Talaq in Writing: A Divorce Deed and the Husband’s Claim of Coercion

Question

Question: A man’s nikah is performed, but the bride’s send-off to her husband’s home has not taken place. After some time has passed, this man frees his wife by nikah (mankuha); it has been about a year since then. Now, when the girl’s heirs (warith) are ready to marry her elsewhere, the man says: “I was forced to free her,” although a divorce deed has been duly written and his thumbprint and signature are duly recorded in the scribe’s register. Now please tell us: did that talaq take effect or not?

Answer

If he also uttered with his tongue the words written in the divorce deed, then talaq has taken effect in every case — whether he said them willingly or was made to say them by force. If he did not utter them with his tongue, but only wrote and handed them over, or did not even write them himself but signed a divorce deed written by someone else, knowing that it was a divorce…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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