Judicial divorce grounded in the rule of negation of hardship (qāʿidat nafy al-ʿusr wa al-ḥaraj; Article 1130 of the Iranian Civil Code) is a principal protective instrument for wives in Iranian family law, yet no uniform criterion governs recognition of its emerging instances. This study examines the jurisprudential (fiqhī) basis and criteria by which judicial practice subsumes emerging instances under this rule, and the evidentiary weight of the wife’s waiver of financial rights. Using an analytical-descriptive method, it draws on jurisprudential sources, statutory texts, and seven decisions of the Supreme Court, family courts, and courts of appeal. The findings indicate that, outside devotional matters (ʿibādāt), the rule constitutes a dispensation (rukhṣa); as a secondary, governing (ḥākim) norm over primary rulings, it qualifies the husband’s unrestricted prerogative of repudiation (ṭalāq) and justifies court intervention based on guardianship (wilāyat al-ḥākim). The decisions reveal a shift from strictly material criteria toward holistic assessment of marital circumstances. Accordingly, emerging instances are classified as “genuinely emerging” (changes in the subject matter itself, such as technology-related harms and novel diseases) and “customary or constructive” (changes in how custom identifies the instance, such as continuous psychological hardship). The latter category receives judicial support, whereas the former remains an analytical possibility. Waiver of dower (mahr), alongside other indicia, including local inquiry and counselling reports, constitutes a revealing presumption (qarīna kāshifa) of actual hardship, rather than a sufficient cause for judgment. It must be distinguished from khulʿ and mubāraʾa, which depend on the husband’s consent. The article contributes a classification grounded in a single jurisprudential basis and clarifies the evidentiary status of dower waiver. It recommends clearer standards for customary presumptions, combined application of subjective and objective criteria, and revision of the annotation (tabṣira) to Article 1130.