Fatwa ID: 08429

Written by: Mufti Sibghat Ullah

Question:

Me and my wife had a confrontation over the call in which we were teasing each other with non-serious topics. Towards the end of the call, she began talking about the rights of wives in terms of why women can’t issue a divorce and why only men can issue a divorce (she was only teasing me). Her comments about the divorce rights for women made me upset and I ended the call abruptly after saying Allah Hafiz. After the call, we had an exchange on chat in which both of us were very upset. I intended to write to her “Talakh ki bat apne jo call pe ki thi wohh inappropriate thi”, but wrote an incomplete thought “talakh.”.

The brief pause after this word could be because I might have wanted to tease her, keep her quiet, get her scared, or put emphasis on the word before finishing my thought, or something else. I am really unsure what happened here in these few seconds as it was all so sudden and because I was in panic mode after the single word went through, but what I am absolutely 100 % sure of is that It never crossed my mind to mean what that word literally means. I was going to write my full sentence after this word within probably a few seconds and I noticed she blocked me immediately as her display picture on WhatsApp disappeared. I went into a fight-or-flight panic attack and started unsending/ deleting messages because she always takes screenshots of messages. After seeing the blank display picture on WhatsApp, I knew at the back of my mind that my message wouldn’t go through, but I still sent another message between 1-2 min after the talakh message to see if it would go through, but it didn’t go through as expected.

Can you please let us know whether this counts as a divorce validity, given that I didn’t get a chance to finish my intended sentence that crossed my mind before I used the word as she blocked me immediately? I have taken the oath of the Qur’an with my wife’s presence as a witness that I intended to write the full sentence before I said the word and that I panicked after the first word went through. We had a big misunderstanding as it all happened in a flash. Also, I was unaware before this incident about the nuanced details that could constitute a divorce which we both researched and figured out after the incident. This question is written with agreement from me and my wife. If possible, can you please keep our privacy and not publish my question in public, but may publish the answer if helpful in general.

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Answer:

If your wife thinks that you have given her a divorce and the situation was also that she could only understand it to be divorce, then in such a situation divorce will occur.[i] You should not be joking in such matters as these are not matters of joke. You paused for a moment to make it ambiguous so that she may think you are divorcing her, and she got that message. Your one divorce is counted, and you can still go back to her if you want to return to her, provided you have not divorced her twice before.

References: 

[i] Radul mukhtar, Vol 4,  Book of Divorce, chapter of Kinaya,  Page 516, maktabat ul waheediya:-

الكنايات (لا تطلق بها) قضاء الا بنية آو دلالة الحال

Only Allah knows best.

Written by Mufti Sibghat Ullah

Checked and approved by Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah

Darul Ifta Birmingham