Is divorce valid via text messages?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. If a husband sends a text message to his wife on his mobile phone saying, "You are divorced," does the divorce take effect? If he is the one who wrote the message and he admits that he wrote it.
Answer:
The divorce takes effect, because writing serves the place of speech. Yes. However, if someone else wrote it, whether as a joke or to cause harm, this is not accepted. Yes.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. If a husband sends a text message to his wife on his mobile phone saying, "You are divorced," does the divorce take effect? If he is the one who wrote the message and he admits that he wrote it.
Answer:
The divorce takes effect, because writing serves the place of speech. Yes. However, if someone else wrote it, whether as a joke or to cause harm, this is not accepted. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [1964 -2802] هل يقع الطلاق عبر الرسائل النصية؟ - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.