Is an oath encompassing multiple forbidden actions breached by performing only some of them?
General Chapter
Al-Mughni
Book of Expiations
Primary text
In an oath where a person swears not to do several things collectively, such as 'I swear by Allah I will not eat bread and meat, nor butter and dates, nor enter these two houses, nor disobey Allah in these two cities, nor keep these two women,' if the person performs some but not all of the stated prohibited acts, the ruling depends on two narrations (riwayatayn). If the intent behind the oath was to combine them or prevent doing each one individually, the oath is interpreted according to that intention.
Supporting text
If the oath uses 'and' (wa) to connect two items, like 'By Allah, I will not eat fish and drink milk,' and the speaker is linguistically proficient, the oath is only breached if both actions are performed together, as the 'wa' here means 'with' (ma'a). However, if the prohibition for each item is repeated using 'not' (la), such as 'I will not eat fish and I will not drink milk,' then breaching either one individually constitutes a breach of the entire oath.