occur after he had disobeyed Allah and transgressed His limits, thereby deserving punishment. Whoever seeks to make the woman lawful for him again is therefore cursed; these men too are cursed, because the two have cooperated in sin and transgression.

Then the practice of swearing oaths by divorce arose. Many jurists believed that whoever broke such an oath was bound by what he had undertaken, and that expiation for an oath would not suffice. Many also believed that a prohibited divorce was binding; that pronouncing three divorces together was not prohibited; that a divorce pronounced while intoxicated took effect; and that a divorce pronounced under coercion took effect. Some of these opinions were disputed among the Companions, while others emerged after their time. Consequently, the belief that divorce had taken effect became widespread, despite the immense harm and damage to religious and worldly life resulting from a man’s separation from his wife. Those who held divorce to be binding in these disputed situations thus divided into two groups.

One group followed what had been transmitted from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the Companions concerning the prohibition of marriage arranged to make a woman lawful again for her former husband. They therefore prohibited this, while also prohibiting those aforementioned cases which the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, had not prohibited. Their position thus imposed fetters, burdens and immense hardship, leading to grave harm in religious and worldly life. Among its consequences were some people’s apostasy from Islam after being given a ruling that what they had undertaken was binding upon them; the shedding of inviolable blood; loss of reason; enmity between people; disparagement of Islamic law; numerous sins; and other grave consequences.

The other group sought to remove this immense hardship through various legal stratagems by which the woman could return to her husband.