If a man divorces his wife three times in one sitting, is this permissible, and how is it counted?

The questioner : If a man divorces his wife three times in one sitting, is this permissible? And is it counted as three divorces, or one, or something else?

The Shaykh : First, it is not permissible for him to do so because it is an innovated divorce. Second, only one divorce takes effect from him. He has the right to take her back, returning to the correct Sunnah from which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) died. This is established and decisive, and Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him) acted upon it throughout his two and a half years of righteous caliphate. Then 'Umar ibn al-Khattab followed it for half of his righteous caliphate. Then, from the perspective of disciplinary punishment and observing the new deviations of the people from the Shari'ah, he said, before making the divorce by the wording of three in one sitting count as three: "If we enforce it as three upon them..." It was as if he was consulting, then he resolved his matter and enforced it as three upon them. This was from him in the capacity of a knowledgeable, reasoning ruler's action. There is no one like 'Umar in his knowledge, reasoning, and wisdom. It is sufficient for him that the Qur'an was revealed in agreement with him in more than one case. If it occurred to him to punish the people for some new things that did not exist in the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him), in order to reform what some people had corrupted, the ruler has that right, on the condition that the people do not adopt that as a new Shari'ah, as if it were the original, old Shari'ah. And with great regret, this is what happened to this ruling. The masses of Muslims, over the years, forgot the Prophetic ruling and what Abu Bakr and 'Umar, in the beginning of his caliphate, acted upon, as I mentioned to you just now. This Sunnah became forgotten, and the Sunnah of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), which is the subject of our discussion, took its place and became an eternal Shari'ah until this era, until about a quarter of a century ago, when some judges or those who specialized in jurisprudence according to a school of thought, who do not base their rulings on the evidence of the Book and the Sunnah, but rather establish them on what they claim to be the interest of the Ummah, looked into it. Not every interest that a person claims is permissible to establish a ruling for, unless he is a jurist in the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). When they saw the multitude of problems, I mean these specialists or judges, when they saw the multitude of problems occurring between spouses due to divorce that was not based on awareness and thought, and this divorce might result from an angry outburst that is not executed, so incidents of divorce increased. They wanted to reduce them and found no way before them except—I do not say except—returning to the Sunnah, for they had no knowledge of the Sunnah before; in fact, they were fighting the Sunnah explicitly, claiming that this Sunnah, like much of the rest, contradicts the four schools of thought. But here, when they applied the interest, they dared to contradict the four schools of thought and took not the Sunnah—I repeat, as a warning—but the school of Ibn Taymiyyah. The school of Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), as we know, in most of his fatwas, may Allah reward him well for Islam, is based on the Book and the Sunnah. This issue is one of them. He continued to issue this ruling among the masses of judges and muftis in his time, who were issuing rulings as the judges did before this adjustment. Ibn Taymiyyah did not fear blame from Allah. So his school spread in the present era and became known even to these school-bound judges. They found that the problem of repeated divorce is solved by adopting the school of Ibn Taymiyyah, even if the school of Ibn Taymiyyah contradicts, God forbid, the Book and the Sunnah; they will adopt it and not care about its contradiction with the Book and the Sunnah, to escape, because in that the problem they touched with their own hands is solved. As for the truly learned Muslim, he remains holding fast to the Sunnah throughout his life, not caring about the people at all, whether they are pleased or angry, as was said about some of the Salaf: "I do not care when I am killed, a Muslim, *** On which side my death in Allah's cause occurs" So the important thing today is that the judges and some muftis have returned, and many muftis still issue rulings that this divorce is a final, irrevocable divorce , contradicting the correct Sunnah in that, preferring taqlid over the Sunnah. This is a calamity for most of the Ummah in this time. It returns to two reasons: first, their ignorance of the Sunnah, and second, their fanaticism for the school of thought more than their fanaticism for the Sunnah. This is a reversal of the truth, which is absolutely not permissible. Yes.