"In a recent essay Tahir Mahmood goes even further: on his reckoning the Triple talaq is not just a rule which the Islamic jurists formulated to help women be rid of undesirable husbands, it is a rule which the jurists came to recognize and accept at the initiative of the aggrieved women! ‘This simple but meaningful reform introduced by the Prophet got corrupted in the course of time,’ he writes, recounting that the Prophet’s pronouncements constituted a deterrent to husbands and that they put limits on what a husband could do. ‘In fits of anger husbands began pronouncing on their wives “three divorces at a time”. And married women, sick of their tyrant husbands, in a bid to get rid of them, insisted that “three divorces at a time” should be given the effect of third-time divorce so as to instantly divorce the marriage. To help wives in distress, most jurists of the time agreed.’"