Dear Hadi,
I am from India, and I got married five months ago in a simple nikaḥ ceremony. Only my family and a few of my husband’s close friends were present. We both love and care for each other, and we got married with full understanding and mutual consent.
From the beginning, I knew that he was already engaged to another girl by his family. He had told me that he planned to marry both of us and have two wives. I agreed because I trusted him and believed that he will be fair and honest with both of us.
After our marriage, we lived separately. His parents and the other girl’s family didn’t know about our nikaḥ. We kept it private to avoid problems and out of respect for his family’s situation. But last week, his family came to know about our marriage, and they reacted very badly. They immediately forced him to end our relationship.
Within two days, his father made a divorce paper and made him sign it. The paper had only my first name without address or ID details. My husband later told me he signed it under pressure, without reading properly, and didn’t notice that the word ṭalaq was written three times.
Two days after that, his family made him say ṭalaq three times to me in front of about 7 or 8 people. The next day, he came back and told me he never meant to divorce me, and that he only did it because of his parents’ pressure. He said he still loves me and wants to stay together.
Now both of us are confused. We don’t know what Islam says in this situation. Is the divorce valid? Are we still husband and wife in the eyes of Allah? And if not, what steps should we take to be together again?
Dear Reader,
Thank you for your question. We’re sorry to hear about the difficult situation you’re in. While we do not give fatwas, we can certainly offer you our opinion on the matter.
From a legal perspective, if you are living in India and that is where your nikah was performed, we do not know if the divorce paper your husband was pressured to sign is a legally recognized document or not. That would be an important question to be answered.
However, from an Islamic perspective, we don’t believe that being pressured or coerced into a divorce is a legitimate action for his father to have taken. Action taken under duress or coercion is often not considered legal; in Islam, we are taught that even if someone, under duress, renounces their faith overtly, but in their heart, they remain a Muslim, that the renunciation of faith is not taken at face value.
Now, let’s consider the issue of the “talaq” being mentioned three times in the divorce paper and said by him to you verbally three times, on the same occasion. According to some scholars, the 2nd and 3rd utterances would count as separate declarations, leading to the view that divorce is now irrevocable and that it can only be overcome if and when you marry another and that subsequent marriage is later dissolved. However, according to many opinions, if the 2nd and 3rd pronouncements were done at the same time, it would count as one divorce, leaving open the door for the two of you to get back together.
Before Caliph Umar later enforced the idea of “triple talaq” counting as an actual divorce, there is strong evidence from hadith that during the lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh), during the caliphate of Abu Bakr and for the first part of the caliphate of Umar, when a man pronounced talaq (divorce) three times at once, this was treated as only one talaq:
Abu Sahba' told Ibn 'Abbas (Allah be pleased with them): Do you know that three (divorces) were treated as one during the lifetime of Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him), and that of Abu Bakr, and during three (years) of the caliphate of Umar (Allah be pleased with him)? Ibn Abbas (Allah be pleased with them) said: Yes. (reported in Sahih)
The explanation that goes with this hadith is as follows: “This hadith is about the practice of divorce during the time of Prophet Muhammad, his companion Abu Bakr and the second Caliph Umar. During this period, three divorces were treated as one. This means that if a husband said "I divorce you" three times in succession then it would be counted as only one divorce instead of three. This was done to ensure that people did not take advantage of this situation by saying something they did not mean or regret later on.”
During his later years of rule, Caliph Umar is said to have enforced the “triple talaq” (three utterances in a single setting) as he was upset that men had made talaq a joke by verbally divorcing their wives several times but then repeatedly taking them back. He thought this was inappropriate as it left women in a disadvantageous position, unable to actually be free of the marriage, so he believed holding men to the triple talaq would be an important way to have men take their responsibility more seriously.
For whatever it is worth, our opinion is that the “triple talaq” is not valid, and we agree with the scholars who say that it counts as a single divorce. However, as we have always stated, our role here is not to give fatwas, but rather to give advice. Putting aside the question of whether the divorce paper signed is legally binding or not, especially if it was procured under duress, we suggest that if you and your husband want to remain married to one another, that he must be able to respectfully, but clearly, stand up to his father and let him know that decisions about marriage are his to make and that he has decided to remain married to you. If the divorce paper is found to be legally valid, then the two of you should take the necessary steps to either have the divorce annulled or be remarried.
We hope this helps and that God blesses you both.
In peace.