swear by something other than Him while telling the truth.”
It is well-known that perjury—swearing by Allah while lying—is one of the grave major sins. Yet shirk—swearing by anything besides Allah—is even graver, despite being classified as minor shirk. A Muslim, therefore, must stay alert to this matter and not be carried away by the customs of the Age of Ignorance. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Whoever feels the need to swear, let him swear by Allah or remain silent,” and he said, “Do not swear by your forefathers,” along with other texts that command us, whenever we must take an oath, to confine ourselves to swearing by Allah alone and never by anything else.
Whoever swears by Allah must also be content with it, as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Whoever swears by Allah, let him speak the truth; whoever is sworn to by Allah, let him accept it; and whoever does not accept it is not of Allah.”
- Shirk in expressions
Among the manifestations of minor shirk is shirk in certain phrases—such as saying, “Whatever Allah and you will.” Imam Ahmad and al-Nasa’i narrated from Qutayla that a Jew came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said, “You commit shirk: you say, ‘Whatever Allah and you will,’ and you say, ‘By the Kaʿbah!’ ” So the Prophet instructed them that, if they wished to swear, they should say, “By the Lord of the Kaʿbah,” and that they should say, “Whatever Allah wills, then you will.”
Al-Nasa’i also reported from Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both) that a man said to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), “Whatever Allah and you will.” He replied, “Have you made me a rival to Allah? Say: ‘Whatever Allah alone wills.’ ”
These two hadiths, and others bearing the same meaning, prohibit saying, “Whatever Allah and you will,” and similar expressions such as, “If it were not for Allah and you,” or, “I have no one but Allah and you,” because linking the two with the conjunction “and” implies equality between them, and that is shirk. The required practice is to join them with “then,” and to say, “Whatever Allah wills, then you will,” or “Whatever So-and-so wills,” “If it were not for Allah, then you,” or