you fear treachery from a people, then throw their treaty back to them on equal terms; surely Allah does not love the treacherous.” ⦗Qur’an 8:58⦘

As for the covenants that exist among Muslims—such as pledging someone that you will do something, or refrain from it, or that you will keep his secret, and the like—it is obligatory, unequivocally obligatory, to fulfill them.

The scholars, may Allah have mercy on them, disagreed over whether it is permissible to break an appointment you have given a person when there is no genuine need. Suppose you said to him, “I shall come to you tomorrow,” after he invited you for lunch or dinner, and the like—may you lawfully fail to appear?

Some scholars say that if you break the appointment you incur no sin. The sound view, however, is that you do sin unless you have a legitimate sharʿī excuse. When you promise your brother a time, you must honor it, because you have given him your word. And breaking a promise is a sign of what? Of hypocrisy. Are you content to be a hypocrite? No one is. The Sunnah therefore indicates—this was also the preference of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah—that keeping one’s promise is obligatory, for its violation belongs to hypocrisy.

If, however, you have an excuse, or you did not give a firm appointment—saying, for instance, “I will come to you, God willing, if I have no impediment”—then should an impediment arise, there is no blame on you, because you did not give a definite commitment. Likewise, if you miss the appointment for an acceptable reason—say the fulfillment of your promise requires a car, you set out but the car breaks down and you cannot reach him at the agreed time—this is unquestionably an excuse for which you are pardoned.

The fourth trait is: “When he disputes, he behaves outrageously.” We ask Allah for safety. If a quarrel flares up between him and another, he plunges into excess. Outrage in dispute is of two kinds. The first is to deny what one actually owes