The Law makes it clear in other contexts that the ruling may lapse, as in the report, “There is no divorce under duress,” and similar texts. Yet the weightier positions are the first two, namely those of Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī.
Chapter Three
Which Oaths Are Removed by Expiation and Which Are Not
This chapter consists of four questions.
Question One
The jurists differed over binding oaths sworn by invoking Allah: does expiation lift the liability for every one of them? The discussion covers two kinds of oath:
- An oath about a past event—asserting that something took place when in fact it did not. This is the “plunging oath” (al-yamīn al-ghamūs), so called because the speaker deliberately lies and thereby plunges himself into sin.
- An oath about a future matter that the swearer himself, or someone connected to him, promises to perform but then fails to do.
The majority hold that no expiation is due for the plunging oath; expiation applies only to oaths concerning the future when the swearer breaks them. This was the position of Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.
Al-Shāfiʿī and a number of scholars maintain that expiation is required even for the plunging oath—that it removes the sin just as it does in other oaths.
The basis of their disagreement is an apparent clash between the general wording of the Qur’an and a specific Prophetic report. Allah the Exalted says,
“But He will hold you accountable for the oaths you have sworn in earnest; the expiation of such an oath is to feed ten needy people …” (al-Māʾidah 5:89),
which, taken at face value, implies that expiation applies to the plunging oath because it is a binding oath. On the other hand, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said,
“Whoever seizes the right of a Muslim by means of his oath, Allah will forbid Paradise to him and obligate the Fire for him,”
which suggests that no expiation is accepted for the plunging oath.
Al-Shāfiʿī may reply in either of two ways: he may exclude from the category of plunging oaths those in which no one’s right is usurped, since that is the case addressed by the text; or he may argue that oaths used to appropriate another’s right combine both oppression and perjury, so expiation should not be allowed to erase both at once. Nor can it remove the perjury while leaving the injustice, for expiation cancels perjury only as a form of repentance, and repentance cannot be partial with respect to a single sin. Thus, if the person repents, restores the wrong, and offers expiation, all sin is lifted from him.
Question Two
The scholars also disagreed about someone who says, “I will be a disbeliever in Allah, or an idolater, or a Jew, or a Christian if I do such-and-such,” and then goes ahead and does it. Is expiation required or not?
Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī hold that no expiation is due and that such a statement is not an oath at all.
Abū Ḥanīfah says that it is an oath and that expiation is obligatory if it is violated; this is also the view of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.
The root of their disagreement is whether an oath may be sworn by anything deemed sacred by the Sharīʿah, or only by Allah alone—and, if such an oath is pronounced, whether it becomes legally binding in the first place.
Accordingly, whoever considers a binding oath to be—i.e.