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Does repeated perjury necessitate one expiation or more, and does performing simple tasks during work constitute a violation of an oath, and is it permissible to pay the value of expiation in cash if feeding is not possible?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

It is recommended to guard one's oaths and not to hasten into them. If a person swears an oath to abstain from a specific action during work without specifying a time limit, he breaks his oath as soon as he performs that action. He is then obligated to offer a single expiation for the oath, which dissolves it. The expiation for an oath is feeding ten poor persons, clothing them, or emancipating a slave. If one cannot find these, then he must fast for three days, as Allah Almighty says: "So its expiation is the feeding of ten poor persons from the average of that which you feed your [own] families or clothing them or the freeing of a slave. But whoever finds not [the means to do so] - then a fast of three days. That is the expiation for your oaths when you have sworn. And guard your oaths." The feeding is half a Sa' (approximately one and a half kilograms) for each poor person, or a mudd (seven hundred and fifty grams). Charitable organizations can be entrusted to distribute the expiation if no poor persons are found.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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