as is the apparent position of al-Shāfiʿī’s school, one of the two positions reported from Abū Hanīfah—which most of his later followers adopted—and one of the two positions reported from Ibn al-Qāsim—which many later Mālikīs adopted. Treating oaths involving vows and oaths involving manumission alike is the sound approach. Hence, this was among the strongest arguments of those who maintained that an oath involving a vow must be fulfilled: they drew an analogy with oaths involving divorce and manumission. Some Mālikīs believed there was consensus on this.

Furthermore, if someone swears using an oath formula, saying, for example, “My slaves are free—I shall certainly do it,” or “My wives are divorced—I shall certainly do it,” this is equivalent to saying, “My wealth is pledged to charity—I shall certainly do it,” or “I am bound to perform Hajj—I shall certainly do it.”

What makes this equivalence clear is that al-Shāfiʿī based his position on conditional divorce solely on the compensation paid for khulʿ (divorce in return for compensation). He stated this in al-Buwaytī, “a work from his Egyptian period” containing some of his finest discussions. Jurists call divorce made conditional upon a particular circumstance “divorce subject to a qualification,” and they call that condition a “qualification.” They say, for example, “If the qualification is fulfilled during a period of irrevocable separation,” or “If the qualification is not fulfilled,” and similar expressions.

There are two explanations for this terminology. “The first” is that this divorce is qualified in some respect, rather than being entirely unqualified. If a man says, “You are divorced at the beginning of the year,” or “when you become free of menstruation,” he has qualified the divorce by specifying a particular time, since an adverbial expression qualifies that to which it applies. Likewise, if he says, “If you give me a thousand, you are divorced,” he has qualified it by specifying the compensation to be paid for it.