What is the legal consequence if the husband remains incapable of intercourse after the prescribed waiting period?
Chapter on the Term for the Impotent and the Castrated who is not amputated
Al-Mughni
Book of Marriage
Primary text
If the waiting period of one year elapses and the husband has not consummated the marriage, the wife is given the choice to remain with him or seek separation. If she chooses separation, it is a dissolution (faskh) without constituting a divorce (talaq). This view is held by al-Shafi'i, as this option is established due to a defect, making it equivalent to the buyer's option for defect-related annulment.
Supporting text
Abu Hanifah, Malik, and al-Thawri maintain that the judge (hakim) must separate them, and this separation counts as one pronouncement of divorce (talqah), analogous to the separation resulting from *li'an* or *zihar* due to the absence of coitus.