The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "Your oath is binding according to what your companion would accept as true from you."In another wording, "The oath is according to the intention of the one who administers it."
قال رسول الله ﷺ: يمنيك على ما يصدقك عليه صاحبك. وفي لفظ: اليمين على نية المستحلف.
No references are available.
Muslim reported it in the chapter on Oaths and Vows (1653), through the route of Hushaym bin Bashir, from Abdullah bin Abu Salih, from his father, from Abu Hurairah, and he mentioned it.Nawawi said in his commentary on Sahih Muslim, "This hadith applies to an oath sworn at the judge's demand. If a man makes a claim against another man for a right, and the judge makes him swear, and he swears but uses equivocation, intending something other than what the judge intended, then his oath is bound by what the judge intended, and the equivocation does not benefit him. This is a matter upon which there is consensus, and its evidence is this hadith along with the consensus. But if he swears without the judge requiring it, and he uses equivocation, then the equivocation benefits him and he is not held to have broken his oath, whether he swore on his own initiative without being made to swear, or someone other than the judge or the judge's deputy in that matter made him swear. No consideration is given to the intention of whoever demands the oath if that person is not the judge. The conclusion is that an oath follows the intention of the one swearing it in all circumstances, except when the judge or his deputy demands the oath in a claim brought against him, in which case it follows the intention of the one who demanded the oath. This is what the hadith means..." End of quote.