[Bare Divorce [“Ḥarām and Ṭalāq”]]

Answer—and with Allah is success: I have not seen, in the books of the madhhab available to me, explicit discussion of this. What appears to me is that this statement of the man necessitates neither divorce nor expiation, for two reasons:
1. This statement has not been applied to his wife in respect of divorce, nor to any specified thing in respect of declaring it unlawful (ḥarām).
2. The default is the continuance of the marriage and clearance of liability from any expiation.
If it be said: Such a statement normally implies something in the speaker’s intention.
I say: Divorce and declaring something unlawful must be attached to something explicitly mentioned—verbally or by clear legal implication, as when it occurs in answer to a question or the like. There is no legal weight to what the tongue has not uttered, due to his saying (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace): “Allah has overlooked for my community what their souls whisper to them, so long as they do not say it or do it.”
As for writing, its ruling is the ruling of utterance—but with intention and purpose to divorce, as the scholars of the madhhab have mentioned, and that is due to specific evidence concerning it. And Allah knows best.
What this oather might be “intending” to supply is something like: “Upon me is ḥarām, and upon me is ṭalāq,” or “Something—or everything—is ḥarām upon me, and my wife is ṭalāq,” or “I swear by ḥarām and ṭalāq.” However the supplementation is imagined, there is no legal weight to mere intention.
In sum: the mere words “ṭalāq” and “ḥarām,” each in isolation, carry no ruling. One must state both the predicate and the subject; hence it is said: pointing to divorce does not suffice from one capable of speech; it suffices only from one incapable (like a mute) out of necessity.
Yes: circumstantial clues do not suffice in divorce. For example, if a husband, during a quarrel and anger, says to his wife, “You…,” intending divorce in his heart, without uttering it—no divorce occurs.
In al-Baḥr: “According to the ʿitrah and tow [Hanafis and Shafi'is] groups (of scholars), divorce does not occur by mere intention,” adducing the ḥadīth: “My community has been absolved of what their souls whisper to them so long as they do not say it or do it.” End.
Likewise, if in that state he says “ṭalāq” or “ṭāliq” while intending in his heart “you” or “so-and-so,” nothing occurs, because there is no weight to inner whisperings, as noted. Both parts of the sentence must be spoken; intending them—both or either—does not establish divorce.
Source : Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.1