Abū Ḥanīfah, his students, al-Awzāʿī, al-Shāfiʿī, and the rest of the jurists maintain that a promise (ʿiddah) entails no binding obligation, because it concerns benefits that have not yet been received, like a gratuitous loan, and is therefore merely incidental.

What appears strongest to me is that breaking a promise is impermissible, for it is one of the traits of the hypocrite. Yet if the promisor refuses to carry it out, no court judgment can compel him; he is urged to fulfil it but cannot be forced.

Among the contemporary scholars who have held that a promise is binding are Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Saʿdī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Qāsim, Muṣṭafā al-Zarqā, Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, and others.

Shaykh al-Qaraḍāwī states: The point on which disagreement should not be entertained is the promise connected to exchanges and commercial dealings that generate financial and economic obligations. Allowing a person to renege in such cases harms people’s interests and deceives them; fulfilling the promise here is like honouring a covenant. For this reason certain hadiths describe the hypocrite as “when he makes a covenant he betrays it” rather than “when he promises he breaks it.”

The Islamic Fiqh Academy in Jeddah, in Resolution 40 adopted at its fifth session held in Kuwait between 1–6/5/1409 AH, ruled as follows:
A promise to fulfil an obligation is binding on the promisor before Allah unless he has a valid excuse. It also becomes judicially enforceable when it is dependent on a specified cause and the promisee, relying on it, incurs cost or liability. In that situation the commitment must either be carried out or compensation paid for the actual harm caused by failing to do so without a legitimate excuse.