Vowed to have a religious education but did otherwise
13-8-2015 | IslamWeb
Question:
A young man made a vow to study Islamic knowledge after ending his high school education. However, he enrolled in the Institute of Law, given that he will be studying man-made laws. The real problem is that this young man, after more than 6 years, has not obtained a diploma from the institute. What should be done?
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.
If the vow-maker, by 'studying Islamic knowledge', meant learning the Quran, Quranic sciences, hadith sciences, Islamic jurisprudence, and relevant branches of knowledge, then (he should know that) the scholars have stated that learning what is extra to the knowledge that should be indispensably learned by every Muslim is considered a communal obligation. Vowing to carry out a communal obligation is not valid or binding according to the majority of the scholars excluding the Shaafi‘i scholars, who believe that such a vow is valid and binding.
Hence, it is not incumbent on this young man to do anything in this regard because his vow is not considered valid or binding according to most jurists. Moreover, his vow is not binding, with greater reason, if he vows to acquire such branches of Islamic knowledge that are obligatory for him to learn such as ‘Aqeedah (belief) and Fiqh, which every Muslim is required to learn in order for his purity, fasting, and prayer to be valid, because they are obligatory to be learned in principle. We would like to point out that man-made laws are not considered a part of Sharee'ah knowledge. The best that can be said regarding such a study is that it is permissible as long as such laws do not clash with the Sharee'ah of Allaah Almighty. We would like to advise this young man to adhere to piety and seek the help of Allaah, the Exalted. We also advise him to strive and diligently seek to acquire knowledge as this will help him attain his objective, Allaah willing.
Allaah Knows best.