The statements reported from the Companions, which have already been cited, show that they enforced three divorces against anyone who disobeyed Allah by pronouncing them together. As for one who fears Allah, Allah says:

“And whoever fears Allah, He will make for him a way out.”

“And will provide for him from where he does not expect.”

Thus, someone who did not know this was forbidden until after pronouncing them, then repented upon learning of the prohibition and committed himself not to return to it, does not deserve to be punished. Nothing in the sources of Islamic law—the Quran, the Sunnah, consensus, or analogy—requires that all three divorces be binding upon him. His marriage is established with certainty, and his wife is forbidden to anyone else with certainty. Enforcing all three divorces against him makes her lawful for another man while making her forbidden to him, and opens the way to a tahlīl marriage—a marriage intended to make her lawful again for her former husband—which Allah and His Messenger have forbidden.

“Tahlīl marriage” was not openly practised during the time of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and his caliphs. It has never been reported that, during their time, a woman was returned to her husband after the third divorce through a tahlīl marriage. Rather, “the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, cursed the man who marries a woman to make her lawful again for her former husband, and the former husband for whose benefit this is done.” He also “cursed the recipient of usury, its payer, its two witnesses, and its scribe.”

In the case of tahlīl, he did not mention the witnesses, the wife, or her guardian, because the tahlīl then practised involved an intention concealed by the man marrying her, or an arrangement between him and the divorcing husband for whose benefit it was done. The woman and her guardian did not know his intention. Had they known, they would not have agreed to marry her to him, for people regarded this as among the most abhorrent and reprehensible practices. Moreover, it was not their custom to record the dower in a document or have it witnessed. Rather, they would marry and announce the marriage publicly, without undertaking to have two witnesses present at the time of the marriage contract, as is