I have been suffering from a deep gambling addiction for around 15 years. Now I am in recovery, attending counselling sessions, etc. When I used to lose money, I would realize immediately afterwards that I should not gamble. I have said many things and have sworn in anger and frustration. I said many times that if I would gamble again, wy wife would be divorced, and I used to say it three times in each sitting. However, I always did that straight after having lost money (being in extreme anger and stress because of my unstoppable addiction). I never said that after becoming calm or when I was in control. It always happened as a result of loss of money and time and committing sins and when I regretted it and wanted to prevent myself from gambling again in the future, not because of I wanted to divorce my wife. As I did not realise that it was an addiction (which is a disease, according to psychologists), I had no control over it whatsoever. I swore so much and broke so many promises in different ways throughout this addiction, including pronouncing the divorce so many times. I visited many different scholars, and their opinion differs on these matters which always leave me without peace. I have 3 children, and my wife did not know about this until I informed her about it a few years ago. An imam told me that since this was due to an addiction and I also had a history of depression because of this gambling, divorce did not take place. However, I wanted to redo the marriage just for the peace of mind, which we did. I want a proper fatwa on this matter, as I am still concerned about my past; I do not want to be in ambiguity on this matter. This is a well-known site, and I hope I will get a peaceful and detailed answer from you people. These were conditional promises, and I never pronounced them in front of anyone or my wife. I would be on my own each time, and nobody else knew about it until I revealed this sin myself to imams and wanted to be guilt-free. God bless you all.

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

First of all, we thank you for contacting us and ask Allah to spare us and you from every affliction. Perhaps what happened to you was because of this sin – gambling – but you did not mention to us whether or not you repented from it. If you have not done so yet, then you must hasten to make sincere repentance. We have highlighted the conditions of repentance in fatwa 86527.

Mere anger and bad temper do not prevent divorce from taking place. So the ruling on this conditional divorce depends on the extent of your consciousness when uttering it. If you had uttered it while you were conscious of what you were saying, then such an utterance leads to its effects, otherwise not. Please refer to fatwa 121374 in this regard.

If we assume that you had uttered the divorce while you were conscious, then, according to the view of the majority of the scholars, the conditional divorce takes place when the matter upon which the husband conditioned divorce takes place, regardless of whether he had intended divorce or not.

Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah chose the view that divorce does not take place if the husband only intended to make a threat or prevent something from happening and the like, and that this only requires an expiation for breaking an oath.

The view that we adopt here at Islamweb is the view of the majority of the scholars.

Perhaps the different fatwas issued to you by various scholars is due to the difference of opinion that we mentioned above. Hence, it is sufficient for you to act according to the fatwa of the scholar whom you consider to be most trustworthy, and do not keep moving from one scholar to another, as this leads to confusion.

Finally, it should be noted that if the husband said to his wife, ‘you will be divorced’, then if he intended the promise of divorce, then divorce does not take place (please, refer to fatwas 90318 and 89065), but if he intended a conditional divorce, then the ruling is as we have already mentioned to you.    

Allah knows best.