Unintentional talaq in the past?

[eTeacher]

Jazaka-Allah Khaira for your post Maulana. I wanted a clarification on the above. Does she have to leave the house for the talaq to occur or is it simply dependent on the situation plus the intention?

As soon as those words are uttered and the husband had the intention of divorcing her by using those words, then the divorce will occur. The occurrance of the divorce is not contingent upon her leaving the house.

[eTeacher]

Maulana Sahab.

Completely OT, but could you take some time to give us an account of your experience with Turkish ^Ulama' - maybe in an apposite thread?

Included below is a link to a video taken by yours truly of the Zikr they do in Turkey after Maghrib prayers. It's from the inside of the Blue Mosque. It's called Blue becuause of the blue tiles of the interior of the Masjid. It's simplly breath taking to be standing there in the middle of the Masjid and staring up at the dome and the ceiling. Also, included in the video is our Ameer Mufti Husain. Can you spot him? (He's gonna kill me for this...lol)

The video:

http://emam.xanga.com/videos/1be6b1148150/

Once the link opens up, you will have to click twice for the video to start.

[ENIGMA]

As soon as those words are uttered and the husband had the intention of divorcing her by using those words, then the divorce will occur. The occurrance of the divorce is not contingent upon her leaving the house.

does this not depend on the truthfulness of the husband. He may have meant it to mean divorce,but now,he's trying to convince himself that he didn't mean divorce. Im taking the wife would not be liable for sin in that instance as she has to take the word of her husband.

[kayra]

She should discuss the issue of Talaq with her husband in a nice way and try to bring up the previous discussions and try to ask him what his intentions were.

If a person was given divorce in her pregnancy, then her waiting period is till the delivery of the baby. Till then she will remain in his marriage and he can take her back through words or actions.

About her case, I'm sure that at least one Talaq has occurred because of using explicit words of divorce. If he took her back prior to delivery, she would have remained as his wife. If not, then no and the only way she can get back with him is by remarrying again.

As far as those other words, it all depends on his intention. If he had intention to divorce her, then she would have been divorced. By using implicit words, the only way the both can get back with each other is by remarrying. They have to perform the whole Nikah again. In this scenario, she can not get back with him by him merely taking her back through words or actions.

If the wife says that my husband has divorced me and the husband rejects that, then his word will be taken. But at the same time, if she is certain that he has divorced her and he did not take her back or that they should have performed the Nikah again, and they haven't, then she should try to get out of her marriage in whatever way possible. At a minimum, she should request the husband to have the marriage performed again even if only a few people know about it.

I don't get that part of, "She says that if she calls somebody local, she will be told that nikah and talaq are not valid in this country and not to worry about it." Nikah and Talaq are not valid in this country? What does that mean?

OK, so let me confirm what I understood: if the wife asks her husband "did you mean to divorce me when you said (e.g.) 'get out of my life forever'?" and he says "No!" even though she is sure he did, is their nikah valid and halal? Or, if he pretends to have "taken her back" after the one talaq during her pregnancy (and she is 99% sure that conjugal relations never occurred after the first 3 months of pregnancy until 40 days after the birth, but there may have been days of relative peace and harmony when they sat side by side on the couch watching TV together!), is this also considered as the conclusive decision, i.e. they are still married in the eyes of Allah, and it is halal for them to live together?

Religious nikah and talaq are not recognized by the Turkish state. In fact, the state-employed imams are NOT ALLOWED BY LAW to perform deeni nikah on a couple unless they are ALREADY married by civil law (so deeni nikah is considered a bit like a religious "tradition" or "custom", and not binding by law) . A wife or husband have no legal rights if they manage to persuade somebody to marry them "religiously", are not recognized as married; similarly, a couple are not seen as "divorced" if talaq is performed. It is up to the conscience of the individuals to terminate the civil contract after the talaq occurs, otherwise the wife is still seen as married. (***Disclaimer*** This is what I have understood from my Turkish friends, both religious and non-religious, and a couple of lawyers I know - I may not be 100% accurate in the info I provide here***)

[hope1]

Assalamu alaikum,

Moulana one question - if the husband issued talaq-e-bain - and then the woman's iddah passed before he issued another two talaq-e-bain - then the second two should not count - right? So if the husband and wife were living together in sin, they can still remarry because the last two talaq-e-bain did not count. Is it possible something like this happened in this case?

[eTeacher]

does this not depend on the truthfulness of the husband. He may have meant it to mean divorce,but now,he's trying to convince himself that he didn't mean divorce. Im taking the wife would not be liable for sin in that instance as she has to take the word of her husband.

If he knows that he meant divorce by those words, then Talaq will occur. If he is denying it now and deep down, he knows he is lying, then the sin will fall on his shoulders. She can not truly know what his intentions are so she will not be held sinful if he is lying.

[eTeacher]

Assalamu alaikum,

Moulana one question - if the husband issued talaq-e-bain - and then the woman's iddah passed before he issued another two talaq-e-bain - then the second two should not count - right? So if the husband and wife were living together in sin, they can still remarry because the last two talaq-e-bain did not count. Is it possible something like this happened in this case?

