Concerning Divorce
Two Ways of Divorcing
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ibn al-Khattab. An incident that illustrates his
viewpoint was thus described by Imam Muslim.
In the Prophet’s lifetime, then under the Caliphate
of Abu Bakr and also during the early period of the
Caliphate of ‘Umar, three utterances of
talaq
on one
occasion used to be taken together as only one
utterance. Then it occurred to ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab
that in spite of the fact that a system had been laid
down which permitted the husband to withdraw
his first, or even second
talaq,
men still wanted to
rush into divorce. He felt that if they were bent on
being hasty, why should not a rule be imposed on
them binding them to a final divorce on the
utterance of
talaq
three times in a row. And he
proceeded to impose such a rule.
This act on the part of the second Caliph,
apparently against the principles of the Qur’an and
sunnah,
did not in any way change the law of the
shari‘ah.
To think that this led to any revision of
Islamic law would be to misunderstand the
situation: the Caliph’s order merely constituted an
exception to the rule, and was, moreover, of a
temporary nature. This aptly demonstrates how the
