Imrān and Abū Hurayrah held that nothing at all becomes obligatory for someone who vows to commit a sin. By contrast, anyone who opted to harmonise the two ḥadīths required the expiation for breaking an oath in such a case.

Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said: “The ḥadīth scholars have declared the reports of Imrān and Abū Hurayrah weak. They point out that the narration of Abū Hurayrah revolves around Sulaymān ibn Arqam, who has been discarded as a transmitter, while the report of Imrān ibn Ḥuṣayn hinges on Zuhayr ibn Muḥammad narrating from his father. Zuhayr’s father is unknown—no one other than his son transmits from him—and Zuhayr himself relates oddities. Even so, Muslim included the report through the chain of ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir.”

The Mālikīs customarily support Mālik’s view on this question with the narration that

“The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—saw a man standing in the sun and asked, ‘What is the matter with this man?’ They said, ‘He has vowed not to speak, not to seek shade, not to sit down, and to fast.’ The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said, ‘Command him to speak, to sit down, and to complete his fast.’”

They argue that the Prophet ordered him to fulfil whatever constituted obedience to Allah and to abandon whatever constituted disobedience. Yet it is not obvious that refraining from speech is disobedience, for Allah has told us that it was Mary’s vow; likewise, standing in the sun does not in itself appear to be disobedience save for the hardship it imposes on the body. Should anyone claim it is disobedience, that would be by analogy rather than by explicit text, for the default ruling is that such acts are permissible.

Second issue: The jurists disagreed about a person who declares something permissible to be forbidden to himself. Mālik said that nothing becomes binding except in the case of one’s wife. The Ẓāhirīs held that nothing at all is binding. Abū Ḥanīfah maintained that expiation for breaking an oath is required.

The cause of their disagreement lies in the collision between rational inference and the plain wording of the Almighty’s statement: “O Prophet, why do you forbid what Allah has made lawful for you, seeking to please your wives?” (al-Taḥrīm 66:1).

A vow is not, in essence, the adoption of a legal view contrary to the Sharīʿah—that is, forbidding what is lawful or permitting what is unlawful—for the power to legislate in such matters belongs solely to the Lawgiver. Therefore, on the basis of this understanding, a person who forbids himself something Allah has lawfully permitted is not bound by that self-imposed prohibition, just as he is not bound were he to vow to permit something the Law has declared unlawful.

The explicit sense of His words, “Allah has prescribed for you the means of dissolving your oaths” (al-Taḥrīm 66:2), delivered as a rebuke for the act of self-prohibition, indicates that expiation annuls such a commitment; and if a commitment can be annulled, it is not binding. The first group, however, interpreted the “prohibition” mentioned in the verse as having been undertaken by an oath.

There is disagreement regarding the exact incident for which this verse was revealed, and in the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim it is reported that it concerned a drink.