Yup. Correct. It all depends if the husband intended divorce by mentioning some of those sentences. If he did, then a Talaq Bain has occured. Then they will not be in marriage till they remarry.

But it also depends if he did not divorce her by way of explicit Talaq and he did not take her back and then he did not divorce her again with explicit talaq. The explicit words of Talaq have been used frequently in this case.

If he divorced her with an explicit talaq or an implicit talaq, and he did not take her back or he did not remarry her, then the subsequent proclamations of Talaq will not count because she was never his wife after that. But if he divorced her explicitly and then took her back and did similar things at least three times, then she can not remarry him till she marries someone else and the second husband dies or divorces her. Then she can remarry the first husband if she wants to.

If he divorced her with a Talaq Bain and then in the iddat, he divorced her with explicit talaq words, then those count in iddat.

Talaq is a complicated issue and it has to be dealt with very diligintly.

[kayra]

Is "Maulana" how one addresses respected scholars? I apologize for not knowing any of the proper forms of address, and mean no disrespect by saying "brother", inshaAllah.

Maulana Brother eTeacher, I can see that this issue is way too delicate to be resolved in this way. If I misconstrue, mis-translate or otherwise wrongly convey her story to you, or your reply to her, I could be responsible for wrongly breaking up a couple, or encouraging them to live together in sin (may Allah protect us all). I have contacted the only female I know will handle this according to Shariah (my Shaikh's niece), but was unable to speak to her for more than a few minutes, and will call back again later, and inshaAllah she will get in touch with the sister in question if she needs clarification on any issue.

What a sobering thread. I had no idea that talaq was so complicated, delicate, and subtle (to my straightforward mind). May Allah guard us from thoughtless words spoken in anger or out of spite. May we all think thrice before we speak, ameen.

[Ansari]

The case that sister kayra is mentioning is a very delicate one. If one goes through the books of fiqh and fatawa, one would notice that scholars have differed upon what words constitutes a talaq and which not. When it comes to vague words, they have differed when for example the couple was already talking about divorce. If he used vague words hinting to divorce in a situation where divorce was already discussed, the scholars also rule this as talaq irrespective if the husband had an intention for it or not.

The husband is clearly trying to hide his true intention when he was suggesting a divorce in vague words. The fact remains that the woman in question believed it to be a divorce. Sometimes vague words can also clearly constitute a talaq when it is considered in the tradition [urf] as talaq. Also remember that a talaq in a joke does count as a talaq.

This could be a matter of zina and I would suggest the sister to first consult with her husband and try to exactly remember what was said under which circumstances. List everything up and then present it to a Mufti.

[eTeacher]

OK, so let me confirm what I understood: if the wife asks her husband "did you mean to divorce me when you said (e.g.) 'get out of my life forever'?" and he says "No!" even though she is sure he did, is their nikah valid and halal? Or, if he pretends to have "taken her back" after the one talaq during her pregnancy (and she is 99% sure that conjugal relations never occurred after the first 3 months of pregnancy until 40 days after the birth, but there may have been days of relative peace and harmony when they sat side by side on the couch watching TV together!), is this also considered as the conclusive decision, i.e. they are still married in the eyes of Allah, and it is halal for them to live together?

Religious nikah and talaq are not recognized by the Turkish state. In fact, the state-employed imams are NOT ALLOWED BY LAW to perform deeni nikah on a couple unless they are ALREADY married by civil law (so deeni nikah is considered a bit like a religious "tradition" or "custom", and not binding by law) . A wife or husband have no legal rights if they manage to persuade somebody to marry them "religiously", are not recognized as married; similarly, a couple are not seen as "divorced" if talaq is performed. It is up to the conscience of the individuals to terminate the civil contract after the talaq occurs, otherwise the wife is still seen as married. (***Disclaimer*** This is what I have understood from my Turkish friends, both religious and non-religious, and a couple of lawyers I know - I may not be 100% accurate in the info I provide here***)

The thing with divorce is that with the change of wordings, the rulings will change as well. Rulings change according to the words which are uttered.

If in a language, a sentence is only used for divorce and it is not used in any other situation, then one talaq will occur in which he can retake her and there would be no need to remarry even though the explicit words of talaq and divorce are not used.

You mentioned a completely different sentence in this post which was not mentioned previously. If those words, "Get out of my life forever" are only used in a country for divorce, then one revocable divorce will occur. If they have the possibility of being used in other situations as well, then if he meant because of divorce, then he will have to remarry. If he meant that stay away from me even though I am not divorcing you, then no divorce will occur.

So it all depends on the intention of the husband when explicit words of divorce are not used in this case. If he says he did not, then divorce will not occur. The wife can never know what his intentions were when uttering those words of implicit divorce.

In a revocable divorce, it's not necessary to only have conjugal relationships to take her back. He can take her back through other means as well. For example by kissing her with desire or touching her with desire and through other means. If he touched her with desire, then he has taken her back.

The reason why I kept on requesting her to talk to a local Imam is because at least she will be able to explain her situation in proper detail and he can have his questions clarified. At least she will know if she is divorced or not. Irrespective of if she can have her marriage nullified or not. At least she can try to convince her husband to get a civil divorce if they are divorced.

It's hard to get a good sense of the time line on which statement were made when and what happened between each statement.