He replied:

If his intention was that he was refraining for a particular reason, as indicated by the circumstances giving rise to the oath, and that reason has ceased to exist, his oath is no longer binding according to the stronger of the two scholarly views. And Allah knows best.

He—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

About a man who swore, on pain of triple divorce, that his wife must not leave his house without his permission. She then said, “Today, your mother and I are having lunch together.” He understood that his mother would come to her, while his wife understood that he had given her permission, so she went to his mother’s home.

He replied:

In these circumstances, divorce does not take effect according to the sounder of the two scholarly views. This is one of the two views of al-Shāfiʿī and one of the two positions reported from Ahmad. This concerns the case of someone acting in ignorance or forgetfulness, about which the disagreement is well known: does the oath-taker break his oath, or not? Or should a distinction be drawn between oaths whose breach can be expiated and other oaths? The correct view is that he does not break his oath in either case. For keeping or breaking an oath is analogous to obeying or disobeying a command, when the statement to which the oath relates is a directive.

The statement to which an oath relates is either a “declarative statement,” in which case the oath-taker’s purpose is to affirm or deny its truth, or a “directive,” in which case the oath-taker’s purpose is