They also cite the practice of the Companions—among them ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb, may Allah be pleased with him—who enforced the triple divorce, when voiced in a single phrase, as three separate divorces, exactly as the husband had uttered it; and the Companions themselves are a sufficient model and exemplar.

They have other proofs besides those we have presented, yet what we have mentioned is their clearest and most explicit evidence.

A different group of scholars, however, holds that a threefold divorce pronounced in one phrase, or in several phrases with no revocation between them, counts only as a single revocable divorce. This opinion is reported from Companions, Successors, and leading jurists.

Among the Companions who adopted it are Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, ʿAlī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, and al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām.

Among the Successors are Ṭāwūs, ʿAṭāʾ, Jābir ibn Zayd, the majority of Ibn ʿAbbās’s disciples, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mūsā, and Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq.

From the later jurists: Dāwūd and most of his followers, some of the companions of Abū Ḥanīfah, some of Mālik’s companions, and some of Aḥmad’s companions—among them Majd ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Taymiyyah, who issued this ruling privately, and his grandson Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, who proclaimed it openly and delivered it in his gatherings. He, together with many of his followers, was punished for holding this view.

Also among its defenders is Ibn al-Qayyim, who championed it decisively in his works al-Hudā and Iʿlām al-Muwaqqiʿīn, where he treated the question at length, assembled its textual proofs, and rebutted the opponents in a manner that is both adequate and persuasive.

These scholars build their case on both textual evidence and analogical reasoning.

The textual proof is the report in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim: Abu al-Ṣahbāʾ asked Ibn ʿAbbās, “Do you not know that during the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, Abū Bakr, and the early part of ʿUmar’s rule, the three divorces were considered one?” He replied, “Yes.” In another wording: “Were they reduced to one?” He said, “Yes.”

This is an authentic, unambiguous text that admits of no reinterpretation or alteration.

As for analogy: combining the three divorces at once is prohibited and an innovation, and the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever introduces into this affair of ours something that does not belong to it, it is rejected.” Therefore, pronouncing all three divorces in a single instant is not part of the Prophet’s guidance; it is rejected and blocked.