Discover the meaning of the term Al-rjʿa (رجعة) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 4 min readA name from raja'a (he returned): ruju'an and rajatan; the husband has over his wife a raj'a or rij'a, with kasra or fatha of the ra, the fatha being the more eloquent; from it is the revocable divorce (talaq raj'i); thus in al-Maghrib.
A name from raja'a: 'yarji'u ruju'an', with kasra of the ra, the fatha being more eloquent. The raj'a in divorce: asking, during the waiting period ('idda), for the continuance of the standing marriage and its permanence as it was. The raj'a among the claimants: the return of the deed upon its doer, with perdition or harm. Among the astrologers: the return of the planet to the courses it has passed, such that each of the states, retrogradation (ruju') then return ('awd), is a stationing and a standstill, by what has been established concerning it, namely that between every two motions there must be a standstill; and when it returns to its first passage it is swift of motion. If it is stationary, it establishes the inquirer's matter and halts; if swift, its matter comes to pass soon; and if in retrogradation, its matter does not come to pass at all. I say: if between a planet's retrogradation and its return there were a standstill, it would follow that the sphere is motionless, which is utterly false, since it is established that the sphere is ever in motion. It would then follow either the sphere's standstill, which is false as passed, or the nullity of what was established, and both are false; unless it be said that the standstill between the two motions depends on their straightness, and here it is not so: consider.
It is said with fatha or kasra of the ra; al-Jawhari preferred the fatha, while the jurists' usage settled on the kasra, and the kasra is more frequent according to al-Azhari. 'So-and-so believes in the raj'a' (with fatha only): meaning the return to this world. One says: 'so-and-so sold his camel and then made a rija'a (with kasra) in it': meaning he bought other than what he sold, as al-Azhari said. Al-raj'a is the verbal-noun name of 'raja'a'; one says: 'raja'a 'an safri-hi' (he gave up his journey), and 'raja'a 'an al-amr yarji'u rajan, wa ruju'an, wa rajyan, wa marjan' (he turned back from the matter).
The return of a wife by a husband who has not exhausted the number of his divorces, or by the guardian of a specific madwoman divorced, gratis, to his marriage, with a conclusive wording.
In this sense.
A reckoning raised by the paymaster in some armies.
In language: the occasion of returning. In law: the return by a husband whose divorce is valid of his divorced wife after consummation, during the remainder of her divorce waiting period, without compensation or exhausting the number, to his marriage.
In divorce: it is the continuance of the standing ownership during the term, namely the ownership of marriage.