Abu Qasim ﷺ said, "If one of you stubbornly persists in an oath concerning his family, it is more sinful before Allah than the expiation which He has commanded."
حدثنا عبد الرزاق حدثنا معمر عن همام قال سمعت
قال أبو القاسم ﷺ إذا استلجج أحدكم باليمين في أهله فإنه آثم له عند الله من الكفارة التي أمر بها
Its isnad is sahih. Ibn Majah related it (2114), abridged, with a similar meaning, from Sufyan bin Waki, from Muhammad bin Humayd Amri, from Mamar, with the same chain. It will come again (8193) with this same isnad found here, from Abdul-Razzaq, from Mamar, in the Sahifa Hammam bin Munabbih, with the wording, "By Allah, for one of you to persist stubbornly in his oath concerning his family is more sinful for him before Allah than to give the expiation that Allah has prescribed." ﷺ Bukhari related it with this same wording (11:452-453), as did Muslim (18), both of them through Abdul-Razzaq, with the same chain. It thus appears that Mamar narrated it with both wordings.Bukhari related, right after it, something similar in meaning, through Muawiya bin Salam, from Yahya bin Abu Kathir, from Ikrima, from Abu Hurairah. Ibn Majah likewise related it, after the first narration, through this route, but did not state its wording, only saying, "similar to it."His saying "istalajja" involves resolving the doubled letter, from lajaj (persistent stubbornness), and resolving the doubled letter is a feature of the dialect of Quraysh, as Ibn Athir relates. It is said that a person "lajja" in a matter when he persists in it and refuses to turn away from it.In Fath al-Bari, Nawawi said, the meaning of the hadith is that if someone swears an oath concerning his family, such that they would be harmed by his not breaking it, he should break the oath, do that thing, and make expiation for his oath. If he says, "I will not break my oath, rather I will avoid breaking it out of caution against sin," he is mistaken in this statement. Rather, his persisting in not breaking the oath and causing harm to his family is more sinful than breaking it. This must be understood as applying to cases where breaking the oath involves no disobedience.As for his saying "more sinful," using the comparative form, this is meant to match the wording to the oath-taker's claim or assumption, for he assumes that breaking the oath involves sin for him, even though there is no sin on him. So it is said to him, "The sin in persisting stubbornly is greater than the sin in breaking the oath."Then Hafiz said, near the end of his explanation of the second narration, "It can be inferred from the meaning of the hadith that the mention of family is simply because it is the most common case. Otherwise, the ruling extends to others besides family whenever the same underlying reason is present."