while still uncertain about his divorce, his wife nevertheless inherits from him. Should two men testify that he divorced one of his wives but be unable to identify her, and he denies the charge, he must swear an oath; his denial is then accepted, the marriages stand, and the rights of inheritance remain—each wife inherits from him and he from them.

If a man divorces his wife once or twice, she subsequently marries another husband who later separates from her, and the first husband then remarries her, she returns to him with whatever number of pronouncements still remain. Only a triple divorce is wiped out by the intervening marriage; anything less is not. Accordingly, a husband who has pronounced fewer than three divorces is in the same legal position when he remarries her after an intervening husband as he was before.

Whoever swears that a particular woman will be divorced should he marry her, and then proceeds to wed her, the divorce immediately takes effect. The same ruling applies if he declares, “Every virgin—or every previously married woman—I wed is divorced.” It likewise applies when he limits the statement to a specific clan, fixes it for the duration of his life, confines it to a certain town, or issues a general statement and then carves out an exception. By contrast, if his declaration is wholly general with no exception, nothing is binding upon him, for he has merely forbidden himself women whom Allah has made lawful.

Should he say, “Every virgin I marry is divorced,” and later add, “Every non-virgin I marry is divorced,” the liability attaches only to the virgins, not to the non-virgins. Some maintained that both oaths apply, but the first view is sounder.

If a man says to a woman who is not yet his wife, “If I marry you, you are divorced,” then marries her, the divorce is effected. If he later marries her a second time, she is not divorced thereby unless he had first said, “Every time I marry you, you are divorced.” In that case she is divorced each time he marries her.

Likewise, if he declares, “Every woman I marry from such-and-such a town is divorced,” then marries a woman from that town, she is divorced, and every subsequent marriage to a woman from that town carries the same ruling.

Anyone who says, “Every woman I marry—apart from so-and-so—is divorced,” is, in Mālik’s view, like someone who makes a completely unrestricted statement: nothing is binding, because that woman may refuse him or die. The same holds if the exception comprises two or three women or the like. However, if the number of women he excepts becomes large, the oath becomes binding, for he has excluded from the general statement enough cases that it no longer imposes undue hardship or restricts what Allah has permitted in marriage.