Hadith:
What is the meaning of أیما امرأۃ سألت زوجہا الطلاق ۔ ۔ ۔?
Question:
What is the meaning of this hadith: أيما امرأة سألت زوجها طلاقا بغير ما بأس فحرام عليها رائحة الجنة
?
Answer:
Since a woman has deficient intellect and religion, Allah has given the right of divorce to the man. Otherwise, a woman (if she had the right to divorce) would pass by a man who pleased her, and in comparison, considering her husband contemptible, she would say to him: “My intention is that you separate from me.” And if the power of divorce were in the hands of some women, they would divorce their husbands twenty times in a single day. Thus, a woman has deficient intellect and deficient religion, as the Prophet ﷺ informed us that when a woman asks her husband for divorce while he does not mistreat her, her request is without cause, then that woman will not even smell the fragrance of Paradise. Or words with this meaning are established from the Prophet ﷺ. But when her husband mistreats her, or she cannot live a happy life with him because she dislikes him, then in such a case she may request divorce. So if the husband is abusive and reform is not possible, Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, says in His noble Book:
وَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ شِقَاقَ بَيْنِهِمَا فَابْعَثُوا حَكَمًا مِّنْ أَهْلِهِ وَحَكَمًا مِّنْ أَهْلِهَا إِن يُرِيدَا إِصْلَاحًا يُوَفِّقِ اللَّهُ بَيْنَهُمَا
“And if you fear a breach between the two, appoint an arbiter from his family and an arbiter from her family. If they both desire reconciliation, Allah will bring about harmony between them.”
And when a woman says: “My husband is negligent in spending and his character is not good either,” then one person each from the close relatives of the man and the woman will investigate. And if she dislikes her husband for the sake of Allah, then (the solution is that) which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ told the wife of Thabit bin Qays bin Shammas (when she had decided to take divorce from her husband):
أتردین علیہ حدیقتہ؟
(Will you return to him his garden [which he gave as dower]?) She said: Yes. So the Prophet ﷺ commanded Thabit (may Allah be pleased with him) to divorce her.
