and likewise a third time. If he divorces her a third time as Allah and His Messenger have commanded, she becomes unlawful to him until she marries another husband.

But if he pronounces “three divorces” in a prohibited manner—for example, by saying to her, “You are divorced three times,” all at once—the scholars hold two views. “The first” is that all three divorces take effect. “The second” is that only one divorce takes effect, and he may take her back during the waiting period or remarry her under a new marriage contract after it ends. This is the view of many earlier and later scholars, including a group of scholars belonging to the schools of Mālik, Abū Hanīfah, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. It is the stronger of the two views, supported by much evidence.

Among this evidence is the report established in the authentic hadith collection from Ibn ‘Abbās, who said:

“During the time of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and Abū Bakr, and during the early part of ‘Umar’s caliphate, three divorces were counted as one.”

Another is the report transmitted by Imam Ahmad and others with a good chain of transmission from Ibn ‘Abbās:

“Rukānah ibn ‘Abd Yazīd divorced his wife three times in one sitting, then came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who said, ‘It is only one divorce,’ and restored her to him.”

Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others authenticated this hadith. Ahmad, Abū ‘Ubayd, Ibn Hazm, and others, however, judged weak the report:

“That he divorced her ‘definitively,’ and that [the Prophet] required him to swear, asking, ‘Did you intend only one divorce?’”

The narrators of this latter report are unknown: neither their accuracy in transmission nor their uprightness is established, whereas the narrators of the former report are known for both.

No one has transmitted from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, through an acceptable chain of transmission, that someone divorced his wife three times in a single statement and that he ruled all three divorces binding upon him. Reports to that effect have indeed been narrated, but the scholars of hadith agree that they are all fabricated.

Authentic hadiths do, however, state:

“So-and-so divorced his wife three times.”

This means three separate divorces. It is also reported:

“The husband who engaged in mutual imprecation pronounced three divorces.”

But that was a woman whom he had no possibility of taking back; rather, she is