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Fatwa CenterPaying installments or fulfilling the vow?
Question
I am a married man and I have two daughters. Two years ago, we were living in a rented house, and my wife got very sick. I took a vow that I would slaughter a sacrificial animal if she recovered from her illness. My financial situation was very bad back then. After a while, the landlord asked us to leave the house as he intended to sell it. Gaza was still suffering an indescribable housing crisis because of the siege and the ban on building material. I decided to buy the house. To do this, I borrowed a sum of money, sold my wife's jewelry. I am now repaying the debt in installments. Should I give precedence to repaying the money that I owe over fulfilling my vow, given that I am committed to pay monthly installments in order to repay my debt?
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.
We implore Allaah, the Exalted, to help and safeguard you. If you set a certain time-frame, which was intended, verbally stated or determined by common practice, for your vow, then you are obliged to fulfill it in its due time, unless you are unable to do. If the vow was not specified with a time-frame and the common practice in your country of residence does not suggest the immediate fulfillment of conditional vows once the thing upon which the vow-taker conditioned his vow takes place—the wife's recovery in this context—or you intended delaying its fulfillment, then you can delay fulfilling your vow. Nevertheless, it is recommended for the vow-taker to hasten to fulfill his vow.
Therefore, if you can repay your debt (pay those installments) and fulfill your vow at the same time, then you should do so. If you cannot, then you should give precedence to repaying the money that you owe over fulfilling the vow, if the installments have a specific time-frame. This is because the rights due to Allaah are potentially subject to His forgiveness, whereas a right due to a human must be fulfilled, unless he relinquishes it. This opinion is stronger if the vow is not specified with a certain time-frame, based on an explicit statement, common practice, or an intention. We would like to point out that taking conditional vows is disliked. The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, forbade Muslims from taking such vows. He, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said: "It does not (necessarily) bring good; it is a means whereby some wealth is taken from the miserly." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]
Scholars state that the forbiddance understood from the Hadeeth suggests abhorrence, not prohibition. Hence, the vow-taker is obliged to deliver on his conditional vow.
Allaah Knows best.
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