The divorce of Khul’, its characteristics and conditions

The divorce of a wife who develops an aversion from her husband and hates him, and surrenders to him her Mahr or some of her property so that he may divorce her, is called Khul' Divorce[1]. To put it more clearly, this divorce refers to when for whatever reason, a wife no longer wants to continue living with her husband, while he doesn’t want to break up with her, and she gives him money or property in order to convince him to divorce her (because in Islam, it is the man who has the right to divorce his wife, and the wife has no say in it, therefore, the only way for the wife to be able to get separated from her husband is to somehow convince him to do so).

This type of divorce has its own conditions and rulings in which we will point to some of:

1- As long as the woman hasn’t asked her former husband to return her money or property, the man can't return to her and take her back as his wife (while in normal divorces, after the divorce, the man has the right to take back the woman as his wife without any need to recontract a marriage with her [of course up to three consecutive times; after that there are other conditions]).[2]

2- The husband has no right to force his wife into asking for this type of divorce (some men who don’t want to live with their wives anymore and at the same can't divorce them because if they do, they have to submit the Mahr to them, put them under pressure and bother them in order for them to be the ones asking for a Khul’ divorce in return for them not taking their Mahr anymore, and this is something that Islam has prohibited).

3- The divorce formula must be recited, for instance the husband must say: خالعتک... instead of the normal طلقتک... which is used for normal divorces.

4- The wife has to immediately accept the divorce by for instance saying قبلتُ after the husband (unlike normal divorces in which the woman has nothing to do with accepting the divorce or not).

5- One condition for a divorce to be considered Khul’, is for the wife to be the only one who has discontent regarding the marriage, not both sides, because in this case, the divorce is called “Mubarat”.

6- Two baligh and pious (adel) men have to hear the formula being recited.[3]