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What is the ruling on one who swore an oath not to take paper, then took it and used it after his own paper ran out?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If someone swears by Allah to do something or to refrain from doing it, and then breaks their oath, atonement becomes obligatory upon them. If the intention of the oath was not to take the paper itself, then one breaks the oath by taking and using it, even if not from the same person. However, if the intention was not to accept it from a specific person, then one does not break the oath by taking it from someone else, especially if he gave it to his wife as a gift of ownership. But if he sent it for her to place it at the copier machine and she used it knowing this, then he breaks the oath, and atonement for the oath becomes obligatory upon him. The atonement for an oath is: feeding ten poor persons, or clothing them, or freeing a slave; and if one cannot find these, then fasting for three days.

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

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