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Allah Most High thus commanded the fulfilment of vows in general terms, while the Prophet ﷺ clarified that this command does not apply without qualification. He said: “Whoever vows to obey Allah should obey Him, and whoever vows to disobey Allah must not disobey Him.” No one in the Muslim community disputes that the Sunnah explains the Quran and qualifies its general wording. Scholars have differed only over whether the Quran may be abrogated by the Sunnah—meaning the Sunnah transmitted through so many independent channels that it establishes certain knowledge and leaves no room for excuse. As for the Sunnah transmitted through solitary reports, there is no disagreement that it cannot abrogate the Quran after the Prophet’s death ﷺ.
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Vows fall into four categories: a vow to perform an act of obedience, which must be fulfilled; a vow to commit a sin, which must not be fulfilled; a vow to do something disliked, whose fulfilment is disliked; and a vow to do something permissible, which one may either fulfil or leave unfulfilled.
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A binding vow is one by which a person obligates himself either to perform an act that draws him nearer to Allah Most High but is not obligatory, or to refrain from something when doing so draws him nearer to Allah Most High but is not obligatory. A vow has no effect upon an act of obedience that is already obligatory. Likewise, it has no effect upon the obligation to refrain from a forbidden sin, since refraining from it is already required by Islamic law, independently of the vow. Thus, abstention becomes binding through a vow only where it is recommended, as when a person vows not to speak to anyone after the dawn prayer until sunrise, or something similar.
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Binding vows involving obedience to Allah fall into two categories: a recommended vow, namely an unconditional vow that a person undertakes out of gratitude to Allah for blessings already bestowed upon him, or without any particular occasion; and a permissible vow, namely one contingent upon a future event.
A recommended, unconditional vow is when a person says: “I undertake a vow to Allah of such-and-such,” or “I vow to