Iddat or Iddah is the legally mandated waiting period that follows a Muslim marriage dissolution by either divorce or the death of the husband. In the Islamic framework, iddat is not a set number of days for all women in all cases. Rather, it is a regulated time period with various purposes: establishing pregnancy, ensuring clarity of lineage, creating an opportunity for reconciliation, managing transitions between marital statuses, and, in the event of widowhood, marking a period of mourning. Those functions are visible across the central Qur’anic verses: divorced women are told to wait for “three quru”[1]; widows are told to wait for four months and ten days[2]; pregnant women wait until delivery[3] and women divorced before consummation have no iddat at all[4].
This basic architecture of Islamic law plays a crucial role in answering questions about iddat under Pakistani law since the regulation of this topic does not rest in any statutory framework that covers the entire scope of issues regarding it. Rather, the subject sits at the intersection of Qur’anic doctrine, classical fiqh, colonial-era Muhammadan-law categories, the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961 (MFLO), penal-law provisions such as section 496 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), and an uneven/inconsistent line of superior-court decisions. Therefore, iddat in Pakistan can be seen as a provision of family law, a possible source of maintenance or inheritance claims, an obstacle to remarriage, and, in certain criminal prosecutions, even a means of prosecuting people.
It is important to note here first and foremost that under Islamic law, failure to observe the prescribed iddat period is not necessarily grounds for declaring a later marriage void in the sense that it did not exist in any form of the law (as is laid down in Mullah’s Muhammaden Law Section 253). Classical Hanafi doctrine, as applied in Pakistani case law, usually regarded the marriage of a woman in her iddat as an irregular or invalid marriage because the prohibition here was temporary rather than permanent in nature. Here an example can be quoted of Muhammad Arif vs Shahid Mehmood and another[5], which also upholds the principle of s. 253, Mullah’s Muhammaden Law. This is crucial. It means that marriage during the prohibited period is considered irregular or imperfect due to the presence of a flaw which can be removed and is not void ab initio.
However, Pakistani jurisprudence does not speak in one voice here. Thus, while s. 7 MFLO establishes a 90-day-long mandatory waiting period after giving a notice of divorce to the Chairman of the Union Council. The Shariat Appellate Bench of Pakistan in Allah Dad v. Mukhtar[6] concluded that, based on Hanafi teachings regarding menstruation, the minimum length of the Qur’anic iddat for a menstruating divorced woman can be as low as 39 days.[7] Lower Courts in Pakistan then followed both of these approaches in order to protect the women’s rights and sometimes even to police their sexuality. This juxtaposition of a more permissive statutory provision against the fiqh-based view on iddat as a tool of controlling women’s actions is the story of the relevant jurisprudence in Pakistan.
This paper, therefore, aims to analyze two issues simultaneously. First, it describes the concept of iddat under Islamic law, with regard to Hanafi doctrines, the bases for it in the Qur’an, the types of iddat, and their breach. Followed by the exploration of how Pakistani law adopted and adapted the doctrine of iddat: under s. 7 MFLO, in cases relating to maintenance and inheritance, through classification of valid/irregular/null marriages, and finally, through the iddat-related litigation culminating in the prosecution of Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi, and how the idea of iddat was used to criminalize a marriage.
Qur’anic framework of iddat and the Hanafi fiqh tradition
The Qur’an lays down the core rules. The operative verse for an ordinary divorce is Qur’an 2:228, which directs divorced women to wait for “three quruʾ” and adds that during this period their husbands have the better right to take them back if reconciliation is sought.
“Divorced women must wait three monthly cycles ‘before they can re-marry’. It is not lawful for them to conceal what Allah has created in their wombs, if they ‘truly’ believe in Allah and the Last Day. And their husbands reserve the right to take them back within that period if they desire reconciliation. Women have rights similar to those of men equitably, although men have a degree ‘of responsibility’ above them. And Allah is Almighty, All-Wise.”
The above verse makes it abundantly clear that the notion of iddat cannot be reduced to mere reproductive biology in Islam. On the contrary, iddat is both an evidentiary device and a relation.
In case of a widow’s iddat, Qur’an 2:234 stipulates another rule: her iddat period will be four months and ten days. The point to be noted here is that in case of widowhood, the iddat period does not serve merely to ensure that paternity is not disputed if she is pregnant, but according to the Holy Qur’an, widows are to wait for the specified period even in the absence of pregnancy.
The Prophetic hadith reported in Sahih al-Bukhari reinforces this by linking a husband’s death to a distinct period of mourning in which a widow does not adorn herself as she otherwise might. That is why classical jurists treat a widow’s iddat as combining waiting and ihdad, which means mourning observances. The Hadith is as follows
The Prophet (P.B.U.H) said,
“It is not lawful for a Muslim woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to mourn for more than three days, except for her husband, for whom she should mourn for four months and ten days.”[8]
It is worth noting here that in a well-known authentic hadith (Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Divorce, Hadith 5318), Subaiʿa al-Aslamiyya establishes that, in the case of pregnancy, the widow does not have to wait until the end of four months and ten days. The Prophet (P.B.U.H) reportedly allowed her to marry right after delivering the baby.[9] Thus, the above example demonstrates one of the cases when Islamic law does not apply a general formula and recognizes the importance of pregnancy for calculating the iddat period, since the woman gives birth to her child and thus determines its paternity.
