granting this respite; rather, she would prefer an immediate divorce so that she could complete her waiting period and become free to marry someone else. If divorce is inevitable under either alternative, the respite would be purely harmful to her. This runs contrary to the purpose of the ruling on oaths of abstention, which was instituted for the woman’s benefit, not to harm her.

The Companions and other scholars cited the scriptural texts I have mentioned as evidence concerning this class of oaths. Thus, when someone swore, saying, “If I do such-and-such, my wealth shall be given as sacrificial offerings and my slaves shall be free,” or something similar, they ruled that he should offer expiation for his oath. They therefore treated this as an oath for which expiation could be offered. Likewise, a number of earlier and later scholars regarded this ruling as encompassing oaths invoking divorce, emancipation, and other such commitments. They held that every oath a person swears is subject to the prescribed expiation for an oath, however solemn it may be.

Some scholars have supposed that this kind of undertaking bears some resemblance to vows, divorce, and emancipation, and some resemblance to oaths. That is not so. These are simply oaths, not vows, divorces, or emancipations. Some jurists call them “vows of obstinacy and anger,” but this is a qualified designation; it does not mean that they fall under the unqualified term “vow.”

The leading jurists who followed the Companions explained that these are simply oaths, as al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and others established concerning oaths invoking vows. They are, however, oaths in which a breach is made conditional upon two things: first, performing the act to which the oath relates; and second, failing to carry out the undertaking invoked in the oath.