Is it permissible to retract a vow to perform an act of obedience if its condition has not yet been met, and is an expiation for breaking an oath (kaffarat yameen) required?

The majority of scholars hold the view that making vows (nadhr) is disliked (makrooh), while the Shafi'is and Hanbalis consider it to be prohibitively disliked (makrooh tahreem), citing the prohibition mentioned in the hadiths: "Do not make vows, for vows do not avert anything from destiny; rather, they are used to extract from the miserly."

Al-Qurtubi held the view that the prohibition in the reported hadiths applies to conditional vows (nadhr al-mujaza'ah), which are vows that a person makes contingent upon the fulfillment of a desire, such as saying: "If Allah cures my sick person, then I owe such-and-such charity." The reason for this dislike is that in this case, the vow is not purely for Allah the Almighty, but rather a means of exchange, resembling the state of a miser who does not part with any of his wealth except in return for something.

If the person making the vow does not specify their vow, then they must offer an expiation for breaking an oath (kaffarat yameen), based on the hadith narrated by Uqbah ibn Amir, raised to the Prophet: "The expiation for a vow if it is not specified is the expiation for an oath." As for a vow that has been made binding, it is not permissible to retract it or change it unless one is unable to fulfill it, in which case the expiation for an oath suffices.