The main categories of Islamic customary law are talaq (repudiation), khulʿ (mutual divorce) and faskh (dissolution of marriage before the Religious Court).
[6] Moreover, a man who vows not to have sexual intercourse with his wife, which would lead to automatic divorce, is allowed a four-month period to break his oath.
[11][6] The Quran substantially reformed the gender inequity of divorce practices that existed in pre-Islamic Arabia, although some patriarchical elements survived and others flourished during later centuries.
[12] Before Islam, divorce among the Arabs was governed by unwritten customary law, which varied according to region and tribe, and its observance depended on the authority of the individuals and groups involved.
[13] The Quranic rules of marriage and divorce provided a fixed set of norms for all Muslims, backed by divine authority and enforced by the community.
[15] It was historically interpreted by jurists (muftis) who were expected to give a legal opinion (fatwa) free of charge in response to any query.
[2][12] In classical Islamic law it refers to the husband's right to dissolve the marriage by simply announcing to his wife that he repudiates her.
[12] Classical jurists variously classified pronouncement of talaq as forbidden or reprehensible unless it was motivated by a compelling cause such as impossibility of cohabitation due to irreconcilable conflict,[23] though they did not require the husband to obtain court approval or provide a justification.
In addition, she has a right to child support and any past due maintenance, which Islamic law requires to be paid regularly in the course of marriage.
[12] Giving the husband a prerogative of repudiation was based on the assumption that men would have no interest in initiating a divorce without good cause, given the financial obligations it would incur.
If the husband repudiates his wife for the third time, it triggers a "major" divorce (al-baynuna al-kubra), after which the couple cannot remarry without an intervening consummated marriage to another man.
[2] Talaq was considered to be disastrous for the woman because it deprived her of long-term protection and financial support, preventing her from remarrying, since this would cause her to lose child custody.
The hasan divorce involves three pronouncements made during the wife's state of ritual purity with menstrual periods intervening between them, and no intercourse having taken place during that time.
[24] According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad denounced the practice of triple talaq, and the second caliph Umar punished husbands who made use of it.
These are the bounds set by God; do not transgress them.It is further based on a hadith in which Muhammad instructs a man to agree to his wife's wish of divorce if she gives back a garden received from him as part of her mahr.
A khul' is concluded when the couple agrees to a divorce in exchange for a monetary compensation paid by the wife, which cannot exceed the value of the mahr she had received, and is generally a smaller sum or involves forfeiting the still unpaid portion.
If the husband pressures his wife to agree to khul' instead of pronouncing talaq, which would let him avoid attendant financial responsibilities, the divorce is considered to be invalid.
[2] According to studies of the Ottoman Levant, various court procedures were put in place to ensure that a khul' was not actually a talaq.
[12] Examples of fault are cruelty; husband's failure to provide maintenance or pay the immediate installment of mahr; infidelity; desertion; moral or social incompatibility; certain ailments; and imprisonment harmful to the marriage.
To address this, in some cases a man setting out for travel would leave his wife a letter authorizing talaq if he did not return within a specified period of time.
The wife is given an opportunity to take an oath denying infidelity, and if she does so and the husband persists in his accusation, the marriage is dissolved by a judge and the couple can never remarry.
[2] Studies of practices under Mamluk and Ottoman rule found no instances of the oaths of li'an or abstinence being used, while conditional talaq seems to have played a prominent role.
In Ottoman Egypt marriage contracts commonly included stipulations of conditional talaq which were not otherwise recognized by the prevailing Hanafi school as grounds for judicial divorce, such as non-payment of maintenance or marrying a second wife.
The wife obtains custody of the children until their majority (whose definition varies according to legal school), while the father retains guardianship.
Several scholars have argued that because these laws are more extensively specified in the Quran and hadith than others, it has been difficult for believers to accept deviating from these rules.
[36] In particular, control over the norms of divorce shifted from traditional jurists to the state, though they generally remained "within the orbit of Islamic law".
[37] Many Muslim countries are finding ways and means to account for non-financial contributions of women to a marriage and improve divorce compensations.
[37] Changing social conditions have led to increasing dissatisfaction with traditional Islamic law of divorce since the early 20th century.
Various reforms have been undertaken in an attempt to restrict the husband's right of unilateral repudiation and give women greater ability to initiate divorce.
[40][41] In India, The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 was passed in July, 2019 which made instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddah) in any form — spoken, written, or by electronic means illegal, void, and punishable by up to three years imprisonment.