A husband swearing by his marriage does not lead to divorce

20-7-2014 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalam o alikum, I want to ask that if husband swears to his wife that "I sweat to our relationship of nikah or I take an oath to our relationship of nikah that I won't let anything bad happen to you" Will this constitute divorce if anything bad happens to me? He wants to take his oath back. How is this possible?

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and messenger.

It is impermissible to swear by anything other than Allaah, The Exalted, as underlined in Fataawa 2041 and 55250. This oath is not considered valid or binding because an oath is binding only when the oath-maker swears by Allaah, The Exalted, or any of His attributes. Imaam An-Nawawi wrote, “An oath is not binding unless the person swears by Allaah or His attributes. For example, he may say, ‘By Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds, The Ever-Living Who never dies, in Whose Hands lies my soul, … and the like of the names and attributes that are exclusively attributed to Allaah …” [Al-Minhaaj]

Hence, this oath is not binding and there are no consequent implications. However, you should repent from swearing by something other than Allaah. It should be noted that the [named] formula is fundamentally not associated with divorce.

Allaah Knows best.