How to expiate if one repeats breaking an oath

10-4-2023 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalamu AlaykumPlease I made an oath not to do a particularly bad deed anymore but I later fell into it. Then, I did Kaffarah by feeding 10 needy people from the average of what we eat in our area. Unfortunately, I fell into the same bad deed again after the first kaffarah, do I need to keep doing kaffarah like this forever when I do the mistake or has the oath cancel after the first one and I only need to do Tawbah?

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

The basic ruling regarding an oath is that it is invalidated after breaking it for the first time, so the expiation is not repeated unless you intended to repeat breaking the oath when you swore, or there was an expression in the wording of the oath which implies repetition, such as the word 'whenever'.

Ibn Juzay said in Al-Qawaneen al-Fiqhiyyah: “The breaking is not repeated by repeating the act, except when the wording of the oath implies repetition, such as saying 'whenever', 'when', or similar words, or if the oath is made with the intention to repeat breaking it.”

Allah knows best.