What is the Expiation for Breaking an Oath?
Hanafi Fiqh
Answered by Mawlana Ilyas Patel
Question
What is the expiation for breaking an oath regarding several things all focused on one subject?
For example, if someone wanted to stop listening to music and they said, “by Allah, I will not go on YouTube,” and “by Allah, I will not type in the search bar of YouTube,” and “by Allah, I will not listen to a song on YouTube.”
Then would breaking the oaths and ending with listening to music count as breaking several oaths and require several expiations or just one expiation since it was all related to the same subject and cause (to not listen to music)?
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate
You will only be required to give one expiation (kaffara) since your oath was related to one subject of not listening to music.
The expiation (kaffara) for a broken oath is:
- to free a slave or
- to feed ten poor adult people two meals a day for ten days or
- cloth ten adult poor people with average quality clothing which will cover most of their body.
If these are not possible then:
- one must fast for three days continuously in a row. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar; ‘Ala’ al-Din ‘Abidin, al-Hadiyya al-‘Ala’iyya]
Check these links:
oaths Archives – SeekersGuidance
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I pray this helps with your question.
[Mawlana] Ilyas Patel
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Mawlana Ilyas Patel is a traditionally-trained scholar who has studied in the UK, India, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey.
He started his early education in the UK. He went on to complete hifz of the Quran in India, then enrolled into an Islamic seminary in the UK, where he studied the secular and Alimiyyah sciences. He then traveled to Karachi, Pakistan.
He has been an Imam in Rep of Ireland for a number of years. He has taught hifz of the Qur’an, Tajwid, Fiqh, and many other Islamic sciences to both children and adults onsite and online extensively in UK and Ireland. He was teaching at a local Islamic seminary for 12 years in the UK, where he was a librarian and a teacher of Islamic sciences.
He currently resides in the UK with his wife. His personal interest is the love of books and gardening.
