Ruling 2540 — Divorce

An irrevocable divorce is when the husband does not have the right to return to his wife after the divorce, meaning that he cannot remarry her without a new marriage contract. This divorce is of six types: 1. the divorce of a girl who has not completed nine lunar years; 2. the divorce of a postmenopausal woman; 3. the divorce of a woman who did not have sexual intercourse with her husband after the conclusion of the marriage contract; 4. the third divorce, which will be explained in Ruling 2545; 5. a khulʿ or mubārāh divorce, the laws (aḥkām) of which will be mentioned later; 6. a divorce given by a fully qualified jurist (al‑ḥākim al‑sharʿī) to a woman whose husband is neither prepared to pay her living expenses nor divorce her, and the divorce which the husband gives as per the instruction of a fully qualified jurist in such a case. Apart from these, divorce is revocable, meaning that as long as the wife is observing ʿiddah, her husband can return to her.