A questioner asks: “My husband says that if I ever address him as ‘tui’, then on the day I do so it is talaq, talaq, talaq, talaq. My question is how many divorces will take effect if the condition is broken. He now says he said ‘talaq, talaq, talaq, talaq’ to frighten me and to add force to his words, but he claims that by this he meant one talaq.”
In reply, Mufti Tawhidul Islam of the fatwa department of Jamia Rahmania Arabia in Mohammadpur, Dhaka, says that when talaq is pronounced in explicit words, or tied to a condition, it is not cancelled merely because the purpose was to frighten. With the explicit (sarih) words of talaq, divorce takes effect even without intention.
The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) said: “There are three things which take effect when done in earnest and equally when done in jest: marriage, divorce and taking back a wife.” (Sunan Abu Dawud, hadith 2194)
So if a husband makes the divorce conditional on a form of address and that address is then used, three divorces take effect because the condition has been fulfilled. If he later says he spoke to frighten or meant one talaq, that does not change the ruling.
The mufti cites al-Fatawa al-Hindiyyah (chapter on conditional divorce, 1/420), which says that when divorce is attached to a condition it takes effect, by agreement, once the condition occurs; and ad-Durr al-Mukhtar with Radd al-Muhtar (3/376), which says that if a man repeats a conditional divorce three times, three take effect.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report