Is Expiation Required for Each Instance You Break an Oath?

Answered by Shaykh Faraz A. Khan

Question

If you make an oath to no longer commit a certain sin, and you later commit that sin, would you have to perform expiation once, or for every time you committed that sin after taking the oath?

Answer

I pray this finds you in the best of health and states.

Expiation would be due only once, as after the first instance of doing the sin the oath would have dissolved. In fact, our Master Qasim ibn Qutlubugha authored an entire treatise on this issue, and he transmits therein consensus of all four imams on the fact that such an oath is dissolved upon the first instance of doing the act. [Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

And Allah knows best.
wassalam,

[Shaykh] Faraz Khan
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.