the Prophet’s Sunnah, both in the number of units and the way they are performed; for those same reform-minded people have already done something similar in another issue whose consequences for society are even weightier and whose departure from ʿUmar’s position—may Allah be pleased with him—is still more evident. That issue is the ruling that a husband who pronounces divorce three times in a single breath is to be treated as having issued only one divorce. Until quite recently they counted it as three, citing the verse, “she is thereafter unlawful for him until she marries another husband.” Their sole support was the unanimous stance of the manuals of the four schools, which follow ʿUmar’s view—despite his knowing that the Prophet ﷺ treated it as a single repudiation. Yet today they have abandoned this opinion of ʿUmar, authentic though it is, after seeing that in our age it produces results opposite to the reform he sought. They have therefore returned to the Sunnah, having realized—after much delay—that the desired reform can only be achieved through it.

What is astonishing is that many of them, until quite recently, were fierce enemies of Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—vilifying him in the strongest terms because he issued a fatwa in accordance with this very Sunnah, setting aside ʿUmar’s contrary ijtihād, and they used to accuse him… ⦗73⦘