Answer
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:
If, by pronouncing conditional divorce, you intended to urge your wife to pray, then the divorce did not take place, and you ought to redeem yourself by offering expiation.
Responding to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Doubts about intention of conditional divorce
You ought to ask yourself: By making such a pronouncement, did you intend to force her to pray, and you had the intention to divorce her, and yet she didn’t comply?
If that was your intention, yet she didn’t comply, she is divorced.
If, however, you intended to urge her to pray, then the divorce did not take place, and you ought to redeem yourself by offering kaffarah (expiation)
Allah says in the Quran:
“Allah will not take you to task for oaths which you may have uttered without thought, but He will take you to task for oaths which you have sworn in earnest. Thus, the breaking of an oath must be atoned for by feeding ten needy persons with more or less the same food as you are wont to give to your own families, or by clothing them, or by freeing a human being from bondage; and he who has not the means ( to do so) shall fast for three days [instead]. This shall be the atonement for your oaths whenever you have sworn [and broken them]. But be mindful of your oaths!’ Thus Allah makes clear unto you His messages, so that you might have cause to be grateful” (Al-Ma’idah 5:89)
Expiation for breaking oaths
Based on this verse, the expiation for breaking an oath entails one of the following:
- One should feed ten poor people offering them same food or equivalent in cash or providing them clothes;
- The second option of freeing a human being from bondage is not available now as slavery is has been abolished, and we are not allowed to re-introduce it;
- Therefore, if a person is unable to feed ten poor persons, because of lack of material means, then he ought to fast three days by way of expiation.
Having said this, let me rush to add the following:
The above rules apply only to oaths in regards to matters that are virtuous or permissible; they do not apply to oaths entailing sins or acts of disobedience.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Whoever vows to obey Allah, let him do so; if however, he has pledged to commit an act of transgression or disobedience, he must never do it.” (Reported by Abu Dawud, Ibn Hibban and others on the authority of Aishah, the beloved wife of the Prophet (peace be upon him).
Almighty Allah knows best.