Talaq question

[muslim999]

I am a sunni hanafi muslim, I have been married for a long time and have children.
Over the last 5 years, me and my wife have had major arguments mainly concerning
the future of our children and thier marriages. This has effected my health greatly,
I have given my wife three talaqs with me taking her back after the first one.
I have been diagnosed with an illness which makes me weaker with less energy then
normal people, If I have interrupted sleep this makes me more emotional, with mood swings.
Now I force myself to get enough sleep and have recieved treatment. Before the last talaq I gave
I was seriously considering suicide and had even written my last wishes previously,
so I do not feel I was mentally well enough to make lifelong decisions as I did.
Are talaqs given in this mental state valid? Do all Islamic schools of thought agree on this?

[hmdsalahuddin]

I am a sunni hanafi muslim, I have been married for a long time and have children.
Over the last 5 years, me and my wife have had major arguments mainly concerning
the future of our children and thier marriages. This has effected my health greatly,
I have given my wife three talaqs with me taking her back after the first one.
I have been diagnosed with an illness which makes me weaker with less energy then
normal people, If I have interrupted sleep this makes me more emotional, with mood swings.
Now I force myself to get enough sleep and have recieved treatment. Before the last talaq I gave
I was seriously considering suicide and had even written my last wishes previously,
so I do not feel I was mentally well enough to make lifelong decisions as I did.
Are talaqs given in this mental state valid? Do all Islamic schools of thought agree on this?

:salam:

Yes all three talaq you gave to your wife is valid.

[muslim999]

Aslamalaikum

Thank you brother for your response.
I understand that strict guidelines exist and divorce and marriage are no joke issues.
Is there any fatwas concerning mental health issues?
On issuing the last talaq I threw a table and everything on it on the floor in anger.
The night before I contemplated crashing my car into a lampost!!!
I was really out of it and definitely disoriented and not well. All my life I have been a placid and
patient person, this year and half it has been totally out of character.

I found the following on the www.daruliftaa.com website "Is Divorce Pronounced During Sleep Valid in Islam? "

"Therefore, in the Hanafi School, whenever the husband has lost his senses and does not have a free will and choice over his statements, his pronouncement of divorce will not be considered as valid. As such, divorce pronounced by a man who is insane (majnun), unconscious (mugma alayh), disoriented (madhush), asleep (na’im), extremely angry to the point of insanity (see the fiqh of “divorce in anger”) shall not be effective. Similarly, divorce pronounced by a child will not count.

The reason behind this ruling is that a sleeping person and all those mentioned above do not have control over themselves. They are void of free will, perception and intellectual capacity. Islam does not allow an individual to suffer the consequence of something that was beyond his control. (See: Bada’i al-Sana’i, 3/99-100, Radd al-Muhtar, 3/242-245 & al-Ikhtiyar, 2/154-155)"

[hmdsalahuddin]

Aslamalaikum

Thank you brother for your response.
I understand that strict guidelines exist and divorce and marriage are no joke issues.
Is there any fatwas concerning mental health issues?
On issuing the last talaq I threw a table and everything on it on the floor in anger.
The night before I contemplated crashing my car into a lampost!!!
I was really out of it and definitely disoriented and not well. All my life I have been a placid and
patient person, this year and half it has been totally out of character.

I found the following on the www.daruliftaa.com website "Is Divorce Pronounced During Sleep Valid in Islam? "

"Therefore, in the Hanafi School, whenever the husband has lost his senses and does not have a free will and choice over his statements, his pronouncement of divorce will not be considered as valid. As such, divorce pronounced by a man who is insane (majnun), unconscious (mugma alayh), disoriented (madhush), asleep (na’im), extremely angry to the point of insanity (see the fiqh of “divorce in anger”) shall not be effective. Similarly, divorce pronounced by a child will not count.

