ and, ‘If the qualification does not come into effect,’ and other similar expressions.”

There are two reasons for this terminology:

The first is that this divorce is subject to a qualification; it is not an unqualified divorce. Thus, if a man says, “You are divorced at the beginning of the year,” or, “When you become free of menstruation,” he has qualified the divorce by a particular time, for a temporal circumstance qualifies that which occurs within it. Likewise, if he says, “If you give me one thousand, you are divorced,” he has qualified the divorce by its compensation.

The second is that the Kufan grammarians call prepositions and similar particles “particles of qualification.” Since this divorce is made contingent through particles that may be called particles of qualification, it is termed “a divorce subject to a qualification,” just as when a man says, “You are divorced in return for one thousand.”

The first explanation is the fundamental one, for the second ultimately goes back to it. Grammarians called prepositions “particles of qualification” only because a prepositional phrase functions in meaning as a qualification of that to which it is attached.

Thus, if al-Shāfiʿī and others based their position regarding qualified divorce upon the divorce for compensation mentioned in the Quran, and analogized every divorce subject to a qualification to it, then this parallels the conditional vow mentioned in His words: “Among them are those who pledged themselves to Allah: ‘If He gives us from His bounty, we shall certainly give charity and surely be among the righteous.’” [al-Tawbah: 75]