contract—which must be honoured even without an oath, and all the more so when an oath has been sworn—the person who gives such a fatwa permitting the breach of these contracts and the breaking of his oath is fabricating lies against Allah and issuing fatwas contrary to the religion of Islam. How much more serious is this when it concerns covenants with those in authority, which are the most solemn contracts that Allah has commanded people to honour!

Similarly, the majority of scholars hold that an oath taken under wrongful coercion is not binding, whether sworn by Allah or involving a vow, divorce, or manumission. This is the position of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Ahmad.

Yet if the ruler compels people to fulfil their duty to obey him and give him sincere counsel, and to swear to do so, no one may permit them to abandon what Allah and His Messenger have commanded in this regard or allow them to break these oaths. Whatever is obligatory without an oath is reinforced, not weakened, by an oath—even supposing that the person was coerced into taking it.

If someone wishes to argue that the terms of certain kinds of oaths are binding without qualification because those in authority sometimes require people to swear them, he should be told: “This objection applies equally to your own position on an oath taken under coercion, for you maintain that it is not binding even when those in authority take such oaths. It also applies to many of your fatwas permitting legal stratagems, despite the disobedience to Allah Most High, His Messenger, and those in authority that they entail.”