and this is the view adopted by Ibn Habīb. Those who hold that the third divorce took effect on the day she became free to marry, and that this husband’s consummation of the marriage or conclusion of the marriage contract merely revealed this, maintain that he makes her lawful again for her first husband. This is Ashhab’s view, recorded in al-Sulaymāniyya, and it is correct. For if the third divorce took effect only when the new husband consummated the marriage or concluded the marriage contract, she would have to observe a waiting period from that point onward, and no one holds this view. As for those who maintain that she is not restored to her first husband if he fails to return before her waiting period expires, even if she has not remarried, they hold that this husband makes her lawful again for him, since, in their view, she married him after the third divorce had taken effect against her first husband. This is clear.
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If the first husband returns after the man she married has taken her in and consummated the marriage—according to the view that the first husband loses his claim to her upon consummation—but the second husband acknowledges that he did not have intercourse with her, she is lawful for neither of them. She has become unlawful for the first because of the apparent consummation of her marriage to the second, and unlawful for the second because he acknowledges that the first has the stronger claim to her and that she is his wife.
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As for the missing man’s property, it is held in abeyance and is not distributed as an inheritance until his death is known or he reaches an age beyond which no one lives. There is disagreement over this age limit. Seventy years is related from Ibn al-Qāsim; Mālik also held this view, and it was adopted by ‘Abd al-Wahhāb. He supported it with the words of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ:
“The lifespans of my community are between sixty and seventy years.”
For the meaning of his statement can only be to convey information upon which a legal ruling depends. Allah knows best.
Eighty and ninety years are also related from Mālik, while Ashhab said one hundred years. Al-Dāwūdī related from Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam that it is one hundred and twenty years, which is also the position of Abū Hanīfa. If a man goes missing at seventy, then, according to those who set the limit at seventy, a further ten years are allowed for him. The same applies if he goes missing at eighty or ninety, according to those who set the limit at that age or