Answer
Wa `alaykum as-Salam wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
Intimate relations necessitate observing the iddah (waiting period) after divorce. The absence of vaginal intercourse does not mean that you are not required to observe iddah.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Canada, stated:
As you and your ex-husband have lived together as husband and wife, in the event of divorce, you are obligated to undergo the prescribed waiting period of three months or three menstrual cycles.
The fact that you did not have vaginal intercourse does not mean that you are free from this requirement. The simple fact that you have had intimate relations is a sufficient ground for observing the iddah.
Therefore, I advise you to wait for the period of iddah to expire before considering another proposal of marriage. If your ex-husband arrives after the iddah has expired, then you are not considered married to him.
However, if he arrives before the iddah expires, then he is entitled to take you back because the divorce is revocable in this case. This can ideally be done by stating, in the presence of two witnesses, that he is taking you back as wife. In case of expiry of iddah, he needs to remarry you, if both of you wish to get together again.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.
Source: Excerpted, with slight modifications, from www.islam.ca