Kissing or Touching During a Revocable Divorce Waiting Period — Jurisprudential Answers — Miscellaneous Issues, Vol. 3

Ahmed al-Hasan Response:

May God grant you success and guide your steps. The meaning of the statement, ‘If he kisses or touches her with desire, that constitutes return, and its permissibility does not require a prior declaration of return,’ is that if this occurs between them, the marital return takes place through that act—kissing or touching with desire—whether or not either of them intended return. The meaning of ‘its permissibility does not require a prior declaration of return’ is that the kissing or touching with desire that occurred between them is itself permissible and does not need to be preceded by another form of return, such as his first saying to her, ‘I take you back,’ because the kissing or touching with desire is itself the return. In the situation described, this woman is therefore considered married and may not marry anyone else until her husband divorces her and she observes a new waiting period, or she returns to the husband to whom she is still married.