Al-Matalib al-'Aliyah 1696 — Intention in divorce

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Shumayr (may Allah be pleased with him) that a man proposed marriage to a woman, and the girl's family set the condition: We will not marry you until you give three divorces. At this the man said (ambiguously): Bear witness that I have given three divorces. Then when he married the woman and went in to her, those people claimed that divorce had taken effect against him. The man asked them: What did I say? They replied: We said that we would not marry you until you gave three divorces, and you gave three divorces. The man said: Do you not know that I had married the daughter of so-and-so and divorced her, and so-and-so was also married to me and I divorced her, until he counted out all three of his previously given divorces. They said: That is not what we meant (rather, we meant the divorce of this new wife). So Shaqiq bin Thawr went to Sayyiduna Uthman al-Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him), because the people had sent him to ask about this matter. When he arrived, he asked about the issue, and on returning he reported that Sayyiduna Uthman al-Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) had given this ruling about it: "The ruling for him is according to what his intention was."
This juristic report establishes that, in allusive or ambiguous words of divorce, the husband's intention is to be taken into account, just as the Rightly Guided Caliph Sayyiduna Uthman al-Ghani (may Allah be pleased with him) ruled in that man's favour according to his intention.