Breaking and Misuse of Oaths
Qur’aanic Verse 16.92:
Transliteration:
92. Wala takoonoo kaallatee naqadat ghazlaha min baAAdi quwwatin ankathan tattakhithoona aymanakum dakhalan baynakum an takoona ommatun hiya arba min ommatin innama yablookumu Allahu bihi walayubayyinanna lakum yawma alqiyamati ma kuntum feehi takhtalifoona
Translation:
92. And be not like the woman who disintegrates her well-spun yarn into fibres.21 You take your oaths as means of interference in one another’s affairs so that one community gets bigger than another. Allah has not but put you on trial by this; and He will certainly make clear to you, on the Resurrection Day, that about which you differed.22
Study Notes:
21. The rationale for the directive in the preceding Verse not to break oaths made is explained here by use of a metaphor. A yarn spun out of a number of fibres has a greater strength and usefulness than the individual fibres. Likewise, a human being, individually, has little strength and usefulness. But the community, in which he lives with other human beings, gives him the necessary strength and security. He has written and unwritten conventions made with the other people and the society in general. He cannot afford to break these conventions. He will not be able to live there otherwise.
22. At the micro level of individuals, as also at the macro level of nations, agreements and treaties are often misused for exercising undue influence on and/or for unduly usurping properties and territories of one another. Most international conflicts among nations are a result of such misuse.
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The above is extracted from yet-to-be-published Qur’aanic Studies - Volume XXVIII. It will be published, in due course, inshaAllah on the website INVITATION TO SALVATION, in continuation of Volumes I to XXVII already published and freely available thereon.
Mohammad Shafi
Author of ‘ISLAM & INTEREST‘