If Husband Says ‘It is One Talaq’ while Wife Says ‘It Is Three’, whose Statement to Take into Account
12-3-2023 | IslamWeb
Question:
How many talaqs will happen here by telling you one talaq one talaq one talaq?At one point in quarrel with his wife, the husband says, "One talaq, one talaq, one talaq." says How many takaqs will fall here? The wife claims that she heard triple talaq. The husband claims that he pronounced one talaq three times. The husband now wants to take his wife back. What to do in this case? They also have a two-year-old daughter.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
The mentioned wording implies a single divorce if the husband wants by repeating the wording to confirm and not to initiate a new divorce. If this is the first or second divorce, then the husband has the right to return his wife as long as she is in the waiting period, without the need for a new contract, dowry and their consequences, and whether the wife agrees or dislikes it, as Allah Says (what means) : {And their husbands have more right to take them back in this [period] if they want reconciliation.} [Quran 2:228] If the waiting period is completed before he takes her back, then she becomes a non-Mahram to him and he can marry her again if he wishes with a new contract. In addition, if the husband doubts about the number of divorces, did he initiate one, two or three divorces, then he relies on the basis of the least because this is what is certain, anything more is questionable. Moreover, the wife is not divorced with doubtful matters, because the basic principle is that the marriage contract is still valid.
Ibn Qudamah 
said in Al-Mughni:
“If he [the husband] divorced [his wife] and doubts the number of divorces, then he relies of what he is certain of.”
Likewise, if the spouses disagree about the number of divorces, and the wife says, “You divorced me three times,” while the husband says, “I divorced you once or twice,” then it is the husband’s saying that is taken into accout, not the wife's.
Al-Mughni by Ibn Qudamah reads:
“If they [the spouses] disagree about the number of divorces, then the saying that is taken into account is his saying.” [End of quote]
Allah knows best.