because anything beyond that lies outside what they are able to bear of devotional acts.

4. The one who makes a vow overlooks this wisdom and due proportion, and he may well find himself unable to carry out what he has pledged, thereby falling into sin and becoming the cause of his own wrongdoing.

5. The practical advantage of a vow is that it extracts something from the miser whose utmost effort is to fulfil only what is strictly obligatory and who finds anything else burdensome. A vow therefore becomes a means by which he performs what the Sacred Law had not originally made binding upon him.

6. This subject is among the curiosities of the legal science. As a general principle, means adopt the rulings of their ends—with the sole exception of the vow. Fulfilling it is obligatory, whereas initiating it is disliked; in this it departs from all other means. The rationale, as mentioned earlier, is evident.

7. A vow made as an act of obedience to Allah is disliked. As for a vow offered to the dead and to graves, fulfilled at shrines and domed tombs, or by which a person seeks the favour of devils—this is the very idolatry practiced by the polytheists toward their statues and idols, and its ruling is well known. We seek refuge in Allah from His anger and His punishment.

8. Al-Sanʿāni pointed out that this is a wide-ranging topic. One who examines it will see that when a servant imposes upon himself something that Allah has not made obligatory, he exposes himself to the danger of non-fulfilment through his own shortcomings and the devil’s discouragement. Only a few actually honour such vows—those referred to in His words: “Among the believers are men who have been true to the covenant they made with Allah” (Qur’an 33:23).

The third ḥadith

ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir related: “My sister vowed to walk to the Sacred House of Allah barefoot (1). She asked me to seek a ruling for her from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, so I consulted him and he said, ‘Let her walk, but she may ride.’”

Lessons derived from the ḥadith

1. Whoever vows to walk to the Sacred Mosque—or to either of the other two mosques—on foot is not obliged to fulfil that vow, for it is not a vow of a specific act of worship but of something merely permissible. If he omits to carry out a vow concerning a permissible action, he must pay the expiation.

2. When a vow combines a permissible matter with an act of worship, each component takes its own ruling: the person is instructed to perform the act of worship, because that is the part whose fulfilment is obligatory, as its performance contains clear benefit.