My wife was divorced three times in separate instances; the first divorce was in a state of intoxication and anger, while the last two were in a state of intense anger, though love still exists.

The questioner : The questioner says: I divorced my wife three times in separate instances. The first divorce was in a state of displeasure and anger, while the last two were the result of intense anger. Please note that love exists between us. Is my wife divorced with no possibility of taking her back? Please advise us. May Allah reward you with good. And if she can be taken back, if Allah wills, what should I do?

The Shaykh : This is a man who divorced his wife. This is a personal question; in fact, it would have been better if he had kept it private, but it is here now. Well, if it is here, if Allah wills, we will answer it after the lesson, because we fear that answering in this public setting may involve a hazard. Well, we must first say that he mentioned he divorced his wife three times. He says the first divorce was in a state of intoxication and anger, the second in a state of intense anger, and the third also in a state of intense anger. He asks if his wife is divorced. I want to discuss with him whether the first divorce is considered a divorce or not. Did he himself consider it a divorce or not? Well, the divorce of an intoxicated person is a matter of disagreement among scholars. Some said: his divorce does not take effect due to the lack of intellect. Others said: his divorce takes effect as a punishment for him. Understood? Well, the stronger opinion is that his divorce does not take effect because he is not of sound mind and does not know what he is saying. As for the punishment, we punish him with flogging. and he ordered that he be killed on the fourth time. Scholars differed on whether this is abrogated or decisive. It was said that it is abrogated, and it was said that it is decisive, and it was said that it is decisive but restricted. The correct view is that it is decisive but restricted to the case where people do not stop without killing. If people do not stop without killing, he is killed on the fourth time. But if it is possible for people to stop without killing, we do not kill him. This is the choice of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah. Those who said he is killed if he is flogged three times and killed on the fourth time absolutely, these are the people of the Zahir school, like Ibn Hazm and those who followed him or preceded him. Those who said it is abrogated are the majority of scholars. But as we all know, abrogation is not permissible to assert except with two conditions: what are they? The impossibility of reconciliation, and the knowledge of the later date of the abrogating text. If reconciliation is possible, abrogation is impossible, because whenever reconciliation between texts is possible, it is obligatory to uphold them all so that we do not negate some of them. And if the date is not known, one must suspend judgment, because one text is not more beneficial than the other than the reverse. The second divorce: he says it was in a state of intense anger. Anger has three levels. Pay attention: anger has three levels: the first, the middle, and the final. As for the first: it is the slight anger in which a person understands what he says and controls himself. This has no effect, meaning the angry person is like the non-angry person in the application of the rulings of his speech. Clear? This. The second level: moderate anger. He has not reached the limit, but he does not control himself, as if something pressed him until he spoke the divorce. The third level: the limit of anger, where one does not know what he says at all, and does not know if he is on earth or in the sky. This does not take effect, or does it take effect? Some people are hot-tempered; when they get angry, they do not know what they say, do not control themselves, do not know if they are on earth or in the sky, and do not know if the person in front of them is their wife or a man from the market. Well, how many levels are there? Three. The first level: what did we say about it? That the rulings of this angry person are like those of others, because this anger has no effect. The final level: scholars agreed that the speech of the angry person has no ruling in it; it is void, because he has no feeling at all, so his speech is like the speech of a madman. We are left with the middle level, where a person imagines what he says and knows what he says, but he does not control himself, as if something forced him to utter the divorce. This is a point of disagreement among scholars, and the correct view is that the divorce does not take effect in this state. The evidence is the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): And because if a man is forced to divorce and divorces due to the coercion, his divorce does not take effect. This is a type of coercion, but it is coercion by an internal matter, not an external one.