Ahmad used to regard pronouncing three divorces together as permissible. He later retracted this view and said: “I reflected on the Quran and found that the divorce mentioned in it is revocable divorce”—or words to that effect. This became his settled position, followed by the majority of his companions. It also became clear from Fātima’s hadith that she had been divorced three times on separate occasions, not all together. Moreover, he accepted as established two hadiths from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, stating that when someone pronounces three divorces together, only one takes effect. Nothing reported from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, contradicts this; rather, the Quran agrees with it. Furthermore, according to Ahmad, prohibition entails invalidity.

These texts and his established principles therefore imply that, according to his school, only one divorce takes effect. His initial decision not to follow the hadith of Rukāna and other reports arose because they conflicted with his view at that time that pronouncing three divorces together was permissible; this indicated that those reports had been abrogated. He subsequently abandoned that objection, recognizing that the counterargument was unsound and that pronouncing three divorces together was impermissible. His own principles therefore required him to act upon the texts that remained free of counterevidence.

Nor is Tāwūs’s hadith impugned by Ibn Abbās’s having issued a contrary fatwa. This was his understanding according to one of the two reports from him. However, the apparent position of his school, followed by his companions, is that this does not undermine acting upon the hadith, especially since Ibn Abbās explained Umar ibn al-Khattāb’s justification—may Allah be pleased with him—for making all three divorces binding. Ibn Abbās’s own justification was the same one he related concerning Umar, may Allah be pleased with him: when people repeatedly engaged in what Allah had forbidden them, they deserved punishment for it, and were therefore punished by having those divorces made binding upon them. Their circumstances had previously been different, for they had not been committing the prohibited act so frequently.