The opposite situation arises in the case of women whose marriages have not been consummated. According to Qur’an 33:49, divorced women whose marriages were not consummated with their husbands do not have to count a certain period. Hence, Islamic law distinguishes among various marital situations and imposes a waiting period when there is an underlying rationale for such a practice.
Another crucial moment in iddat is the interpretation of quruʾ as either menstrual periods or pure menstrual periods, i.e., without including impure intervals between menstrual bleedings. Whereas Sunni classical schools used to hold different views on this matter, Hanafi jurists followed the opinion of Hanbalis and considered quruʾ as menstruation periods. This interpretation has a practical implication for determining the shortest and longest possible duration of iddat, and it underpins the reasoning of Pakistani judges in Allah Dad v Mukhtar.[10]
It follows, therefore, that the Hanafi approach to iddat is not only interpretative in nature but also highly technical. Once quruʾ is considered menstruation, the following question arises as to how long the period of menstruation and purity is. For this reason, in Pakistani jurisprudence, we can encounter a statement that the Qur’an does not envisage a fixed period of waiting for all divorced women. Besides, as the Hanafi method suggests, Iddat can last for less than 90 days if the shortest possible cycle is considered.[11]
The two main purposes that underline all the discussed iddat rules are worth mentioning here. First, it is the establishment of lineage. Second, iddat plays an instrumental role in the dissolution procedure since Qur’anic divorce cannot be regarded as an instantaneous procedure. It is rather a carefully thought-out procedure during which rujūʿ can take place within a specified period.
Therefore, the most appropriate way of describing iddat in Islam is to speak of it as an interval charged with a juridical meaning rather than just a waiting period.
The types of iddats and their basis
The first and perhaps most common type of iddat is the iddat of a divorcée who menstruates. In Qur’an 2:228, read under the Hanafi interpretation, the wife waits for three periods of menstruation. As noted above, Pakistani legal doctrine has famously applied this doctrine in the case of Allah Dad v Mukhtar.[12] In that precedent, the Shariat Appellate Bench ruled that the Qur’anic command is to wait three menstrual cycles, not to wait for a fixed statutory period of ninety days – and that assuming Hanafi rules on period length, the minimum possible waiting time could theoretically be as little as thirty-nine days.[13] Later, Pakistani courts have referred back to this proposition when awarding maintenance during Iddat following a Khula divorce[14]. It should be emphasized, however, that thirty-nine days is not the norm, universal or otherwise; it is only a juridically minimal calculation based on the assumed possibilities of Hanafi jurisprudence.
A second class are wives who no longer menstruate because they have entered menopause. Qur’an 65:4 instructs such wives to have a waiting period of three months. Classical Islamic law follows suit and, in these cases, replaces the menstruation period with three months. In Pakistani commentaries on section 7 of MFLO, this fact has been stressed as one of the reasons why one-size-fits-all ninety-day iddats diverge from the architectural structure of the Qur’anic law.
A third class are wives “who have not yet menstruated”. In classical fiqh, such wives also fell into the iddat category, even though the Qur’an mentions them separately. Whether that rule continues to apply ethically today is the subject of vigorous debate among contemporary Muslim scholars, particularly because it seems to clash with modern statutes defining the legal age of marriage and human rights law.[15] From the perspective of traditional jurisprudence, however, the relevant rule was again three months of iddat per the Qur’anic directive.
A fourth category, which is especially relevant to the case question, is pregnancy. Qur’an 65:4 specifies that the waiting period lasts until delivery. Hadith traditions add further weight to this by stressing that even the widow’s four months and ten days iddat period ends upon childbirth. In effect, pregnancy trumps both the “three quru’” and “four months and ten days” categories and terminates the waiting period. At a doctrinal level, childbirth becomes the determining factor because of its reliability in addressing the core lineage question.
A fifth category applies to the case of widowhood without pregnancy. According to Qur’an 2:234, the widow has a waiting period of four months and ten days. In tradition, the waiting period acquires another element specific to widows: ihdad or mourning.[16] That is why the widow faces particular issues regarding her appearance, perfuming, and residence arrangements.
A sixth category of women is divorced before consummation. According to Qur’an 33:49, a waiting period does not apply in that case. Strictly speaking, if the marriage is dissolved and does not enter the consummation phase, there is nothing for the wife to wait for. In Pakistani case law, the issue arises in the context of maintenance rights for the wife’s “iddat”. While the later 2025 Supreme Court judgment (Ambreen Akram v Asad Ullah Khan[17]) on maintenance rejects the narrower proposition that a wife’s right to maintenance depends on rukhsati, that does not mean it negates the doctrinal basis provided by Qur’an 33:49. The non-existence of a waiting period and the existence of maintenance before consummation are separate issues.
