The seventh opinion holds that declaring one’s wife forbidden is like declaring water forbidden: it entails neither expiation nor divorce, for the Almighty says, “Do not forbid the wholesome things Allah has made lawful for you” (Q 5:87). This was the view of Masrūq, al-Ajdaʿ, Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Shaʿbī, and others.
Among those who regard the formula as a non-aggravated oath, some require for it the same expiation prescribed for ẓihār, while others oblige the freeing of a slave. The root of their disagreement is whether the utterance is an oath, a veiled wording of divorce, or neither. These, then, are the principal axes along which opinions diverge concerning divorce terminology.
Section Two: Qualified Divorce Formulas
A qualified divorce formula is of only two sorts: it is either conditional or exceptive. Conditional qualification, in turn, may be suspended upon (1) the will of someone possessed of choice, (2) the occurrence of a future act, (3) the emergence of something whose existence is presently unknown and cannot be ascertained until it becomes perceptible or comes into being, or (4) something that cannot be verified at all, though it may or may not occur.
Suspension upon will
The husband may suspend divorce on the will of Allah or on the will of a creature. If he ties it to Allah’s will—whether as a condition (“You are divorced, if Allah wills”) or as an exception (“You are divorced, unless Allah wills”)—Mālik holds that the exception has no effect and the divorce inevitably occurs. Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Shāfiʿī, however, maintain that if the husband excepts Allah’s will, the divorce does not take effect.
The reason for their dispute is whether an exception can attach to an action already performed as it does to a future action. Divorce is a present act; hence, those who deny such attachment rule that neither the exception nor the stipulation of will affects the divorce, whereas those who allow it say that it does.
If the divorce is suspended on the will of someone whose will is legally valid and knowable, there is no disagreement among Mālikīs that the divorce remains contingent upon that person’s choice.
If it is suspended on the will of one who has no legally recognized will—such as a child or an insane person—the Mālikī school is divided. Some judge that the divorce becomes binding; others say it does not. Those who liken it to a divorce pronounced in jest—and who consider a jesting divorce effective—say that this divorce is effective. Those who insist on the actualization of the condition say it is not, because the condition is missing here.
Suspension upon future acts
Future acts upon which divorce may be suspended fall into three categories. The first comprises acts that may or may not occur with equal likelihood, such as entering the house or Zayd’s arrival. In such cases, the divorce only takes effect when the condition materializes, and there is no disagreement on this point.