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Permissibility to give one's brother-in-law the remnant of what he vowed to give

Question

I made a vow to Allah, the Exalted, that I would slaughter ten sheep if my daughter recovered from her illness. All praise is due to Allah, the Exalted, for all His blessings; she has recovered. I started fulfilling the vow and slaughtered two sheep and did not eat from them and neither did my family. However, my sister's husband fell ill and was unable to work. They have no other source of livelihood except what my older brother gives to them. He gives her enough money to help them so that they would not ask people for money. Is it permissible for me to give my sister the remaining money that I had allocated to fulfill my vow and thus clear my liability from that vow?

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  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) is His Slave and Messenger.

A vow should be fulfilled in the exact manner that the person intended it to be. Hence, you cannot offer the monetary value of the rest of the sheep instead of slaughtering them as you had vowed. You should slaughter the remaining eight sheep. If your intention when you made that vow was to slaughter the sheep and distribute their meat, you are obliged to do so. However, if your intention was merely to offer the sheep, it would be sufficient for you to give them or some of them to your sister's husband so that he could avail himself of them or sell them and benefit from their price.

Allaah Knows best.

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