In a certain circumstance where a person would be residing in a country where the second marriage is legally disallowed, or he would have a reason to marry a woman a customary marriage, which completes all the pillars and conditions, specifically the witnesses issue, but the marriage has not been officially registered. But the woman would later realized that this kind of marriage may cause her great harm, as she cannot ask for her right, as it is not officially documented, nor can she obtain her right with a customary council, nor can she ask for divorce so she can marry someone else, meanwhile, the husband could leave her and harm her by not spending on her.
The solution to this problem is that the woman escalates the issue to a religious committee within the country which is known, so that they can do an investigation into the situation, and ensure that her claims are correct, and this religious committee may separate between them with one time pronouncement of divorce. This one time divorce is considered a revocable divorce according to the School of thought of Imam Ahmad.
If it was his failure to keep her chaste and four months had passed, then his abstinence from sexual intercourse during this period is treated as ilaa’ (foreswearing one’s wife more than four months) based on Malik and Ahmed’s schools of thought. This religious center should demand from the husband to either return his wife , or divorce her in a best manner. If he refused to do either then the marriage is annulled immediately without any delay, according to Hanafis. There is the only way to resolve this discord, in order to prevent any harm, for Islam has no harm and does not condone harm from any person.
As a result we warn those who want to marry a man in a customary marriage of falling in a similar situation to this. We also advise the woman to stipulate in the contract that the right to divorce in her hand, this is the view of Imam Abu Hanifa. Even if she is unsuccessful in this marriage, she can divorce herself from it without resorting to the judiciary, -because the judge would not attend to her claim- and without resorting to a committee or other.