nikah halala

Arabic/Persian · ni-KAAH ha-LAA-la · Family and succession

Meaning. The practice requiring an irrevocably divorced wife to marry and be divorced by another man before remarrying her first husband.

Under classical Muslim law, after a wife has been irrevocably divorced by three talaqs, her former husband cannot remarry her unless she lawfully marries another man, the marriage is consummated, and that marriage ends by death or divorce, followed by iddat. The intervening marriage is called halala.

The rule was meant to discourage hasty triple talaq. A marriage arranged only to legitimise remarriage is condemned by many jurists. Since the triple talaq was declared invalid and criminalised, the occasion for halala should arise less often; petitions challenging the practice itself have been filed in the Supreme Court.

Example

Since the talaq-e-biddat was itself void after Shayara Bano, the couple did not need nikah halala to resume their marriage.

In Indian law

Shayara Bano v. Union of India, 2017 INSC 785: talaq-e-biddat invalid
Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019

nikah halala

Example

In Indian law

See also

Read more in the study notes