Does divorce take place if a man says to his wife, "If you speak to so-and-so, you are divorced," as a form of threat?

The questioner : Shaykh, if a man says to his wife, "If you speak to so-and-so, you are divorced," as a form of threat, meaning he is saying, does the divorce take place?

The Shaykh : I do not consider it to have taken place, but others may consider it to have taken place.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Because this divorce is called a conditional divorce, and a conditional divorce varies depending on the one who conditions the divorce and by looking at the nature of the condition upon which the divorce is contingent. We know from reality that many of these men who pronounce a conditional divorce do not pronounce it except as a form of threat and intimidation, as you mentioned. However, usually, the matter upon which the divorce is contingent is one of the trivial matters that do not warrant the execution of the divorce if the condition is met, like the example you mentioned. But this example could be of the other type. We are often asked: the husband said, "By Allah, if you go to your father's house, you are divorced." It is clear that there is a disagreement between the brother-in-law and the husband's brother, so he finds no way to vent his anger at his wife except by saying, as they say in Syria...

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : He prevents her with this conditional divorce... Her father is an example, and it is suitable for what I said that he does not intend divorce but intends to prevent her. But look now, if he said to her, "If I see you speaking to my neighbor again, you are divorced," this is different from that. This means the husband has developed suspicion and doubt about his wife, that there is a connection between her and the young neighbor... and so on. So he threatened her with divorce. Here, it comes to mind that he does not mean only to prevent her, but also to actually divorce her, because she is almost betraying him in her honor. The examples multiply, resemble each other, and differ greatly and very greatly. Therefore, I say here in this type of divorce: But the jurists divide divorce into two categories, and this category must be considered in most cases: explicit divorce and non-explicit divorce. Explicit divorce is executed and takes place, and one does not look at... his intention at all, because if one looked at the intention, the matter would be... chaos. But the second category, non-explicit divorce, is called a kinayah divorce. Here, one must look at the intention of this divorce. One of the clear examples in the books of jurisprudence and hadith commentaries is a man saying to his wife, "Go to your family." This could mean "Go to your family, you are divorced," or "Go to your family, hide your face, I don't want to see you." Here, one looks at what? At his intention, because it is not explicit. All this speech and detail is beneficial regarding the majority of scholars who do not require witnessing for explicit divorce. Witnessing, and we see that witnessing in divorce is like witnessing in marriage, if not more important in terms of the outcome and effects. We all know that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: