Doubting whether husband issued divorce or not
Fatwa No: 362065

Question

Assalaamu alaykum. My husband and I had a fight, and as soon as the fight was over, I said, "If you do such thing again, it is over;" to which my husband said, "Same here, if you do such thing, then..." I do not remember what his words were after that. He does not remember it either. I asked him twice, and he said that there was no intention for divorce to this. Should I believe him and forget about it? Is it considered a conditional divorce even if he did not clearly use the words of divorce. I just have the mere thought that the words were leading to divorce and that they were not exact words. Kindly help me in this regard.

Answer

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. {C}

The established rule according to the scholars of Fiqh is that the fundamental principle is the non existence of something (Al-Asl Al-'Adam). This rule falls under a greater rule, that certainty is not overruled by doubt.

Therefore, if your husband does not remember what he actually uttered, then in principle he did not utter a conditional divorce.

The Hanbali scholar Ar-Ruhaybaani said in Mataalib Uli an-Nuha, "There is no divorce because of doubt about it, or because of doubting the condition upon which he conditioned the divorce."

Based on this, divorce does not take place, whether you did what he prevented you from doing or not. The bond of marriage between the two of you is still valid until the contrary is proven; so do not take any doubts or illusions into consideration.

Allah knows best.

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