—an unlawful act—and he may not return to her for intercourse until she has undergone an istibrāʾ, one menstrual cycle to clear her womb of that unlawful emission. He may, however, still revoke the divorce during the remainder of the original waiting period, and no separate waiting period is required for this istibrāʾ.

If he kisses her or engages in any physical intimacy intending thereby to revoke the divorce, the revocation is effected; but if he does so without that intention, he is sinful and no revocation takes place. The sunnah is that he summon two witnesses before he has intercourse with her or any lesser form of intimacy.

Every revocation is valid by speech alone except in two cases: the muʿli—the husband who has taken the oath of īlāʾ—and the husband whose marriage was dissolved for inability to maintain his wife. According to Mālik, the muʿli’s revocation is valid only by actual intercourse, and the insolvent husband’s only after he becomes solvent.

Anyone who is legally entitled to pronounce divorce is likewise entitled to revoke it. A woman given a revocable divorce is entitled to lodging and maintenance, and the two spouses continue to inherit from one another until the waiting period ends. When it does end, an irrevocable separation (baynūnah) occurs and the right of inheritance lapses. So long as the waiting period remains, any further divorce, īlāʾ or ẓihār he pronounces still attaches to her.

During her waiting period he may not marry a fifth wife besides her, nor her sister, nor her paternal or maternal aunt. In all rulings she remains like a full wife, except that he should not touch her unless he means thereby to revoke the divorce. He should not gaze at her lustfully or be alone with her; if he does seclude himself with her, that is considered disliked.

Mālik said that if a revocably divorced woman prevents her husband from approaching her before he has called witnesses, she is in the right, but he still retains the option of revocation as long as she has not yet seen the beginning of her third menstrual period in the case of a freewoman and her second in the case of a slavewoman.

If a man takes his wife back during her waiting period and then divorces her again before intercourse, she does not begin a new waiting period but simply completes the first one.

If, after the waiting period has expired, a man claims that he revoked the divorce while the period was still in force, his claim will not be accepted without proof. Should he produce witnesses that he did revoke her during the waiting period, her ignorance of this does not harm her and she remains his wife. If, however, she has already married another man who has not yet consummated the marriage, and the first husband then produces proof of the revocation, there are two reports from Mālik on the matter, one of them stating that the first