He cites the Prophet’s words, “Allah forbids you to swear by your forefathers,” and argues that although the ḥadith mentions a specific case, it was intended to cover everything in general; accordingly, one may swear by anything that the Sharīʿah has deemed venerable. Their disagreement, then, goes back to how they reconcile the Qur’ānic verses with the prophetic report.

As for those who forbid swearing by Allah’s Attributes or His Acts, their position is weak. The point at issue is whether the ḥadith should be restricted to what is expressly linked to the Divine Name alone, or whether its ruling should be extended to the Attributes and Acts as well. Limiting the ruling to the Name alone is an unduly rigid literalism, closer to the outlook of the Ẓāhirīs, even though this opinion is related within the Mālikī school—al-Lakhmī transmits it from Muḥammad ibn al-Mawwāz. A deviant group went so far as to prohibit even an oath taken in Allah’s very Name; the ḥadith itself is a direct text against such a view.

Chapter Two
Recognizing Idle (Linguistic) Oaths and Binding Oaths

The scholars are unanimously agreed that oaths are of two kinds—idle and binding—on the basis of the Almighty’s words:

“Allah will not hold you accountable for what is meaningless in your oaths, but He will hold you accountable for the oaths you have sworn deliberately.” (al-Māʾidah 5:89)

They differ, however, over what exactly constitutes “idle speech” (laghw):

• Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfah maintain that it is an oath concerning a matter a person believes to be certain, only for events to prove otherwise.

• Al-Shāfiʿī says that an idle oath is one not formed with intent—such as the habitual expressions that pass across people’s tongues in conversation: “No, by Allah,” “Yes, by Allah,” and the like—without the speaker thinking it binding. This view is also narrated by Mālik in the Muwaṭṭaʾ from ʿĀʾishah. The first opinion, by contrast, is reported from al-Ḥasan ibn Abī l-Ḥasan, Qatādah, Mujāhid, and Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī.

• A third view holds that it is an oath sworn while a person is angry; this was the position of Ismāʿīl al-Qāḍī, one of Mālik’s students.

• A fourth view says it is an oath taken to commit a sin; this is related from Ibn ʿAbbās.

• A fifth view understands it as an oath in which a man swears that he will refrain from eating something the Sharīʿah has made lawful to him.

The root of their disagreement lies in the semantic breadth of the word laghw. Sometimes it denotes false or frivolous speech, as in His statement, “And engage in idle talk about it so that you might prevail” (Fussilat 41:26). At other times it refers to speech that the speaker never intended to make binding. That the latter is what is meant in the verse is indicated by the fact that “idle” oaths are set in opposition to “binding” oaths, which are emphatic; therefore the legal ruling for the one must be the opposite of the other.

Those who defined laghw as an oath uttered under duress (īghlāq), or as an oath regarding matters for which the Law imposes no obligation—as some hold—took the term here to have an established technical meaning in the Sharīʿah: namely, those oaths that