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Said divorce statement to scare her

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Fatwa.org.au
Me and my wife had an argument and i gave her Talak, One in English (I Divorce you) with the intention that it is in English so it will not be valid, just to scare her; and second was in Arabic that “I give you Talak” then i said to her “Are you happy that i gave you Talak”. Is this considered as 3 Talak?

Further information about the statement “Are you happy that i gave you Talak”:

In my heart was to ask her question whether she is happy that “I gave her Talak” through second statement.

Answer:

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Two revocable divorces (talaq raj’ee) took place in total. The detail of this is as follows:

When you uttered “I divorce you”, one talaq raj’ee (revocable divorce) took place, even though you thought that by uttering this statement talaq does not take place.

When you uttered “I give you talak” another talaq raj’ee took place.

As for your statement to your wife “Are you happy that I gave you Talak”, since you did not intend to give another talaq with this statement (instead you were asking your wife if she was happy with the talaq you issued through your second statement), talaq did not take place due to this statement.

Hence, two revocable divorces (talaq raj’ee) took place in total. That means that you are allowed to take your wife back before her iddah (waiting period) expires. The best method of taking one’s wife back after giving revocable divorce is to say to her in the presence of two witnesses “I am going to maintain you as my wife and I will not let you go” or “I am taking you back into my nikah”.

If, however, you do not take her back during her iddah and her iddah expires, then you can only have her back with a new nikah.

In the future, be extremely careful about issuing another divorce, because if you issue one more divorce, your wife will become forbidden for you and you will not be able to marry her again without halaala. [1]

And Allah knows best.

Mufti Faizal Riza
5/6/2012

This answer was collected from Fatwa.org.au, which is connected to Darul Ifta Australia, based in Melbourne, Australia.
It is operated by Mufti Faizal Riza, a student of Mufti Ebrahim Desai from South Africa.

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