A Comprehensive Chapter on Oaths

If someone swears that he will certainly carry out a particular act and links the oath to a specific condition, he does not incur perjury until that condition is realized. In Mālik’s view, and that of his colleagues, he becomes perjured by the slightest occurrence to which the name of that condition applies, and he is not deemed to have kept his oath unless he fully accomplishes what he swore to do. This is the position most widely attributed to Mālik and the settled formulation of his school among the majority of his disciples.

Some of his companions, however, report another opinion from him: that the oath is fulfilled merely by the appearance of the condition’s name in any measure.

If a person is coerced into doing something he had sworn not to do, no expiation is required of him; but if he does it out of forgetfulness, the expiation becomes obligatory. And whoever swears, saying: