Can an Oath or a Vow Make the Stronger Opinion Binding?

Answered by Shaykh Irshaad Sedick

Question

Suppose a man utters a conditional formula about marriage and unbelief. He then adds a second undertaking: he swears by Allah, or vows, that in this very question, whichever of the two positions, that of Imam Abu Hanifa or that of Imam Shafiʿi, is stronger in evidence shall be the one binding on him.

I am not asking which imam is stronger, and I ask not to be told their positions on the first wording.

My question is only about this second part. Can an oath alone do that? Can a vow alone do that?

Can either one make the stronger opinion (al-rajih) binding and enforceable in every situation, so that a person has no choice but to follow it? Would acting on another valid opinion become invalid just because of that oath or vow?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate.

May Allah ease our difficulties and guide us to what pleases Him. Amin.

No, neither an oath nor a vow can do that. Oaths and vows affect your own actions, not how your actions are judged.

They cannot turn an issue that Sacred Law allows different opinions on into something you must follow in only one way.

If you act on a reliable opinion from your school, it does not become invalid just because you made an oath or vow. Allah knows best.

What an Oath Is, and What a Vow Is

An oath is a solemn statement to do or refrain from something, or that something is true, so if things turn out otherwise, the swearer must make an expiation (kaffara). [Misri, ʿUmdat al-Salik]

An oath is when you say, “By Allah (WAllahi)…”. A vow is when you make a recommended act of worship (sunna) obligatory on yourself by saying, “for the sake of Allah” or “due to Allah.” Vows are often linked to something happening. For example, “If Allah cures my son, I will fast for twenty days.”

Please note: if you do not mention Allah by His names, it usually cannot count as an oath or a vow. So, the first thing to ask about your second statement is not what it does, but whether it is even an oath or a vow.

A Vow Takes Hold of an Act of Worship, Not of a Legal Determination

In the Shafiʿi school, what a vow takes hold of is an act of worship you undertake yourself, such as fasting, giving charity, or praying.

What you described is not an act, but a legal judgment, deciding that one imam’s evidence is stronger than the other’s. This kind of decision is not something you can perform or control.

The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Whoever vows to obey Allah, let him obey Him; and whoever vows to disobey Him, let him not disobey Him.” [Bukhari]

And he said, “There is no fulfilling a vow in disobedience, nor in what the servant does not own.” [Muslim]

The second part of the hadith is most relevant to your question.

It’s plain-sense concerns property that a person does not own, so using it in legal judgments is an analogy rather than a direct ruling. But the main point is the same: a vow only applies to what you can actually give. Deciding which imam has stronger evidence is not something you can give.

An Oath Binds Your Conduct; It Does Not Invalidate Your Acts

Let’s say your second statement was a valid oath. An oath is about obligation, sin, and making up for breaking it. Allah Most High says:

Allah will not take you to task for thoughtlessly uttered oaths, but rather for swearing binding oaths, the expiation for breaking which is to feed ten unfortunates the usual fare you feed your own families, or to clothe them, or to free a slave; So whoever finds no means to do any of these, then to fast three days: That is the expiation of your oaths when you have sworn. [Quran 5:89; Keller, The Quran Beheld]

The verse mentions a penalty for breaking an oath, without stating that the oath is invalidated.

The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “If anyone has taken an oath and then sees that something else is better, let him offer expiation for the oath and do the better thing.” [Muslim]

So even if an oath is binding, you still have another choice.

If you break the oath, you must make up for it, but your action is not invalid. An oath does not affect whether a prayer, marriage, or transaction is valid.

Our school draws this very distinction in its own chapter on following a scholar. Among the conditions is that one not go about collecting the easiest ruling from each school to slip the collar of legal responsibility from his neck.

Imam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami held that a man who does so is thereby a transgressor; Imam Muhammad al-Ramli held that he is not, though he sins.

Then Sayyid ʿAlawi al-Saqqaf’s own words: this is not a condition for the validity of following a scholar, as the later scholars stated explicitly, but a condition for averting sin, like the prohibition against praying on usurped land. [Saqqaf, Mukhtasar al-Fawaʾid al-Makkiyya, 40–41; ed. Yusuf al-Marʿashli, Dar al-Bashaʾir al-Islamiyya, 1st edn, 1425/2004]

Think about that comparison, because it gives you the answer. A prayer offered on stolen ground is a sin, but it is still a prayer. Sin and validity are two separate things. At most, an oath affects the first, but not the second.

You Were Never Asked to Weigh the Evidence

Begin with the assumption underneath your question. You have taken it that the stronger opinion is the one you owe.

Our school does not say so. Imam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami records that the well-known position, which Imam Rafiʿi and Imam Nawawi both held to be preponderant, is that it is permitted to follow the less preferred opinion while the more preferred one exists. [Saqqaf, Mukhtasar al-Fawaʾid al-Makkiyya, 43]

So the duty your oath tried to create is not something Sacred Law ever required. This is important because it means your worry has no real basis.

Following the “strongest position” is not really how the schools of thought work. Each of the four recognized schools is considered strongest in its own way of interpreting Sacred Law from the Quran, the Sunna, and other sources.

Even if someone tried to rank the schools by the authenticity of the Prophetic narrations they use, it would require scholarly expertise most people lack, and there would still be differing opinions.

What is asked of you is something else. Allah Most High says, “Ask those who recall if you know not.” [Quran 16:43] By the consensus of scholars, this verse is the evidence that someone who does not know a ruling or its proof follows someone who does. [Buti, al-la Madhhabiyya]

Your commitment would make you responsible for weighing evidence, but Sacred Law never required you to do so. A personal promise cannot create an obligation that the Lawgiver did not make.

Acting on a Relied-Upon Position Remains Sound

Imam Nawawi (Allah have mercy on him) cites Abu al-Fath al-Harawi: “The opinion of the majority of our companions is that a particular legal school does not bind the non-scholar. If they find a mujtahid Imam, they follow them…” [Nawawi, Rawdat al-Talibin wa ʿUmdat al-Muftin]

Our own manuals put it plainly. There is no harm in following someone other than the imam of the school you have committed to on individual matters, so long as that school is recorded and its conditions are known.

It is likewise permitted to follow the scholars who made their own selections within the school, such as Imam Nawawi, Ibn al-Mundhir, and Imam Suyuti, because in the issue selected, they are mujtahids.

And moving from one recorded school to another is permitted, even out of mere inclination, provided no contradictory combining of opinions (talfiq) follows from it. [Saqqaf, Mukhtasar al-Fawaʾid al-Makkiyya, 39]

Talfiq is the one real limit, and it is worth knowing where it bites. The combining that vitiates occurs only within one and the same matter.

Al-Bulqini’s example, as Ibn Ziyad transmits it: a man performs his ablution following Imam Abu Hanifa on touching the private parts, and Imam Shafiʿi on bloodletting, and his prayer is void, because both imams agree his purification failed.

Where the two rulings belong to two separate matters, that is not vitiating. [Saqqaf, Mukhtasar al-Fawaʾid al-Makkiyya, 42]

So we advise you not to switch between positions as a habit, and not to combine two opinions in one act as described above. Other than that, you are on firm ground.

One Word Beyond the Ruling

You have written to us with an oath about an oath, a vow about what happens after an oath, and careful limits on the situation. We have seen this before, and it is usually caused by scrupulous doubts (waswasa), not by a real legal problem. Waswasa is not solved by more rulings; it is solved by letting go of the worry.

So let go of this worry. You do not need to decide which imam is stronger. You are not doing anything wrong by following a reliable opinion from your school. Do not repeat the statement, do not test it, and do not look for another ruling about it.

Because of these points, we encourage you to speak with trustworthy local scholars about your specific situation, and to keep the details out of writing.

I pray this is of benefit and that Allah guides us all.

[Shaykh] Irshaad Sedick
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Irshaad Sedick was raised in South Africa in a traditional Muslim family. He graduated from Dar al-Ulum al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Strand, Western Cape, under the guidance of the late world-renowned scholar Shaykh Taha Karaan (Allah have mercy on him), where he taught.

Shaykh Irshaad received Ijaza from many luminaries of the Islamic world, including Shaykh Taha Karaan, Shaykh Muhammad Awama, Shaykh Muhammad Hasan Hitu, and Mawlana Abdul Hafeez Makki, among others.

He is the author of the text “The Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal: A Hujjah or not?” He has been the Director of the Discover Islam Centre, and for six years, he has been the Khatib of Masjid Ar-Rashideen, Mowbray, Cape Town.

Shaykh Irshaad has fifteen years of teaching experience at some of the leading Islamic institutes in Cape Town). He is currently building an Islamic podcast, education, and media platform called ‘Isnad Academy’ and has completed his Master’s degree in the study of Islam at the University of Johannesburg. He has a keen interest in healthy Prophetic living and fitness.