Woman Between Islam and Western Society
8. Concerning Divorce
~ 423 ~
When the law is misused in this way, there are two
ways of dealing with the offenders. Either he can be
made to consider his three utterances of
talaq
as
only one, in which case he can still benefit from the
right to revoke his initial decision, or he may, as a
punishment, be forced to suffer the consequences of
his irresponsible behaviour, i.e. immediate
separation from his wife and resulting destruction
of his home and family life. Such a punishment
meted out to one man can be a strong deterrent to
others. Once it is understood how grave are the
consequences of a hasty divorce, few will be
inclined to follow the same path.
The executive order of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab was
not meant to become a permanent law of the
shari’ah
to be generally enforced at all times. It was
meant only to discourage deviation from the
shari’ah
and to engender respect for the proper way
of divorce. Although an exception to the general
rule, ‘Umar’s verdict could at some future date be
adopted, if the circumstances so warranted it, and it
could be enforced just as it was in the past,
provided that whoever made such a ruling was
vested with the same political power as ‘Umar ibn
