“Their specious argument” is that they say: If a man tells his wife, “If my divorce of you takes effect, then you are divorced three times before it,” and subsequently pronounces an immediate divorce, the conditional divorce must take effect. If the conditional divorce took effect, the immediate divorce would take effect. Thus, its taking effect would entail its not taking effect, and so it does not take effect. This is mistaken.

Their statement, “If the immediate divorce took effect, the conditional divorce would take effect,” would be correct only if the conditional stipulation were valid. If the stipulation is invalid, however, the conditional divorce need not take effect. The stipulation is indeed invalid, because it entails a divorce taking effect after three prior divorces, which is invalid in the religion of the Muslims. It also entails saying, “If my divorce of you takes effect, my divorce of you does not take effect.” This combines two contradictories: if the condition is not fulfilled, its consequence does not follow; if the condition is fulfilled, the divorce necessarily takes effect. To say that it nevertheless does not take effect would entail its both taking effect and not taking effect, which combines two contradictories.

Furthermore, once a divorce has taken effect, it cannot subsequently be undone. Since the divorcing man’s words entail something impossible under Islamic law—a divorce taking effect after three prior divorces—and something rationally impossible—divorce both taking effect and not taking effect—the proponent of the Surayjī doctrine contradicts both reason and religion.

However, if the man who swore the oath believed it to be valid, whether through independent legal reasoning or by following a scholar, and subsequently pronounced divorce believing that it would not take effect, no divorce takes effect. This is because he did not intend to utter anything that he believed would constitute divorce. His case is therefore like that of a non-Arabic speaker who utters the word of divorce without understanding it. The same applies if he addresses words of divorce to someone he believes is not his wife, only to discover that she is his wife: according to the correct view, the divorce does not take effect.

Even if it subsequently became clear to him that the Surayjī doctrine was invalid and that the immediate divorce does take effect,