What is the ruling when a husband says to his wife, 'You are divorced a divorce before it, a divorce'?
Chapter on Explicit Divorce and Others
Al-Mughni
Book of Divorce
Primary text
If a husband states, 'You are divorced a divorce before it, a divorce,' only one divorce occurs if the wife has not been consummated. This is the apparent position within the Shafi'i school of thought, as mentioned by Al-Qadi. The reasoning relies on the prohibition of having one divorce precede another mentioned in the utterance. If one divorce (the first mentioned) is supposed to occur in the past, preventing its singular occurrence necessitates the occurrence of the other divorce. The initial divorce mentioned, being temporally negated by its reference to the past, cannot take effect alone, resulting in only the second divorce taking effect.
Supporting text
Some scholars ruled that nothing occurs for a wife who has not been consummated, based on their position regarding the Mas'ala As-Surayjiyyah. Abu Bakr and Abu Hanifa maintained that two divorces occur because the prior divorce is impossible to enact, so the later one occurs simultaneously, as delaying it to a later time is unnecessary when an immediate time (simultaneity) is possible.