As for the “fourth view,” held by some Muʿtazilites and Shia—that no divorce takes effect at all—it is not known to have been held by any of the early generations.

The “third view” is the one supported by the Quran and Sunnah. Every divorce that Allah has prescribed in the Quran for a woman whose marriage has been consummated is a revocable divorce. Allah has not prescribed that anyone pronounce all three divorces at once, nor has He prescribed that a man irrevocably divorce a woman whose marriage he has consummated. Rather, she becomes irrevocably separated from him if he divorces her before consummation, and she becomes irrevocably separated from him when her waiting period expires.

By agreement of the Muslims, divorce is of “three types”:

“Revocable divorce”: the husband may take her back without her consent, and if either spouse dies during the waiting period, the other inherits from the deceased.

“Irrevocable divorce”: the former husband becomes merely one suitor among others, and she is not lawful for him except through a new marriage contract.

“Divorce that makes her unlawful to him”: she is not lawful for him until she marries another husband. This occurs when he divorces her three times in the manner permitted by Allah and His Messenger: he divorces her, then takes her back during the waiting period or remarries her; he then divorces her again, then takes her back or remarries her; and then he pronounces the third divorce. By agreement of the scholars, this is the divorce that makes her unlawful to him until she marries another husband.

Neither the Book of Allah nor the Sunnah of His Messenger provides for an irrevocable divorce of a woman whose marriage has been consummated that counts as one of the three divorces. This is why the position held by the hadith jurists—such as Imam Ahmad, according to the apparent position of his school, al-Shāfiʿī in one of his two views, Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh, Abū Thawr, and Ibn al-Mundhir