A seventh and rather relevant class of women consists of those who divorced their husbands while they were not yet pronounced dead and before their talaq became effective. Classical fiqh, as well as Pakistani statute, provides an unusual rule in this regard. According to Pakistani precedents, the wife remains entitled to inheritance from her dead husband if he died before the waiting period was over. The Supreme Court stressed that a divorce does not cancel out the husband and wife’s relationship instantly and that, where there is an incomplete divorce, the woman remains the widow of her deceased husband.[18]
An eighth and more complicated category involves women who experience disruption of their periods due to illness or psychological shock. Traditional jurists disagreed on whether such a disruption entailed a change in the waiting period and whether the law was to insist on periods or not. While traditional fatwas record a strict rule requiring the wife to wait until either menstruation starts again or menopause is achieved, contemporary Hanafi authors tend to favor a Maliki alternative – allowing the wife to wait for a year – to reduce hardships. In Pakistani precedents, the issues of menstruation, pregnancy, widowhood, and statutory dissolution remained central while others fell outside the scope.
The overarching conclusion, therefore, is that iddat is established through a chain of questions. Did the couple undergo divorce or the death of one of the spouses? Did the relationship enter the consummation phase? Is the woman pregnant? Is she menstruating? Has she entered menopause? Is there a civil notice procedure that postponed the effectiveness of talaq? It is only after answering those questions that the waiting period can be calculated.
Entitlements, obligations, and consequences in Islamic law
The type of dissolution affects women’s rights during iddat. Classical Muslim law provides that a divorced woman was entitled to receive maintenance through the iddat period, at least according to the Hanafi school, which gave a wide definition of her maintenance entitlements as long as she did not leave the matrimonial house. Similarly, in the Pakistani literature on maintenance rights after marriage, there is no dispute that husbands’ obligation to provide maintenance applies throughout the marriage and, upon divorce, until the end of iddat; the real issue arises only when iddat expires.[19]
In the case of a widow, the situation changes. After the death of a husband, the idea of his continuous personal obligation of maintenance no longer fits well into reality. Widowhood implies the loss of this specific right, and widows enjoy their rights mainly due to their inheritance, possibly outstanding dower, and their legal position of widowhood during that period. Pakistani judgments which uphold widows’ right to inherit property of their husbands after a death occurring before talaq are illustrative of the scheme: iddat preserves a widow’s legal status but not personal obligation to maintain her.[20]
Iddat imposes certain responsibilities as well. The first common point of all types of iddat is that a woman cannot enter into a new marriage prior to the expiration of that period. Moreover, widows face additional constraints: in hadith literature, she was prohibited from observing the mourning period for someone other than her deceased husband for more than three days, while for her husband, four months and ten days were stipulated during which adornment was forbidden. According to another hadith, used in fiqh, the widow had to reside at the place where she learned about the death of her husband till the expiration of the period.[21]
In case a person enters into a marriage relationship before the expiry of the iddat period, traditional Hanafi doctrine normally does not invalidate the marriage in the full meaning of the word but considers it irregular (fasid), which means that this prohibition is temporary. Such treatment of an iddat breach can be seen both in the literature on Islamic law prepared in Pakistan and in its judgments: the irregularity of this marriage means that it is unlawful “for something else”; after the elimination of the impediment, the persons can legalize their status by entering a second marriage.[22]
Irregularity has important consequences. As far as a marriage that takes place during the iddat period is concerned, a Pakistani manual on Muslim law explains that upon consummation, the woman may gain the right to a dower if the marriage breaks up – observe iddat again – but the mutual right of inheritance will not be established. The doctrine prevents the union of marriage from being completely voided. Thus, the marriage was legally invalid because of an impermanent impediment, but it is not non-existent nor fully valid.
The answer to the question whether breaking iddat violates anything lies here as well. This does not mean that women’s rights cease to exist at all, and every sexual intercourse is automatically categorized as zina. The Hanafi school states that the rules are violated when getting into marriage despite the barrier. Once it is gone, they can still remedy this mistake by performing a new nikah after the waiting period. Pakistani judgments on irregular marriage and legal manuals, citing Mulla’s Mohammedan Law, draw this conclusion from the cases of Muhammad Sher[23] and Ameer Bakhsh[24].
It should be noted, however, that there are three quite different statements which often get mixed together in public discourse. Firstly, marriage in a state of iddat is legally and religiously wrong. Secondly, according to Hanafi tradition and Pakistani judgments, this violation normally makes marriage irregular (fasid) but not invalid (batil).[25] Thirdly, the punishment of couples for having entered an irregular marriage is still a different question, on which Pakistani opinion after the 2006 act is highly skeptical with regard to the possibility of treating such relations as a zina offense. The first two points then lead to the 3rd, which is important in the cases discussed.
It would also be unjust to consider privileges in iddat without keeping in mind that they are provided in the context of reconciliation and the fair treatment of women mentioned in the Quran. To recall Quran 2:228, a man could take back a revocably divorced wife during the waiting period in order to reconcile with her. This means that iddat is not only an obligation imposed on a woman but also protection from divorce finalized immediately. This protection is often overlooked in these debates about iddat because the focus is often on how this restricts remarriage.
