His first question states: I resolved to refrain from a certain act, and I said, “If I do that, my wife is forbidden to me, just as my mother and my sister are,” but I did not carry out that resolution; rather, I did that act.

The questioner : In his first question, he states: I resolved to refrain from a certain act, and I said, “If I do that, my wife is forbidden to me, just as my mother and my sister are,” but I did not carry out that resolution; rather, I did that act. So what is my obligation in this case, and what is the meaning of freeing a slave?

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may prayers and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions. As for the answer to this, first, the advice to this questioner and those like him is that they should not speak such words. If they are determined to refrain from an act or to perform one, they have a way out of it such that they can swear by Allah, based on the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): There is no need for them to tie this to forbidding their wives or divorcing them or the like of this. Indeed, these are matters that harm a person, and they are also innovations that were not known in the time of the righteous Salaf. However, since this man did this, we tell him: Do not repeat such a thing. If you did not intend to forbid your wife, but rather intended to refrain from this thing, and then you did not refrain from it, then the stronger position in this issue is that your words carry the ruling of an oath. This means that you must feed ten poor people. You bring them together and give them lunch or dinner, or you give each person a mudd of rice along with meat. If they are ten people in one house, you give them what is sufficient for ten mudds, along with enough meat. By doing this, your oath is absolved.

The questioner : What is the amount of a mudd in kilograms, for example?

The Shaykh : As for freeing a slave, it means liberating it from slavery. This means that if you find a slave who is owned, you buy him and free him, or if you have a slave who is owned, you free him. This is the meaning of the saying of Allah the Exalted: As for the mudd, the sa' of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is two kilograms and forty grams.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : According to what has been established for us, the sa' of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is four mudds. Therefore, on this basis, the mudd is half a kilogram and ten grams.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : Is the mudd half a kilogram?

The Shaykh : Yes, and ten grams of good wheat. It also appears that rice is the same; it is equivalent to it.

The questioner : Yes.