effecting an irrevocable separation and effecting a revocable divorce. This is sound, just as a husband has the choice between granting her release for compensation, thereby effecting an irrevocable separation, and divorcing her without compensation by a revocable divorce. What contradicts the established principles is that he should have the power to effect an irrevocable separation and then, as he wishes, make it either an annulment or a divorce, although the purpose in both cases is the same—an irrevocable separation—with the choice of whether it constitutes divorce left to him. This is precisely the objectionable position: it entails that an individual may, at will, make the very same transaction either a divorce or something other than divorce, although its purpose is identical in both cases.

Furthermore, what is left to the individual is the intent behind his actions and the ends he seeks; legal rulings, however, belong to the Lawgiver. The Lawgiver assigns different rulings to different actions because their intended purposes differ. When a man’s intended purpose is the same, he cannot choose whether the legal ruling applies or not. It is well known that the intended purpose of the separation is one and the same, without any difference.

Furthermore, the meaning of securing release for compensation is present whenever she asks him to separate from her in return for compensation. Allah has attached the ruling of khulʿ to whatever constitutes such a payment for release. Wherever this meaning is present, it is the khulʿ mentioned in the Book of Allah Most High.

Furthermore, Allah has made the right to take one’s wife back an inseparable consequence of divorce in the Quran. Allah Most High never mentions the divorce of a woman whose marriage has been consummated without affirming this right. Thus, if release for compensation were divorce,