with excessive display and needless expense, such as arranging an extravagant banquet from which most of the food ultimately ends up in the trash. We have even heard of people who, when a guest arrives, the host hurries off to slaughter an animal for him, whereupon the guest protests, “Do not slaughter—by divorce, do not slaughter!” and the host retorts, “By divorce, I will certainly slaughter!” This is wrong and reprehensible. There is no need for any oath here: either slaughter the animal or do not. And if you feel compelled to swear, there is absolutely no reason to swear by invoking divorce, for an oath that hinges on divorce is no trivial matter.

The four Imams—Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal—and the majority of their followers hold that an oath tied to divorce results in an actual divorce if it is broken. In other words, if you say, “Your divorce is binding upon me if you do such-and-such,” and she then does it, your wife is divorced, even though you only intended an oath. This is the opinion of the majority of the ummah and all the leading jurists who are followed.

The matter, therefore, is extremely serious, yet people take it far too lightly. How quick a person is to say, “By divorce I will do it,” “By divorce I will not do it,” “My wife is divorced if I do it,” or “My wife is divorced if I do not do it.” Such statements are a grave mistake. How can you utter these words when most jurists maintain that, if you break your oath, your wife is indeed divorced?