—if he actually performs Hajj, the charity becomes obligatory; if he does not, nothing is due.

Likewise, if he says, “If I do not go on Hajj this year, I must give such-and-such in charity,” he is again at liberty to choose: should he undertake the pilgrimage, the charity is not required; should he forgo the pilgrimage, the charity becomes binding.

Whoever does not stipulate an escape clause for his vow is liable for the expiation of an oath. A vow uttered in contentment or in anger carries the same legal weight. According to Imām Mālik, there is no valid exception clause in a vow or in an oath to walk to Mecca, and there is no expiation for such an oath other than fulfilling it by walking, provided one is able.

Walking to Mecca can only be in the context of Hajj or ʿUmrah, in accordance with whatever the swearer intended at the time. If he had no particular intention, an ʿUmrah suffices. If he enters iḥrām for ʿUmrah, he must walk until he completes the saʿy between Ṣafā and Marwah after circling the Kaʿbah. If he assumes iḥrām for Hajj, he must walk until he departs from Minā after stoning the jamrah.

There is no “idle oath” in the matter of walking to Mecca, and joking about it, in Mālik’s view, is treated as seriousness, just like marriage, divorce, or manumission.

Whoever breaks his oath to walk to Mecca must begin walking from the town in which he swore, not from the spot where he violated the oath; if he starts from the place of violation, he must send a sacrificial animal.

If someone says, “It is incumbent upon me to walk to the House of Allah,” the reference is to the Kaʿbah, unless he specifically intends another mosque.

Whoever swears to perform thirty pilgrimages—or more—and then breaks his oath must perform Hajj every year and do whatever else he is able for the remainder of his life; nothing further is required of him.

If a person swore to walk to Mecca but death approached him and he instructed that someone else walk on his behalf, that instruction is invalid, for no one can walk on behalf of another. Instead, a sacrificial animal is to be offered from one-third of his estate.

The majority of scholars in Madinah and elsewhere distinguish between a vow and an oath to walk to Mecca: in the case of a vow they unanimously require fulfillment, while for an oath to walk to Mecca they obligate an expiation equivalent to that for an oath sworn by Allah—this is one opinion.