The statutory and judicial architecture in Pakistan
Pakistani law treats Iddat partially through codification, rather than a full definition. The key statutory provision is found in s. 7 of the MFLO. This section stipulates that when talaq is pronounced by the husband in any manner, he should submit a notice in writing, and a copy thereof should be furnished to the wife.[26] Thereafter, except for revocation of the pronouncement, it will take effect ninety days from the date of its submission to the Chairman. The Chairman shall, within thirty days, constitute an Arbitration Council and endeavor to reconcile the couple; and if the wife is pregnant, talaq will only take effect at the expiry of ninety days or until her pregnancy ends. The Ordinance also permits former spouses to remarry each other without any intermediate marriage, provided the talaq was not the 3rd talaq.
There are three significant aspects of s. 7. Firstly, it is not merely procedural; it postpones legal effectiveness. Secondly, the provision inserts reconciliation into the divorce process. Thirdly, although the Qur’an differentiates the duration of iddat, the Ordinance provides a fixed period regardless of the circumstances; hence, it cannot simply follow the Qur’an’s provisions for varying circumstances. These three features made s. 7 controversial from its inception: whether it is an appropriate regulation of the Qur’anic divorce law or an illegal alteration of its provisions? No definitive legal ruling has ever been issued by Pakistani courts on this question.
The controversy over this issue became even more complicated when the Federal Shariat Court declared some provisions of the MFLO inconsistent with the Injunctions of Islam. While scholarly analyses have described how the Ordinance has been considered repugnant to Shariah because of s. 1, 3, 6(4), 6(5)(b), 7(3), 7(5), and 7(6), it has been mentioned how the legal issues remained unresolved by appeals to the Supreme Court and contradictory interpretations by it. Courts focused on the official notice under s. 7, while Islamic scholars focused on the actual date when talaq was pronounced
In the latter category of cases, the classic Pakistani example would be Allah Dad v Mukhtar.[27] In post-trial Pakistani commentary and jurisprudence, this case may be cited as establishing two closely related principles: firstly, the Holy Qur’an did not prescribe a uniform ninety-day iddat for every divorcee; instead, three menstrual courses were provided for a menstruating woman. Secondly, according to Hanafi jurists, the minimum duration of iddat can be thirty-nine days. Although this principle did not invalidate the MFLO s. 7 procedure, it certainly upset the simple notion of “Islamic iddat equals ninety days”.
At the theoretical level, Pakistani judges had to make sense of the categories of Muslim law marriage. The relevant categories were sahih (valid), fasid (irregular or flawed), and batil (void or invalid). Such a categorization was explicitly applied by the Lahore High Court in Ameer Bakhsh v Additional Sessions Judge[28], holding that a marriage performed without observing iddat cannot be a void marriage. Citing previous case law, such as Muhammad Sher v Additional Sessions Judge[29], the court argued that marriage during iddat is fasid, not batil, and therefore cannot amount to zina.
This issue became highly contentious after the Protection of Women Criminal Laws Amendment Act, 2006, amended the definition of zina: the earlier version referred to “intercourse between persons not validly married”. But after 2006, the word validly was dropped. Consequently, the Lahore High Court decided that in the absence of the qualifying word, spouses engaged in intercourse in an irregular marriage could no longer be guilty of zina merely because their marriage was fasid. This shows that the post-2006 law is less likely to criminalize consensual sexual intercourse if it takes place within an irregular marriage.
However, the picture was far from clear-cut, and Pakistani courts also issued stricter decisions in other areas of prohibited conjunction and marriage. In one such instance, when courts found a prohibited conjunction due to simultaneous marriage to two sisters, the marriage of the second sister before the first wife’s iddat was found to be void and even criminal, as it amounted to marrying two sisters simultaneously. For example, according to reports, the 2024 Lahore High Court decision held that marrying the former wife’s sister during her iddat period would constitute a void marriage, punishable as a simultaneous marriage to two sisters.[30] It is important to distinguish between being married. During the first wife’s iddat and being married to two sisters simultaneously.
Consequently, the Pakistani legal architecture consists of layers and contradictions. Talaq is regulated by the MFLO through notice, delay, and state-assisted reconciliation. Superior court jurisprudence applies Hanafi fiqh to categorize Muslim law marriages as valid, irregular or void. The 2006 amendments narrowed the scope for zina punishment for irregular marriages. Yet, criminal proceedings for iddat violations are still possible under s. 496 PPC. This allows marriages during iddat to be treated as irregular. However, criminal liability under s. 496 PPC would only arise if the parties knowingly and fraudulently went through the marriage ceremony despite knowing that no lawful marriage could be created at that time.[31]
Rights and protocols regarding Iddat in Pakistan
The practical rights arising from iddat, in Pakistan, appear in three categories of legal disputes: maintenance, reconciliation, and inheritance. The most explicit statutory protection is provided by the reconciliation window under s. 7 of MFLO. Since talaq does not take effect until ninety days after notice is delivered to the chairman, and since the establishment of an Arbitration Council must take place within thirty days, the couple enjoys the benefit of the time when the marriage has not yet formally been dissolved, and the process of settlement is mandated. Whether one accepts the constitutionality or theological purity of this mechanism, it is unmistakably a period in which the state protects iddat-like waiting as a space for familial preservation, rather than simply imposing a sexual ban.
The second recurrent benefit is maintenance during Iddat. Pakistani literature portrays the superior court as defending a woman’s economic interests during marriage, during iddat, and even in the recovery of arrears of prior maintenance. A useful example comes from Sindh High Court proceedings in a family dispute. Following a khula dated 28 January 2020, the court held that the husband remained responsible for maintaining the wife during her iddat period. Relying on Allah Dad v Mukhtar[32], the court treated that period as 39 days for calculating the amount of maintenance owed. This is significant because it shows how Pakistani courts turn the fiqh concept of iddat duration into a concrete financial obligation.
Similarly, Supreme Court in Ambreen Akram v Asad Ullah Khan moved further down the road of women-friendly interpretation. The court ruled that the right to maintenance comes from the validity of a nikkah itself and is thus not subject to the conditions of consummation or rukhsati.[33] In the particular circumstances of this case, because the divorce occurred while the litigation was still ongoing, maintenance continued until the iddat. This ruling matters because it says a wife’s right to financial support does not depend only on consummation. It also confirms that, after a valid marriage, the husband may have to provide maintenance during iddat.
The third major right is inheritance if the dissolution has not yet taken place at the time of the man’s death. According to the Musarat ruling, if two months and four days have passed since the pronouncement of divorce, but the wife remarried before the divorce takes full effect, she remains his widow and inherits the property.[34] This case is crucial because the court explicitly dismissed the idea that divorce immediately destroys the marital bond and highlighted Islam’s careful and methodical attitude towards dissolution. Iddat protected the woman’s status as wife and thereby as legal inheritor.
Regarding the protocols involved, one should distinguish between the religious observance of Iddat and the civil protocol of proof. Religiously, the woman has to refrain from remarrying during the Iddat period; widows observe the restriction of mourning based on Qur’an 2:234 and hadith; and, classically, the doctrine of residence continuity is also prevalent, unless necessary. In Civil matters, particularly in Pakistan, the key protocol relates to proof and procedure. Dates play an important role. In case of talaq, the dates of pronouncement and delivery of notice to the Chairman will matter. In the event the woman is pregnant, evidence of the pregnancy and its date will also matter. If the dissolution is determined on the basis of three menstrual periods, their factual basis will matter. In case of high-conflict litigation, these become proof-related questions of legality.
Two practical implications arise out of this. Firstly, parties cannot expect that an unrecorded or purely private date of dissolution will be sufficient for all legal purposes. The regime of notice in MFLO and the conflicts arising from it make procedural compliance very important. Secondly, neither can remarriage be considered safe for a woman just on the basis of personal calculations of the expiry of the Iddat period. Should the matter arise before the court, the judge will question: Was there a properly recorded divorce? Was the marriage consummated? Was the wife pregnant? Did she complete the three menstrual periods?
Thus, the discourse of Iddat in Pakistan appears as contradictory. On one hand, it may serve as a source of economic and familial benefits – maintenance, reconciliation, and inheritance; on the other hand, the same Iddat period may be used as a means of surveillance and litigation strategy by either estranged husbands or relatives in moral terms related to the date of remarriage. The contradictions explain why, for any decent reform in Pakistan, it would be essential not only to define whether iddat exists, but also determine what authorities are entitled to do with it.
Violation, Criminalization, and the Path to the Imran Khan & Bushra Bibi Case, Iddat Case
What has made this case particularly problematic is not simply the possibility that the iddat period might be violated; rather, it is that violation of the iddat period has been criminalized in the past. Women who have remarried after divorce faced the threat that their husbands would seek to use family disputes as grounds for charging them under zina-type statutes. The significance of Ameer Bakhsh case[35] lay in its rejection of such an approach, and in its decision that marriage in the iddat period is ‘irregular’, not ‘null and void’ and, hence, post-2006, not zina. This was an important check on the criminalization of the post-divorce remarriage.
However, that still left open the threat of prosecution under s. 496 PPC. Unlike zina or fornication laws, s. 496 is centered upon fraud: anyone who “dishonestly or fraudulently goes through the ceremony of marriage when he knows he is not thereby lawfully married” may be punished with seven-year imprisonment and a fine. Thus, the issue moved from sexual offense to fraudulent-marriage law.
The Bushra Bibi case arose from that shift. Khawar Fareed Maneka filed a complaint in 2023, complaining about the marriage between Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi while she was still in the iddat following her prior divorce. News articles and legal commentary indicate that he did so relying upon PPC s. 34, 496, and 496-B. Subsequently, the Islamabad High Court threw out the charge of s. 496-B fornication. That left only s. 496 standing, and so the question became whether this marriage could be regarded as a fraudulent performance of a marriage ceremony without being properly married.[36]
Both the husband and wife were convicted of that crime on 3 February 2024 and sentenced to seven-year prison terms with a Rs. 500,000 fine. According to press and legal commentaries, the conviction was based entirely on s. 496 PPC. Although some secondary news sources initially appeared to misunderstand the sentence, the more credible local press and later legal commentary show that the true result was a seven-year sentence with a fine of Rs. 500,000. The judge thus found that the complaint of fraudulent marriage within the iddat period had substance.
