these, in reports from ‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Umar and ‘Awf ibn Mālik al-Jushamī. These mass-transmitted statements of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, establish that he commanded anyone who swore an oath and then saw that another course was better to make expiation for his oath and do what was better. He made no distinction between swearing by Allah and using a vow or the like as an oath.
Al-Nasā’ī narrated from Abū Mūsā that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:
“There is no oath on earth that I swear, then see that another course is better, but that I take the better course.”
This explicitly shows that he intended to include every oath on earth. The Companions likewise understood his words to include using vows as oaths. Abū Dāwūd narrated in his Sunan: Muhammad ibn al-Minhāl narrated to us; Yazīd ibn Zuray‘ narrated to us; Khubayb al-Mu‘allim narrated to us, from ‘Amr ibn Shu‘ayb, from Sa‘īd ibn al-Musayyib:
Two brothers from the Ansār jointly held an inheritance. One asked the other to divide it, whereupon the latter said, “If you ask me again to divide it, all my wealth shall be dedicated to the Kaaba.”
‘Umar said to him:
“The Kaaba has no need of your wealth. Make expiation for your oath and speak to your brother. I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say:
‘No oath or vow is binding upon you if it involves disobedience to the Lord, severing ties of kinship, or something one does not own.’”
Thus, the Commander of the Faithful, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb, instructed this man—who had sworn an oath in conditional form and made a vow of obstinacy and anger—to make expiation for his oath rather than carry out what he had vowed. He cited as evidence what he had heard the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say:
“No oath or vow is binding upon you if it involves disobedience to the Lord, severing ties of kinship, or something one does not own.”
It was thus understood that whoever undertakes an oath or vow involving disobedience or severing ties of kinship is not obliged to fulfil that vow, but only to make expiation, as ‘Umar ruled for him. Were it not that this vow