An unuttered oath

15-1-2014 | IslamWeb

Question:

I have signed up on a website and one of the registration conditions was to swear that I am not already a member in the website. I read the written oath but I did not utter it. I actually had another membership but it was cancelled and that is why I signed up under another name.

---

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 is His slave and Messenger.

You incur no sin by signing up on this website under a new name so long as your previous membership was cancelled. Therefore, you will not violate the conditions stipulated by the website's administrators because a cancelled membership means that there is no membership.

This written oath is not intended or binding because only reading an oath without uttering it is not considered an oath. The person is not considered a swearer unless he utters the oath.

In his As-Sayl Al-Jarraar, the prominent scholar Ash-Shawkaani says: "An oath is not held valid from a speechless and a silent person, because it will not be regarded as an oath unless it is uttered. There is no point to make this specific to Li‘aan  and Eelaa’ only, rather, this applies to all oaths.

According to Ar-Ruhaybaani, a Hanbali scholar "Oaths imply all kinds of swearing such as Eelaa’, as well as taking oaths using specific words whose examples will come later …"

Allaah Knows best.