The most significant doctrinal objection to the conviction was that, if Pakistani Muslim law treats a marriage during iddat as fasid rather than batil, then the marriage is not legally non-existent. It is merely irregular because of a temporary impediment. On this reasoning, such a marriage should not automatically be treated as criminal fraud under s. 496 PPC. On that reasoning, s. 496 rule is applicable only where there is dishonest, fraudulent intent and lack of lawful status; otherwise, there can be no fraud. Critics thus maintained that the sessions court had wrongly combined family-law imperfection with criminal fraud. Further, they pointed to Allah Dad case[37] for arguing that if the counting started from November 2017 divorce decree, then more than thirty-nine days had elapsed before the January 2018 marriage, making even that doubtful.
The sessions court of appeal accepted the defense argument and acquitted both appellants on 13 July 2024. The appeal order explicitly held that “both the appellants are acquitted of the charges”” because the prosecution failed to prove its case. Legally speaking, the criminal law was amended to prevent the iddat period from serving as grounds for incarceration.
In light of this account, the path of jurisprudential evolution that led to this conviction and then rendered it vulnerable becomes clearer. First, the Pakistani law retained traditional Muslim law categories of marriages as valid, irregular or void. Second, pre-2006 practice sometimes sought to collapse the latter two together into zina-type offences. Third, the 2006 reforms and Ameer Bakhsh ruled against that approach, especially in case of ceremonial marriage. Fourth, parties then turned to section 496 PPC, treating the matter as fraud. Fifth, the trial court accepted that framing of the issue. Finally, the appeal court rejected the evidentiary and legal basis for it. Thus, this is best seen as an attempt at creative application of a penal provision to a family-law dispute.
It is worth noting also the correct chronological details here. The complaint was treated in public discussions as if it concerned the 2022 marriage; the conviction was treated as if it were an ultimate decision. In fact, however, the complained marriage occurred in 2018; the complaint was filed years afterwards; the conviction occurred in 2024; and the appeal court acquitted both in July 2024. Subsequently Maneka challenged this in the Islamabad High Court, pending hearing.[38]
Even after the post-2006 restriction on zina liability, the concept of iddat period remained sufficiently elastic to allow criminal prosecutions of this sort through a fraud-based marriage statute. That is what makes the Khan-Bibi case important beyond political controversy.
Are Pakistani laws in conjunction with Islamic jurisprudence and tradition?
To the extent the law seeks to give effect to the purposes of the Qur’an, the answer is yes. Section 7 of MFLO gives concrete form to an important element of Qur’anic doctrine: that divorce requires a period of reflection during which reconciliation may occur. Likewise, courts that uphold the inheritance and maintenance claims of those experiencing waiting periods are following the principle that the Qur’an did not intend for divorced parties to be treated as though they had died or disappeared. The cases that classify marriage during iddat as fasid rather than batil reflect a classic Hanafi distinction: such a marriage is defective, but not legally non-existent, and therefore should not automatically be treated as zina.
At other points, however, Pakistani law departs from either Hanafi tradition or the Qur’an. Most obviously, the law of iddat establishes a statutory framework for a central Qur’anic concept while failing to incorporate its full complexity. The Qur’an divides women into various categories according to their menstrual cycles, pregnancies, and widowhood. Section 7 MFLO imposes a generic three-month period with notice to the chairman as the starting point. The only exceptions are those based on pregnancy. The difference between the statutory structure and the fiqh approach is that, strictly speaking, Pakistan’s statutory scheme fails to restate iddat as it exists in the Qur’an.[39] But does that render it invalid? Or is it merely an example of a valid exercise of regulatory power?
There is a further distinction between doctrinal tradition and legal application worth mentioning here. While the best Pakistani decisions on iddat have relied upon Islamic law in order to curtail punishment, other judicial or prosecutorial approaches have done the opposite. In a case like Ameer Bakhsh, Islamic law categorically ruled out certain forms of punishment. Similarly, one can read the acquittal of the Khan couple as resistance to a potential charge of criminal fraud. But other Pakistani decisions have sought to use Islam to justify more intense control over marital matters. Hence, rather than asking whether Pakistani courts are being true to “tradition” in general, one ought to consider which elements of tradition are being appealed to.
The case for reform thus turns less on opposition to iddat itself and more on its abuse as grounds for punishment. There are four reforms that can make Pakistani jurisprudence more consistent with Islamic Fiqh.
First, the use of consensual iddat disputes as the occasion for punishment must end definitively. When the dispute concerns the timing of remarriage, the proper venue is the family court, not the criminal courts under s. 496 of the PPC. Fraud must include an actual element of deception, rather than a mere uncertainty about iddat’s ending date. The Khan and Bibi case illustrated just how easily such a charge could become a means of punishing a perceived moral lapse.
Secondly, Parliament should enshrine the doctrine of fasid and batil marriages into Pakistani family law. In multiple cases, Pakistani courts have referred to Mulla and Fyzee, and to precedent, to hold that marriage during iddat is irregular, not void or voidable, and not zina. It is high time that this distinction became clear in legislation. One clause should clarify that a temporary impediment renders a marriage irregular however it can be potentially made regular upon the removal of the impediment. That should reduce inconsistencies between criminal and family law.
