Divorce Issue
Mu' meneen Brothers
and Sisters,
As Salaam
Aleikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh. (May Allah's Peace, Mercy and
Blessings be upon all of you)
One of our
brothers/sisters has asked this question:
First of all I do fear allah I am muslim
married to a western woman for the past 6 years I have a son from here she it
not muslim I married here by the countrys law the one I am living in not the
islamic law I intend to marry a muslim girl from my country. i want to Divorce
my first wife, and I had this intention for the past 3 years BUT I nevery said
to here Divorce any time, but she knows that I am going to do so.
Am I divorced from her even tho I have
the intention to divorce her in the near future while I am sleeping with her???
HELP ME PLEASE?
(There may be some grammatical and spelling errors in the above statement. The forum does not change anything from questions, comments and statements received from our readers for circulation in confidentiality.)
Answer:
Divorce Issue
In the name of Allah, We praise Him, seek His help and ask
for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever
He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We bear witness that
there is no one (no idol, no
person, no grave, no prophet, no imam,
no dai, nobody!) worthy of
worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that Muhammad(saws) is His
slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.
We would
assume that your current wife, who you
have said is a non-muslim, is either a
Christian or a Jew; and your saying
that you married her ‘by the country’s law’ would mean that you had a proper
Islamic Nikaah or marriage with her.
If the
above two conditions are not met, the
marriage itself would be invalid in the sight of Islamic Law, and thus the divorce laws of Shariah would
not apply in an invalid marriage.
Your Question: Am I divorced from her even tho I have the
intention to divorce her in the near future while I am sleeping with her?
In
Islamic Law or Shariah, having the
intention to divorce your wife, does
not constitute a legal divorce. For
one to legally divorce his wife, he
has to proclaim the words verbally to his wife, “I divorce you!”. Once you have said that, you need to wait for a period of the wife’s
three monthly cycles; and if during
this ‘waiting period’ you and your wife do not reconcile and have any conjugal
relations, the divorce is final and
legal; and you and your wife become
non-mehrams to each other, and must separate.
If you
change your mind after this waiting period,
you may marry her again by doing the Nikaah or marriage ceremony
again, if both of you so wish. This process of divorce and reconciliation
can only be done twice. If, you divorce her for a third time, it is irrevocable and you cannot marry her
again, unless she, of her own free will, marries someone else, and her new husband
divorces her or dies.
Whatever written of Truth and benefit is only due to
Allah’s Assistance and Guidance, and whatever of error is of me. Allah Alone Knows Best and He is the Only
Source of Strength.
Your Brother in
Islam,