can exercise it every year. So if he makes that a condition, it is permissible. The beginning of the period shall be immediately following his oath; because every fixed term established by an absolute contract is established immediately after it, like his saying: "By Allah, I will not speak to you for a year." Thus, a divorce occurs immediately; because he made the year a timeframe for the divorce, so it occurs in the first part of it. The second [divorce] occurs at the beginning of the second [year], and the third at the beginning of the third, provided that both [the second and third years] enter while she is still in his marriage, either because her waiting period (iddah) had not expired, or he took her back during the waiting period of the first or second divorce, or he renewed his marriage to her after she had become irrevocably separated (ba'in). If her waiting period expired and she became irrevocably separated from him, and the second year entered while she was a stranger (ba'in), she is not divorced; because she is not his wife. If he marries her during the course of that year, the opinion of most of our companions requires that the divorce occur immediately upon his marrying her; because that [time] is a part of the second year which he made a timeframe for the divorce and a locus for it, and the way it should be is that it occurs at its beginning, but the fact that she was not a locus for his divorce—due to the absence of his marriage at that time—prevented it. So when the marital status returns, it occurs at its beginning. The Qadi said: She is divorced upon the entry of the third year. According to the view of al-Tamimi and those who agree with him, the condition is dissolved by its existence during the state of irrevocable separation, so it does not return under any circumstances. If he does not marry her until the third year has entered, then he marries her, she is divorced immediately upon her marriage, and then the third divorce occurs upon the entry of the fourth year. According to the Qadi’s view, she is not divorced until the fourth year enters, and then the third divorce occurs upon the entry of the fifth year. According to the view of al-Tamimi, the condition has already been dissolved. There is a disagreement regarding the beginning of the second year; the apparent meaning of what the Qadi mentioned is that its beginning is after the passage of twelve months from the time of his oath, because he made the beginning of the period the time of his oath. The companions of al-Shafi'i said the same. Abu al-Khattab said: The beginning of the second year is the first of Muharram; because that is the well-known year, and if he suspends something that recurs upon the recurrence of years, it is shifted to the well-known years, like the saying of Allah the Almighty: "Do they not see that they are tested every year?" [9:126]. And if he says: "I intended by 'a year' twelve