Third: If a person becomes unable to fulfill a vow of obedience, then if it has a substitute, he should perform its substitute. If it has no substitute, it remains outstanding as a liability upon him until Allah cures him. If recovery from this inability is not expected, then the matter requires consideration: if it is, for example, fasting, he must offer expiation for it, just as one does for an obligation established by the Sacred Law itself. But if it is prayer, inability to perform it does not apparently arise, since he prays according to his condition.

Fourth: If he qualifies the vow with Allah’s will, saying, “I vow to Allah that I will do such-and-such, if Allah wills,” then, in a vow that carries the ruling of an oath, he incurs no expiation for breaking it. If it is an act of obedience, we consider his intention: if he intended to make it conditional, then nothing is required of him; but if he intended affirmation or seeking blessing, he must carry it out, according to his intention.

Benefit: When the author of al-Furūʿ says, “according to the sounder view,” this means that the issue under discussion has two narrations from Imam Ahmad, and the sounder of the two is the one regarding which he says, “according to the sounder view.” He means the sounder view within the school, not the narration that is more soundly attributed to Imam Ahmad.

When he says, “in the sounder view,” he means the two scholarly positions transmitted from the leading scholars among Imam Ahmad’s followers.

Fifth: If a person makes a vow tied to a particular day or month, then becomes insane before that day arrives—meaning that he reaches that day while insane—then he does not have to make it up with respect to physical acts of worship. As for financial acts of worship, such as if he says, “If Zayd arrives, then I vow to Allah that I will give such-and-such in charity,” and Zayd arrives while he is insane, we have previously mentioned that he is required to give the charity, because