Fatwa ID: 05051

Answered by: Imam Abdul-Malik Sheikh

Question

A year or so ago my wife and I had an argument where I said something like “if you treat me like a slave you are divorced”.

A day or two later once we were back to normal, when I had forgotten about this fight she asked me “do I treat you like a slave?” Having totally forgotten about the fight I said “yes you do all the time” as a joke. Then I realized why she asked the question in reference to what I said during the fight. However, when I replied “yes you do all the time,” I thought it was a joky question as we were in a happy mood and it didn’t occur to me she was referring to the previous fight.

Will this constitute a divorce?

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

Answer:

If a person tied the divorce to a condition, divorce will occur when the condition takes place.

So if you said: “If do such and such then you are divorced” then the divorce will occur if the action to which it was tied took place. One irrevocable Talāq would occur unless a person said: “every time you do such and such…”

The condition you refer to is linked to an external action that hasn’t occurred and therefore if the action has not actually occurred then the Talāq also did not occur.

Reference:

Al-Iktiyar Li Talil al-Mukhtar Vol.3, p.174, Dar al-Marifah

Only Allah knows best

Written by Imam Abdul-Malik Sheikh

Checked and approved by Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah

Darul Ifta Birmingham