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Fatwa CenterSigning delegation of divorce
Question
My question is regarding words of divorce said by the wife to her husband. During my marriage, neither I nor my father put forth any conditions. During the verbal marriage proposal and acceptance, nothing was said about my right to divorce. Afterwards, when my husband was told to sign the marriage registration form, he read it in full. One thing caught his attention; there was a question field which read, "Did the husband delegate the right of divorce to the wife? If yes, then in what conditions?" In this field, it was written YES. My husband asked the registrar why he wrote this, he answered that this is required as per the law. My husband said to him, "But you did not ask me. Had you asked me, I would have said, 'yes', but you did not ask." Then the registrat said, "I would go to jail if you say no." Then my husband said, "Ok, no problem. I do not want you to go to jail." Then my husbamd signed the bottom of the form. I heared about this incident later and did not think much of it because I thought that it was only the law of the country. In Islam, only men can give a verbal divorce. Three months later, things got really bad between us, and my husband sometimes gave a threat of divorce, but he did not pronounce it. One day, I got really angry and mocked him by saying, "You know what, I gave you a divorce, 1 divorce, 2 divorce, 3 divorce." Then my husband said, "Do not cross the limit, or I will keep you hanging and not give you a divorce." After that, many days passed, and then we reconciled. My husband did some research online and told me not to worry, and that nothing happened because I did not have the authority, and husbands cannot be given a divorce. However, now, six years later, I am suffering constant Waswaas (obsessive thoughts/devilish whisperings) and anxiety about what happened. There was one explicit divorce given by him that counts. We had another case of conditional divorce regarding which our local scholar said that it was invalid because my husband's intention was to threaten me only, and not to divorce me. My husband is sure that only one divorce has occurred, but I am freaking out over these other incidents. I am on the verge of breaking; please help me out. Thanks.
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, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
If the matter did not exceed signing the delegation paper, then it is an invalid delegation, because merely signing a divorce paper has no consideration according to the fatwa of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ibraaheem Aal Ash-Shaykh, former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. Please, refer to fatwa 314359.
Even according to the view that signing is a form of writing a divorce, then it is considered an implicit divorce (or metaphor of divorce), which is not effective unless the husband had the intention to issue a divorce. Apparently, your husband did not wish to delegate in divorce but only wanted to eliminate legal liability for the official registrar, as mentioned in the question.
As for the incident of conditional divorce, if a reliable scholar gave you a fatwa saying that the divorce has not taken place, there is no harm in acting upon his fatwa in this regard. As for the incident when your husband divorced you explicitly, it is an effective count of divorce.
We advise the spouses to rise above problems to the best of their abilities; and if they happened to face marital problems, then they should avoid solving them by resorting to words of divorce and the like.
Allah knows best.
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