Furthermore, an oath of divorce is an innovation introduced into the Muslim community. No report has reached me that such oaths were sworn in the time of the earliest Companions. They have, however, been mentioned among the oaths of allegiance instituted by al-Hajjāj ibn Yūsuf, which include swearing by Allah and oaths involving giving one’s wealth in charity, divorce, and manumission. To this day, I have not encountered any statement by a Companion concerning oaths of divorce. What has reached us from them consists only of answers concerning oaths of manumission, as discussed earlier.

This “innovation” then became widespread throughout the Muslim community. When some came to believe that divorce inevitably takes effect through such oaths, this imposed shackles upon the community resembling those that had burdened the Children of Israel. It gave rise to “five kinds of legal stratagems and harmful practices” concerning oaths, until people made a mockery of Allah’s signs.

They swear oaths of divorce to refrain from things they must do, whether under religious law or by human nature, and to do things that are proper to do, whether under religious law or by human nature. They generally swear such oaths in a state of contention and anger. Yet separation from one’s wife entails harm to both religious and worldly life exceeding that of many of the shackles imposed upon the Jews. It has been said that Allah forbade a woman divorced three times to her former husband until she marries another husband precisely to prevent people from rushing into divorce, because of the harm it entails.

Thus, when they swear oaths of divorce concerning things that are obligatory or prohibited, yet need to do those things or refrain from them without separating from their wives, ingenuity devises for them “four kinds of legal stratagems,” adopted from the Kufans and others.