The Ruling on the Words “I Have Left You” and “Get Out”

Question

A woman was married to a man, and a girl and a boy were born to her from him. Then her husband married his brother’s widow, discord arose with the first wife, and he turned the woman out of the house. Then the brother of the said woman brought her to her husband, but that husband beat the woman. The woman said: “I want to live as a family; why do you turn me out and torment me? I have little children.” The man in anger said: “You are my mother, sister; I have left you, get out.

Answer

In our custom (‘urf), a husband’s saying to his wife, “I have left you”, is equivalent to explicit (sarih) talaq; by it, according to the Shari‘a, one revocable (raj‘i) talaq takes effect. The second word the husband said was “get out”; this is one of the allusive (kinaya) expressions of talaq.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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