while she is still with him, no separation is enforced and he is not obliged to complete the divorce. The same applies if he had set his slave free and then embraced Islam while the slave was still in his possession: the manumission is not binding upon him. Likewise, if he had sworn—while still an unbeliever—an oath involving divorce, emancipation, or any other type of vow, and after entering Islam performed the act that would ordinarily break that oath, the breach carries no effect and nothing is due from him.

If, however, his wife accepted Islam before him, and he divorced her, then he himself became Muslim during her waiting period, the marriage remains intact and he is not required to divorce her. All of this represents the view of Mālik and his followers. Other scholars dissent, maintaining that a polytheist’s divorce while in unbelief is binding on him just as it is on a Muslim, by analogy with the validity of a marriage contracted in the state of disbelief.