formula would not have served him as a stratagem, although both formulations involve the same circularity. This is because if a man says to his wife, “If I divorce you, my slave is free,” or, “If I divorce you, you are divorced,” he does not violate his oath unless, after making it, he issues an immediately effective pronouncement of divorce or suspends a divorce upon a condition that is subsequently fulfilled. Both an immediately effective divorce and a conditional divorce whose condition has been fulfilled constitute an act of divorcing. If, however, he had suspended her divorce upon a condition before making this oath, and the condition was fulfilled afterward, the mere fulfillment of the condition and the consequent taking effect of the divorce would not constitute a new act of divorcing. An act of divorcing must proceed from the husband who divorces, [whereas the occurrence] of divorce through a circumstance brought about by someone else is not his act. By contrast, if he says, “If a divorce pronounced by me takes effect against you,” this encompasses an immediately effective divorce, a divorce subsequently suspended upon a condition, and a divorce that takes effect afterward under a condition upon which it had previously been suspended.

They therefore formulated the issue in terms of his saying, “If a divorce pronounced by me takes effect against you.” Thus, when a man had sworn by divorce not to do something, they would tell him, “Say: ‘If a divorce pronounced by me takes effect against you, then you are divorced three times before it.’” Once he had said this, they would tell him, “Now do what you swore not to do, for your act will cause no divorce to take effect.”

This reprehensible “Surayjian” contrivance—regarded by Muslims generally as objectionable and known with certainty not to belong to the Sacred Law with which Allah sent Muhammad ﷺ—gained currency chiefly because oaths invoking divorce made many people feel a need for it. Were it not for that, no one would resort to it, for a rational person would only rarely intend to close off his own ability to divorce.

The Fifth Stratagem: If divorce has taken effect and no stratagem can be devised—neither with respect to the matter sworn about, in word or deed, nor with respect to what was invoked in the oath, by nullifying or preventing it—they resort to restoring the marriage through a marriage to an intervening husband arranged to make remarriage lawful, whose prohibition and invalidity are established by the Sunnah and the consensus of