khilwat-us-sahiha
Khilwat-us-sahiha (valid retirement) occurs when the spouses are alone together in privacy in circumstances where there is no legal, moral or physical bar to marital intercourse. Under Hanafi law it has the same legal effects as actual consummation for most purposes: the wife becomes entitled to the whole of the specified dower, she must observe iddat on divorce, and paternity of a child born may be established.
The retirement is not valid if, for example, one spouse is ill, a third person is present, or the wife is fasting in Ramzan or observing a religious obligation that prevents intercourse. Shia law does not recognise valid retirement as equivalent to consummation.
Example
As there had been khilwat-us-sahiha before the talaq, the wife was entitled to her full dower and had to observe iddat.
See also
Read more in the study notes
- Dower (mahr) (Family Law II - Mohammedan Law)
- Iddat and the legal effects of divorce (Family Law II - Mohammedan Law)