Assalamu alaykum, Shaykh. I have already written you a query but I could not write my query completely. My query was the following: what if husband always previously said that he cannot give his wife a divorce but that whenever she wants, she always has the right to get a divorce or a Khul' (divorce requested by the wife and for which she returns the bridal gift) and that he would not stop her. So Shaykh, what I wanted to ask you that I could not mention in my first query is the following: what if the husband always previously said that, and then one day, he again said to his wife, during a fight, "I cannot give you a divorce, but you have the right to get a divorce or you can get a Khul'," and then the wife asked for a divorce. When the husband said this, then wife twice said to her husband, "Divorce, divorce," or she simply said, "I divorce, I divorce." The wife intended divorce by saying that, but she did not say, "I divorce myself." Shaykh, I have two queries regarding this: 1) Does the above situation count as a divorce? Or does it depend on the husband's intention. I mean if he actually intended to give authority to his wife while saying the above wording. 2) Or when the husband said the following while fighting: "Whenever you want, you always have a right to get a divorce or get a Khul';" would that actually give authority to the wife in the sense that she can divorce herself? Shaykh, we already had two divorces. Please clarify this for me? I am very worried about it. Thank you.

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

The expressions that you mentioned are not an explicit authorization of divorce to the wife, so if the husband did not intend to authorize her to issue a divorce by those expressions, then it is not an authorization for her to divorce herself. Based on this, the divorce does not take place if it was initiated by the wife.

Some of the expressions that entail authorization to the wife to divorce herself are explicit, and some are metaphorical, as has been stated by the scholars.

The Fiqh Encyclopedia reads, “The majority of the scholars divided the words/expressions of authorization of divorce to explicit and metaphorical. The explicit expression, according to them, is what includes the word divorce, such as ‘divorce yourself if you wish’; and the metaphorical is what is expressed with other words than divorce, such as, ‘choose for yourself and the matter is in your hands.’” For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 92334.

The spouses should not give an opportunity to the devil to incite each other against one another and nurture disputes between them so that separation would happen and the devil would achieve his goal by this. Jaabir narrated that the Prophet said, “Indeed, Iblees (Satan) places his throne upon water; he then sends detachments [for creating dissension]; the nearer to him in rank are those who are most notorious in creating dissension. One of them comes and says, ‘I did such and such,’ and Satan says, ‘You have done nothing.’ Then one comes and says, ‘I did not leave so and so until I caused a separation between him and his wife.’ Thereupon, Satan brings him closer to him and says, ‘Yes, you have done well.’” [Muslim]

Allaah knows best.