Section: If they differ, and the husband says: "I did not intend divorce by the wording of 'choosing' (ikhtiyar) and 'your command is in your hand'," while she says: "Rather, you did intend it," his statement is to be accepted because he is most knowledgeable of his own intention, and there is no way to know it except from his side, provided it is not in response to a question or accompanied by evidence of the situation. If he says: "You did not intend divorce by your choosing yourself," and she says: "Rather, I did intend it," her statement is to be accepted for the reason we have mentioned. If she says: "I have chosen myself," and he denies the occurrence of the choosing on her part, his statement is to be accepted because he is a denier of it, and it is something he can know, while she is able to establish evidence for it; thus it resembles the case where he makes her divorce contingent upon entering the house, and she claims it happened while he denies it.

Section: If he says to his wife, "You are forbidden to me," and leaves it unqualified, it is zihar (injurious assimilation). Al-Shafi'i said: There is nothing upon him. He has another opinion: An expiation for an oath is upon him, though it is not an oath. Abu Hanifa said: It is an oath. This has been narrated from Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, and Ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with them. Sa'id said: Khalid ibn 'Abd Allah narrated to us, from Juwaybir, from al-Dahhak, that Abu Bakr, Umar, and Ibn Mas'ud said regarding "the forbidden": It is an oath. Ibn Abbas, Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, and Sa'id ibn Jubayr held this view as well. There is that which indicates this from Ahmad; because Allah the Almighty said: "Why do you prohibit what Allah has made lawful for you?" Then He said: "Allah has already ordained for you the dissolution of your oaths." Ibn Abbas said: "There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern." And because it is a prohibition of what is lawful, it resembles the prohibition of a slave-woman. Our position is that it is a prohibition of a wife without [the word] divorce, so an expiation for zihar becomes mandatory due to it, just as if he said: "You are to me forbidden like the back of my mother."