Thirdly, the law should make clear what s. 7 MFLO means to achieve. There are strong values of notice and anti-arbitrariness underlying that section. Moreover, the Musarat case shows that there is justice in withholding instantaneous finality. However, the law should explicitly acknowledge that the statutory ninety-day period is a civil regulation of effectiveness, not the only way of calculating iddat in accordance with the Qur’an, and should specify the interaction between cycle-based, pregnancy-based, and non-consummation iddat with the law.
Finally, financial rights connected to iddat should be specified and guaranteed clearly and extensively in the family law code. Pakistani jurisprudence describes the law of post-iddat support as incomplete or fragmented, and the higher courts are forced to create precedents.[40] Post-divorce maintenance, residence rights, and inheritance rights after the husband’s death should be clearly guaranteed, so that women can actually benefit from the protective purpose of iddat. A doctrine intended to provide security to women during an uncertain period must not place them in legal purgatory instead.[41]
In summary, then, Pakistan’s law of iddat is neither wholly traditional nor wholly estranged from tradition. It is a hybrid doctrine: partly fiqh-based and partly statutory, partly protective and partly coercive. Where Pakistan uses the doctrine for protection and restraint, as in the cases described above, the results are often admirable and praiseworthy. When it is used to punish and intimidate, the result can be far more troubling.
Conclusion
Islamic law’s iddat is a differentiated institution that finds its roots in the Qur’an. It is neither uniform for all women nor reducible to a single reason. Different rules apply to menstruating divorcees, widows, pregnant women, women who no longer menstruate, and women divorced before consummation. The Hanafi law provides this framework with its technical interpretation, including interpreting ‘quru’ as menstruation. Pakistani jurisprudence adopted the traditional interpretation of Hanafi but combined it with procedural elements of state law, particularly s. 7 MFLO’s notice requirement and the ensuing waiting period.
As far as “failing to complete iddat” is concerned, the most authoritative positions of both Hanafi law and Pakistani jurisprudence do not support a simplistic assertion that every instance of remarriage before expiration of the waiting period automatically makes such remarriage void. Rather, such remarriage should be classified as a fasid marriage because the impediment here is temporary. This is important because a temporary issue should not be treated as a crime. The Pakistani cases, including Ameer Bakhsh’s, illustrate this approach to the problem. Moreover, the 2006 amendments to the sexual-offence legislation made it harder to construe irregular marriage as zina.
Nevertheless, the legal system in Pakistan demonstrated how easily a doctrine dealing with family-status issues can become a basis for prosecution for fraud. Section 496 PPC enabled presenting a marriage as a fraudulent ceremony. As a result, the Bushra Bibi case led to imprisonment, although they obtained an acquittal on appeal. It is clear that the problem identified here is not only doctrinal inconsistency; it lies in the institutional design of the legal system. An unstable status regime is always a source of opportunities for manipulation and exploitation.
Thus, the right direction for reform is to be careful but transparent. In particular, iddat should be preserved as part of family law/personal status; the rights of women to inheritance and other benefits should be protected through it; differences between statutory and Hanafi/Qur’anic waiting periods should be clarified; and any criminalization of the consensual but disputable timing of remarriage should be abandoned. Such an approach would create a more consistent Pakistani legislation, which would better reflect the Hanafi doctrine and be more equitable in nature.
Bibliography
Table of Cases
- Muhammad Arif vs Shahid Mehmood and another PLD 2020 Islamabad 443
- Allah Dad v Mukhtar 1992 SCMR 1273
- Ambreen Akram v Asad Ullah Khan 2026 SCMR 1
- Mst Musarat v Aziz Ahmad PLD 2023 Peshawar 88
- C.P. No. S-466 of 2021
- Aziz Ahmad and others v. Mst. Musarat & another P L D 2025 Supreme Court 469
- Muhammad Sher v Additional Sessions Judge 2016 CLC 717 (Lahore High Court)
- Ameer Bakhsh v Additional Sessio ns Judge and others 2022 P Cr L J 1188 (Lahore)
- Munawar Hussain v The State 2024 YLR 1653
- Nazar Muhammad v Mst Shahzada Begum PLD 1974 SC 22
- Khawar Fareed Maneka vs Imran Ahmed Khan and Bushra Bibi, etc. Private Complaint No. of 7096/ 2023
Secondary Sources (Journals & Leaflets)
- Burhanuddin, ‘Iddah Provisions in Islamic Jurisprudence (Gender Perspective)’ (2024) 1(1) Journal of Islamic Religious Studies 1
- Quddus U, Khan MA, Alam W, Mir KN and Khan MH, ‘Provision of Notice for Divorce/Talaq after Pronouncement in Pakistan: An Analysis along-with Recommendations for Reform in Section 7 of the Muslim Family Law Ordinance, 1961’ (2020) 21(1) Pakistan Vision 493
- Faishol I, ‘Legal Diversity in the Concept of Iddah’ (2024) 8(1) International Journal of Islamic Law 56
- Qasim M, ‘Role of the Judiciary in Protecting Women’s Rights’ (2025) 25(2) Journal of Gender and Law 42
- Shahid M, ‘Post-Divorce Maintenance in Pakistan: Socio-Legal Realities’ (2024) 12(3) Pakistan Law Review 145
- Yusroh, Roosyidah H and Hakim MA, ‘The Comparison of ‘Iddah and Ihdad in the Shafi’i and Hanafi School’ (2023) 9(2) Hikmatuna: Journal for Integrative Islamic Studies 117
[1] Qur’an 2:228
[2] Qur’an 2:234
[3] Qur’an 65:4
[4] Qur’an 33:49
[5] Muhammad Arif vs Shahid Mehmood and another, PLD 2020 Islamabad 443
[6] Allah Dad v Mukhtar 1992 SCMR 1273, 1733.