The reason behind this ruling is that a sleeping person and all those mentioned above do not have control over themselves. They are void of free will, perception and intellectual capacity. Islam does not allow an individual to suffer the consequence of something that was beyond his control. (See: Bada’i al-Sana’i, 3/99-100, Radd al-Muhtar, 3/242-245 & al-Ikhtiyar, 2/154-155)"

:ws:

Contact a mufti of your locality

[mohsin11]

If you uttered the words of divorce at a moment of intense anger and without realizing it, and you could not control yourself, because of her bad words and insults etc., and you did that at a moment of intense anger and without realizing it, and she acknowledges that, or you have a witness of good character, then divorce has not taken place, because the shar¡¯i evidence indicates that divorce does not take place if the words are spoken at a moment of intense anger ¨C and if it is accompanied by not realizing what is happening then the ruling applies even more so.
For example, Ahmad, Abu Dawood and Ibn Maajah narrated from ¡®Aa¡¯ishah (may Allaah be pleased with her) that the Prophet (peace and blessingsof Allaah be upon him) said: ¡°There is no divorce and no manumission in the event of ighlaaq.¡± The majority of scholars said that ighlaaq means compulsion or anger, i.e., intense anger. For his anger made him unaware of what he was saying,so he is like one who is unconscious, insane or drunk, because of the intensity of his anger. So divorce does not take place in this instance. If he does not realize what he is doing and cannot control his words or actions because of the intensity of his anger, then divorce does not take place.
Anger may be of three types:
1 ¨C When a person is angry and is no longer aware of what he is doing. This is likened to the insane, so divorce does not take place according to all scholars.
2 ¨C Where a person is very angry but is still aware of what is going on, but his anger is so intense that it makes him say thewords of divorce. In this case too, divorce does not take place according to the correct scholarly opinion.
3 ¨C The ordinary type of anger which is not very intense. In this case, divorce takes place, according to all the scholars.
From Fataawa al-Talaaq, pp. 19-21, compiled by Dr. ¡®Abd-Allaah al-Tayyaar and Muhammad al-Moosa.
What the Shaykh mentioned about the second type of anger is also the view favoured by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah and his student Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on themboth). Ibn al-Qayyim wrote an essay on that entitled Ighaathat al-Lahfaan fi Hukm Talaaq al-Ghadbaan, in which he said the following:
Anger is of three types:
1 ¨C That which is not so intense as to affect a person¡¯s mind or rational thinking; he knows whathe is saying and what he means. There is no dispute that in this case divorce, manumission and contracts are valid.
2 ¨C Where his anger reaches such a limit that he no longer knows what he is doing or saying. There is no dispute that in this situation divorce does nottake place. If his anger is so intense that he does not know what he is saying, there is no doubt that none of his words should be implemented in this case. The words of the mukallif (adult of sound mind) are only tobe implemented if he knows what he is saying and what it means, and if the speaker really means that.
3 ¨C The kind of anger that falls between the two categories mentioned above, where the anger goes beyond the ordinary level but not so far as to make him behave like a madman. This is an area of scholarly differences of opinion. The shar¡¯ievidence indicates that divorce, manumission and contracts in such cases are not valid, and thisis a kind of ighlaaq as the imams explained.
From Mataalib Ooli al-Nuha, 5/323; see also Zaad al-Ma¡¯aad, 5/215.
The husband has to fear Allaah and avoid using the word of divorce (talaaq) so that this will not lead to the disintegration of his family.
We advise husband and wife alike to fear Allaah and heed His limits, and to look at what the husband said to his wife in a fairmanner: is this the ordinary kindof anger, which is the only case in which divorce can take place, and this is the third type in which divorce does take place according to scholarly consensus. They should be cautious and not transgress the limits of their religion, and they should not let the fact that they have children make them describe the husband¡¯s anger at the time he spoke the words of divorce to the mufti as intense so as to get the fatwa they want,even though both parties know that this was not the case.
Based on this, the fact that the couple have children together should motivate them to avoid using the words of divorce recklessly; it should not cause them to try to find a loophole in the shar¡¯i rulings after divorce has taken place and look for a way out or seek concessions from the fuqaha¡¯ with regard to that.
We ask Allaah to bless us all with understanding of His religion and help us to venerate His laws.