What is the ruling on making a vow to abstain from something permissible?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
The questioner says: If a person commits himself to something permissible in the form of a vow, such as saying, "I have vowed that if I disobey Allah, I will not do such and such of what He loves," is this considered a vow, and is there an expiation for it?
The Shaykh:
What is he saying?
The questioner:
He says: If a person commits himself to something permissible in the form of a vow, such as saying, "I have a vow upon me for Allah that if I disobey Allah, I will not buy such and such of what He loves." He asks: Is this considered a vow? And is there an expiation for it?
The Shaykh:
There is an expiation for it, but it is not fulfilled, because it is a vow to make something lawful forbidden, such as vowing not to buy what is lawful or not to eat what is lawful; this is not permissible. He owes the expiation for an oath. Yes.
The questioner says: If a person commits himself to something permissible in the form of a vow, such as saying, "I have vowed that if I disobey Allah, I will not do such and such of what He loves," is this considered a vow, and is there an expiation for it?
The Shaykh:
What is he saying?
The questioner:
He says: If a person commits himself to something permissible in the form of a vow, such as saying, "I have a vow upon me for Allah that if I disobey Allah, I will not buy such and such of what He loves." He asks: Is this considered a vow? And is there an expiation for it?
The Shaykh:
There is an expiation for it, but it is not fulfilled, because it is a vow to make something lawful forbidden, such as vowing not to buy what is lawful or not to eat what is lawful; this is not permissible. He owes the expiation for an oath. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، ما حكم النذر بترك مباح؟ لمعالي الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.