ZIHAR AND ILA�

There were two other forms of separation not amounting to legal divorce prevalent among the Arabs at the time of Muhammad: zihAr and IlA�.  In zihAr, the husband vowed that his wife would be unto him as the back (zahr) of his mother and then stayed away from her for a specified period.  This was a customary vow of abstinence among the Arabs, and according to some traditions, Muslims also took it during the period of fasting.  The purpose of the abstinence could be penitential or devotional, or the vow might be taken in a fit of anger.  The same formula was also used as a form of divorce.  Muhammad condemned divorce by zihAr (QurAn 58: 1-5) and allowed a husband who had taken the vow to go back to his wife.  The broken vow could be expiated by making a kaffArah (literally, �that which covers a sin�), which in this case is either a fast for two months or the feeding of sixty poor men and women.

There was another form of separation called IlA� (�to swear�).  In this form, the husband swore an oath to abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife.  In the pre-Islamic period, the Arabs regarded IlA as a form of divorce, but it did not fully dissolve the marriage.  The oath of IlA was sometimes taken to penalize the wife and extort ransom from her.  Muhammad forbade this (QurAn 2:226).  A man who had taken such a vow was to go back to his wife without any blame to himself; if not, the marriage was ipso facto legally dissolved at the end of four months.  The broken vow could be expiated.  �When a man declares his wife as unlawful for himself that is an oath which must be atoned. . . . There is in the Messenger of Allah a model pattern for you� (3494-3495).

In due course, the two forms of separation died away in Islam.

author : ram swarup