Grand Ayatollah Shirazi remarks on conditions of “religious vows”
The daily scholarly meeting of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Sadegh al-Hosseini al-Shirazi was held on Saturday, the 24th of Jumadi al-Awwal. In this session, like the previous meetings, the Marja answered the questions of the attendees about various jurisprudence issues.
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi discussed the manner of fulfilling religious vows, and said: The vow directly follows the intention of the vower, that is, the person making the vow must fulfill it exactly as he/she vowed they would.
His Eminence also noted the obligatory conditions of vows, and said: It is not necessary to recite the formula, but a few jurists have said that the formula must be recited.
He further said: The predominant opinion of fuqaha is that God must be the addressing party to the vow, pledge and oath, and if the party to the vow is other than God, the vow has not actually taken effect. For example, one must say, “O God, if my child is healed, I will sacrifice a sheep.”
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi also said: If God is not the addressing party to the vow, then the vow is not lawful, and if one does not fulfill it, he/she has committed an indecent act, but has not committed a forbidden act (haram), and does not need to pay expiation.
