is required to decide when the prescribed period expires: either he resumes intercourse, or a divorce is pronounced on his behalf. He is not permitted to fulfil his oath by doing something the Law forbids, such as killing, drinking wine, or the like.

Section

If he swears to abstain by making divorce of the wife concerned conditional upon intercourse, the stipulated divorce is either threefold or fewer than three—one or two. If it is one or two, he is required to decide when the prescribed period expires and is told: “Resume intercourse, intending thereby to revoke the divorce, even if the marriage has not previously been consummated.” For penetration itself consummates the marriage, and this approach thus avoids the point of disagreement. If he refuses, a divorce is pronounced on his behalf on account of his sworn abstention. In a consummated marriage, if he revokes the divorce and confirms his revocation through intercourse, intending revocation during the remainder of the act, his revocation is valid, and she remains his wife with two divorces remaining. If he does not revoke the divorce before the waiting period expires, but subsequently remarries her, the rules of sworn abstention apply to him again from the day he remarries her, so long as the three divorces have not been exhausted by three pronouncements of divorce.

If the stipulated divorce is threefold, there is considerable disagreement, which may be reduced to two positions: first, that he is subject to the rules of sworn abstention; and second, that he is not. If you hold that he is, no divorce is pronounced on his behalf until the prescribed period of sworn abstention expires. According to this position, there are four opinions concerning his situation once that period expires.

The first is that a divorce is pronounced on his behalf and he is not permitted to resume intercourse, because penetration itself makes her irrevocably divorced from him, rendering withdrawal unlawful. This is the position of Ibn al-Mājishūn, consistent with his principle that someone who is having intercourse with his wife when dawn breaks in Ramadan must make up that day’s fast, because withdrawing the penis from the vagina constitutes intercourse.

The second is that she is not divorced from him unless he resumes intercourse. If he does not refuse to resume intercourse and wishes to do so, he is permitted penetration, but nothing beyond that. This opinion is reported from Mālik. According to this position of his, withdrawal is obligatory, not unlawful, just as it would be if he pronounced a threefold divorce against his wife while in that position.

The third is that he is permitted to enjoy the act fully until his desire is spent and he ejaculates, but he must not ejaculate inside her, for fear that any resulting child would be a child of fornication. This is the opinion of Asbagh.

The fourth is that he is permitted to resume intercourse and complete the act, and his oath is not broken until the act is complete. This is Ibn al-Qāsim’s opinion in the original Asadiyya and the apparent meaning of his statement in al-Mudawwana. Any contrary statement attributed to him has been said to result from Sahnūn’s revision.

If you hold that he is not subject to the rules of sworn abstention, there are two opinions. The first is that a divorce is pronounced on his behalf immediately, from the day he takes the oath, and this is