Mutarrif’s opinion. The second is that divorce is not pronounced on his behalf immediately; rather, his wife must first bring his case before the ruler and have him required to decide.

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If he swears to abstain in terms whose breach entails a binding legal consequence, there are two opinions discernible in al-Mudawwana as to whether he thereby becomes subject to the rules of sworn abstention. The first is that he does not; the second is that he does. Examples include saying: “If I have intercourse with my wife, every slave I buy in al-Fustāt is free”; “By Allah, I will not have intercourse with my wife this year except on one day—or on one occasion”; or “By Allah, I will not have intercourse with one of my two wives,” without intending either one in particular.

Other examples include saying: “If I have intercourse with my wife, she shall be as forbidden to me as my mother’s back,” or “If I have intercourse with her, then, by Allah, I will not have intercourse with her.” This is according to the position of those who hold that a man who swears to abstain by making a threefold divorce conditional upon intercourse may nevertheless be permitted to have intercourse. According to those who hold that he may not be permitted intercourse at all, and that a divorce is pronounced on his behalf when the prescribed period of sworn abstention expires and his wife brings proceedings against him—subject to the disagreement already mentioned—he is subject to the rules of sworn abstention in any event. According to those who hold that he may be permitted penetration, but nothing beyond it, the ruling is derived from the disagreement over whether a man who swears to practise withdrawal with his wife is subject to the rules of sworn abstention. This, then, is the third of the three cases.

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A man who swears to abstain from intercourse is subject to the rules of sworn abstention only if he takes his oath in anger, intending harm. If he does not intend harm, but takes his oath for a beneficial purpose—as when he swears not to have intercourse with his wife until she weans her child, or until he recovers from his illness, or something similar—he is not subject to those rules according to Mālik and his companions. This was also the view of ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib, may Allah be pleased with him.

Al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Hanīfa and their followers held that he is subject to those rules in every case. Their evidence is the general wording of Allah’s statement in the verse, since it makes no distinction between one who is angry and one who is content, or between one who intends good and one who intends harm.

Some scholars held that only someone who swears by Allah Most High is subject to the rules of sworn abstention. This position can be valid only according to those who hold that all oaths by anything other than Allah are nonbinding, on account of the statement of