He—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—was also asked:

A man divorced his wife three times. After completing her waiting period, she married a second husband, the “man who makes her lawful again.” Is such tahlīl permissible in light of what happened between Rifāʿah and his wife during the time of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, or not?

She then came to her first husband’s house to claim some of what was due to her, and he forced himself upon her. After staying for several days, she became afraid and claimed that she had menstruated so that her first husband would take her back. He therefore remarried her under a lawful marriage contract and lived with her for several days. When her pregnancy became apparent, he learned that she had lied about menstruating. He then abstained from relations with her pending guidance on the ruling of the noble Sharia.

He replied:

If a man marries her in order to make her lawful again for the husband who divorced her, he is the man who performs tahlīl. It is authentically established that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“May Allah curse the man who performs tahlīl and the man for whose benefit it is performed.”

As for the hadith concerning Rifāʿah, the second husband had married her in a lasting marriage; he had not married her to make her lawful again for the husband who divorced her.

If she marries a man who performs tahlīl and he then divorces her, she must observe a waiting period, by scholarly consensus. For even if her situation amounts only to intercourse within an invalid marriage, she must observe a waiting period following it. It was not lawful for the first husband to have intercourse with her. If he does so, he is an adulterer and a fornicator. Her marriage to the first husband before she has menstruated three times is invalid by the consensus of the imams, and he must abstain from relations with her. If she then gives birth