the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: “Whoever swears an oath should swear by Allah or remain silent.” But this view is far-fetched.

The second, as we said, is something equivalent to an oath to abstain from intercourse. This concerns a man who has declared his wife forbidden to him as his mother’s back, then withholds expiation to harm her. Intercourse makes the expiation for that declaration obligatory upon him, whereas it was not obligatory before, just as intercourse makes expiation obligatory upon someone who has sworn not to have intercourse, whereas it was not obligatory before.

The third, as we said, is an oath of divorce under which the swearer must perform an act to avoid breaching his oath. This is when a man says: “My wife is divorced if I do not do such-and-such.” It falls into three categories. The first is where the act is something he can perform, as when he says: “My wife is divorced if I do not enter the house,” or something similar. The second is where he cannot perform the act immediately but can perform it at another time, as when he says: “My wife is divorced if I do not perform Hajj,” at the beginning of the year, when he has no means of performing Hajj. The third is where he cannot perform the act because it is impossible, as when he says: “My wife is divorced if I do not touch the sky,” or “if I do not drink wine,” or “if I do not pass through the eye of a needle,” and similar statements.

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In the first case, he is prohibited from intercourse from the moment he takes the oath. If his wife brings a claim against him on that account, the prescribed period of sworn abstention is set for him. At its expiry, he is required to decide: either he ends his abstention by performing that act, or a divorce is pronounced on his behalf. He is not permitted to end his abstention by having intercourse, because intercourse is prohibited to him while his oath remains unfulfilled. If he nevertheless ventures to have intercourse, the elapsed portion of the prescribed period is disregarded, and a fresh period is set if his wife brings proceedings and requests it.

If he ends his abstention by performing the act, he ceases to be subject to the rules of sworn abstention, and no divorce becomes binding upon him. If he pronounces divorce himself, no further divorce becomes binding upon him when the opportunity to perform the act specified in his oath passes—if it is an act whose opportunity can pass during his lifetime—according to Ibn al-Qāsim. Ibn al-Mawwāz disagreed, holding that a further divorce takes effect when the opportunity to perform the act passes, because that is equivalent to the expiry of a stipulated term.

If he refuses to do so, the ruler pronounces divorce on his behalf on the grounds of sworn abstention. If the ruler divorces him on those grounds and he then takes his wife back, his taking her back is not valid unless he ends his abstention by performing that act before