giving divorce before marriage is consummated

By: likhon Mood: don't know Date: 11/06/2007 21:41:16 Music: None

Q. When I got married, my wife stayed in her parents’ home. We did not have a wedding and the marriage was not consummated. After six months, at the advice of my parents, I wrote a letter of divorce in three copies, dated on the same date of three consecutive months. As I was to travel abroad, I requested my parents to dispatch them on the due dates. I also wrote that should my wife and her family want a reconciliation before the end of her waiting period, I am prepared to sort things out. My parents dispatched the first two notices of divorce, but four days before the third was due, my wife’s parents got in touch with my parents, and both families met and agreed reconciliation. However, a few days later, her parents said that they needed further time.

Considering all this, has the divorce process been automatically completed, despite the fact that the third letter was not dispatched? I have specified in my letters that any reconciliation should take place during my wife’s waiting period. What are the implications, considering that the marriage was not consummated? Is there a possibility of reunion under Islamic law?

(Name and address withheld)

A.by adil hi:- Several points are involved in this complicated case. However, I have to point out first that the process resorted to by this reader is full of faults. Islamic divorce is a simple, straightforward process; yet people complicate it largely out of ignorance and partly due to tradition and personal feelings of anger, dismay, etc. This should never be the case. Divorce is a very serious matter, as it ends a family relationship. It is as important as marriage, if not more. Yet we take a long time before we commit ourselves to marriage. Why do people allow themselves little or no time before they embark on divorce? In this particular case, probably the decision to divorce was not taken on the spur of the moment, but often divorce happens in a state of extreme anger. This is absolutely wrong.

The proper process of divorce is simple. When a man wants to divorce his wife, he has to wait until a time when she can start her waiting period. This means that she must not be in her period, nor in a period of cleanliness from menses during which the couple have had sexual intercourse. In either case, they have to wait until she completes her menstrual period. The waiting period, or iddah, lasts until she has had three cycles. During the waiting period the woman remains in her husband’s home, because it is still her home as the Qur’an says. She is to be supported by her husband, but they use separate bedrooms. She is not required to do any housework. If the couple want to reunite during this period, they do not need to take any steps other than express their agreement. If the waiting period lapses and they have not reunited, the woman goes back to her parents’ home and the divorce process is completed. At least two witnesses should be made aware of the divorce. A reunion is possible, but requires a fresh marriage contract. If this whole process is done twice, and the divorce occurs a third time, then she has been divorced three times and no remarriage is possible. As for what is known as lah or muhallil, involving a one-day marriage to another man, this is a forbidden process, which does not make remarriage possible. It remains unlawful.

In a certain part of the Muslim world, the process of divorce has been made complicated and the way described by the reader is often resorted to. The only difference is that it is normally made verly, but he had to make it in writing because he was traveling abroad. It involves three divorces over a period of two months, which is supposed to be the waiting period, so as to bring the three divorces allowed to a man together and make the separation final, with no possible return.

As I have said many times, this is against the Prophet’s teachings, and it is forbidden in Islam. When the Prophet was told by one of his companions that he divorced his wife three times, the Prophet was angry. He addressed his companions, saying: “Is God’s book to be trifled with when I am still alive among you?” If the Prophet describes something as “trifling with God’s book”, it follows that it is forbidden. The Prophet told the man that his three divorces counted as one divorce.

This reader’s case has a further point. The divorce has taken place before the marriage has been consummated. This means that no waiting period is required. However, the woman is entitled to half her dowry, if the dowry has been specified. If not, she is entitled to have a gift from her divorcing husband.

Can they re-marry? Yes, certainly. The divorce has taken place, but it is only one divorce. They need a fresh marriage contract, which should specify a new dowry to be paid by the husband to his wife, as the proper Islamic method of marriage requires. However, before anything takes place, the reader should sit with his wife and sort things out properly, in a frank and constructive manner in order to make their future life a happy one.