From Prophetic Hadith to Modern Family Legislation:

Ibn Taymiyya’s Juristic Preference on Triple Divorce and UAE Personal Status Law

Rassem Nouri

Ibrahim Alkindi

 

Abstract: This article examines how a rule grounded in Prophetic Hadith is transformed into juristic preference and then into modern family legislation. It focuses on instant triple divorce in one sitting. It asks whether UAE personal status legislation merely converges with, or more clearly adopts, the juristic result associated with Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim. The article argues that the UAE rule is best understood as legislative adoption of a juristic result with a hadith-based foundation, not as wholesale reception of Ibn Taymiyya’s entire hadith methodology. The argument proceeds through four stages: the Prophetic Hadith evidence; Ibn Taymiyya’s treatment of instant triple divorce as one revocable divorce; the statutory formulation in Federal Law No 28 of 2005 and Federal Decree-Law No 41 of 2024; and the explanatory memorandum as an interpretive source that clarifies the legislative choice after the statutory rule. The article concludes that the UAE case offers a precise model for tracing the movement from Prophetic Hadith to fiqh (jurisprudence) and then from fiqh to state legislation.