it is as though he has killed him, for both the curser and the murderer have violated Allah’s sanctities, incurred sin, and become liable to punishment.
Whoever, out of arrogance, parades false claims of wealth, learning, lineage, honor, or office—seeking thereby to exalt himself—Allah will only add to his humiliation and disgrace, because he tried to elevate himself by what is not his; his recompense therefore mirrors his intention.
Even graver is when such pretensions are used as a ruse to consume people’s wealth unjustly or to mislead and deceive them.
If someone vows something he does not own—such as vowing to free another man’s slave or to give charity from someone else’s property—his vow is null and void; it does not take effect because it concerns what lies beyond his control.
Lessons derived from the ḥadith:
1- The prohibition against swearing by a law other than Islam is emphatically severe. The scholars differed: does such an oath require a kaffāra (expiation) or not? The well-known position in our school, also held by the Ḥanafīs and others, is that an expiation is required. Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī maintain that no expiation is due; this is likewise one report from Imam Aḥmad, preferred by Ibn Qudāma, Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, and others, and it is the sounder view.
2- It is forbidden for a person to kill himself; his sin equals that of killing another, and he will be tortured with the very means by which he killed himself, for the recompense corresponds to the deed.
3- Cursing a person parallels killing him in that both share the same category of sin, even if they are not equal in magnitude.
4- It is unlawful for a person to claim qualities he does not possess—knowledge, lineage, bravery, or anything else—especially when such a claim deceives people or when he feigns expertise in order to secure a position. All this is forbidden. Whoever does so out of ostentation and arrogance will only be increased by Allah in humiliation; the recompense matches the ignoble intent.
5- A vow does not take effect with regard to something the vow-maker does not own, for a vow is an act of devotion and nearness to Allah, and one cannot draw near by means of what is outside his authority. If he nevertheless makes such a vow, nothing is binding upon him.
6- The apparent sense of the Prophet’s words, “he is exactly as he has claimed,” is that one who swears by a creed other than Islam leaves Islam; likewise, the statement “cursing a believer is like killing him” indicates that the sin of the curser equals that of the killer. Similar texts have been discussed earlier.
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya adopted a specific approach to such ḥadiths: the threatened punishment materializes only when its causes are present and all impediments are absent. Whenever the threat is linked to an act, that act becomes a cause that would normally entail the punishment. If nothing counteracts it, the punishment occurs; but if an impediment opposes the cause, the effect is repelled in proportion to the strength or weakness of that impediment. This is a useful and far-reaching principle.