Question Summary:
“However, if you merely uttered the word “Talaq” repeatedly to yourself, in isolation, without the intention of divorcing your wife, the divorce will not take place.

Question Detail:

Q1. In fatwa # 16194 you answered:
   "However, if you merely uttered the word “Talaq” repeatedly to yourself, in isolation, without the intention of divorcing your wife, the divorce will not take place. (Fatawa Dar al-Uloom Deoband, vol. 9 pg. 199, Dar al-Isha’at) Similarly, if you made a statement such as “Talaq is given” in isolation without the intention of divorcing your wife, the divorce will not take place. (Fatawa Dar al-Uloom Deoband, vol. 9 pg. 198, Dar al-Isha’at)"
 
  I want to clarify that in my situation, due to waswaas about divorce I have said statements to myself like:
- I Said to myself (in isolation) telling myself about situations that can cause divorce in Hanafi fiqh -"Any statement can cause divorce in fiqah Hanafi... if one says 'Sky is blue' then divorce happened or 'This meeting is over' then also divorce happened or talaaq happened. Anything you say then divorce happened in fiqah Hanafi"
- Or even if I just said to myself "Divorce happened" or "Talaaq happened" (or in urdu said "talaaq ho gayee ya divorce ho gayee") by itself (without speaking the whole scenario) in isolation without intending divorce.
 
  So will the use of words like "divorce happened or talaaq happened" in above statements while talking to myself about a divorce scenario will cause divorce? Please remember he is saying all this due to waswaas with no intention of divorce.
Q2. A person is married only in front of a US judge so far. The families decided to do the Islamic nikkah later in few months so they got married in US court only. The US court marriage was done earlier to start the green card process for the to-be wife in advance. The US court marriage only required husband and wife to be present in court and no other conditions were required such as having witnesses or a meher (in reality some family members were present too but not due to any legal requirement).
Now if due to the on-going mental issues or waswaas.. if the husband in this case (i.e. legal husband by US state law only - no Islamic nikkah done yet) fears that he may have uttered divorce words by mistake then will such utterance going to have any impact on his upcoming Islamic nikkah in couple of weeks? They will be getting a Islamic nikkah done in few weeks so in worse case if he did utter divorce by mistake while only legally married by US law than will this new nikkah in few weeks will still be good and their Islamic marriage will be valid?

Answer :

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Assalaamu `alaykum waRahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
According to the explanation given by you, divorce will not take place.
And Allah knows best
Wassalam
Mufti Ebrahim Desai
Darul Iftaa, Madrassah In'aamiyyah