[8] Sahih al-Bukhari,Hadith 5339 https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5339
[9] Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5318 https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5318
[10] Ibid.
[11] Yusroh, Haaniyatur Roosyidah and M Arif Hakim, ‘The Comparison of ‘Iddah and Ihdad in the Shafi’i and Hanafi School’ (2023) 9(2) Hikmatuna: Journal for Integrative Islamic Studies 117, 128.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] C.P. No. S-466 of 2021 (https://caselaw.shc.gov.pk/caselaw/view-file/MTU2MjM2Y2Ztcy1kYzgz)
[15] Burhanuddin, ‘Iddah Provisions in Islamic Jurisprudence (Gender Perspective)’ (2024) 1(1) Journal of Islamic Religious Studies 1, 3.
[16] Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Divorce, Hadith 5339 https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5339
[17] Ambreen Akram v Asad Ullah Khan and others 2026 SCMR 1
[18] Mst Musarat v Aziz Ahmad PLD 2023 Peshawar 88, 908; see also Nazar Muhammad v Mst Shahzada Begum PLD 1974 SC 22.
[19] Ayesha Shahid, ‘Post-Divorce Maintenance Rights for Muslim Women in Pakistan and Iran: Making the Case for Law Reform’ (2018) 15(1) Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 59, 62–65; see also Dr. Mazhar Hussain and Dr. Hafiz Falak Shair Faizi, ‘Mat’a (Post-Divorce Maintenance) and Women’s Rights in Islamic Law: Implementation and Application in Pakistan’ (2024) 4(4) Al-Kashaf 21, 23.
[20] Aziz Ahmad and others v. Mst. Musarat & another. P L D 2025 Supreme Court 469
[21] Yusroh, Haaniyatur Roosyidah and M Arif Hakim, ‘The Comparison of ‘Iddah and Ihdad in the Shafi’i and Hanafi School’ (2023) 9(2) Hikmatuna: Journal for Integrative Islamic Studies 117, 129.
[22] Usman Quddus, Muhammad Arif Khan, Wasim Alam, Khurram Naeem Mir and Muhammad Haider Khan, ‘Provision of Notice for Divorce/Talaq after Pronouncement in Pakistan: An Analysis along-with Recommendations for Reform in Section 7 of the Muslim Family Law Ordinance, 1961’ (2020) 21(1) Pakistan Vision 493.
[23] Muhammad Sher v Additional Sessions Judge 2016 CLC 717 (Lahore High Court)
[24] Ameer Bakhsh v Additional Sessions Judge and others 2022 P Cr L J 1188 (Lahore)
[25] Allah Dad v Mukhtar 1992 SCMR 1273, 1824–1825 (observing that under strict Hanafi jurisprudence, a marriage during iddat is classified as batil or void, though both void and fasid unions collectively constitute an ‘invalid marriage’); citing Ibn Abidin, Raddul Muhtar, vol 2, 482.
[26] Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 (MFLO), s 7an intervening marriage.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Munawar Hussain v The State 2024 YLR 1653, 1636–1637.
[31] Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, sch II (which explicitly categorizes section 496 PPC as a non-cognizable, bailable offense); see also Munawar Hussain v The State 2024 YLR 1653, 1643–1644.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ambreen Akram v Asad Ullah Khan 2026 SCMR 1, 1095 (holding that the wife’s right to maintenance flows unconditionally from the solemnization of marriage, explicitly dismantling the traditional patriarchal ‘maintenance-obedience complex’).
[34] Mst Musarat v Aziz Ahmad PLD 2023 Peshawar 88, 937–940.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Khawar Fareed Maneka vs Imran Ahmed Khan and Bushra Bibi, etc. Private Complaint No. of 7096/ 2023
[37] Ibid.
[38] News Desk, ‘Iddat case: Appeal against Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi’s acquittal scheduled for hearing’ The Express Tribune (Islamabad, 26 January 2025) https://tribune.com.pk/story/2524634/iddat-case-appeal-against-imran-khan-and-bushra-bibis-acquittal-scheduled-for-hearing
[39] Shahid, ‘Post-Divorce Maintenance Rights for Muslim Women’ (n 1) 72; Hussain and Faizi (n 1) 26.
[40] Maryam Qasim, ‘Role of the Judiciary in Protecting Women’s Rights’ (2025) 25(2) Journal of Gender and Law 42; see also Shahid, ‘Post-Divorce Maintenance in Pakistan: Socio-Legal Realities’ (2024) 12(3) Pakistan Law Review 145.
[41] Ibid.
