Obligation of Fasting

The rule for Fasting is similar to Namaz and is Farz-e-Ain and those who reject to believe it as obligatory (Farz) is a Kafir and those who miss it without genuine reason is a big sinner and will receive punishment in hell. Those children who have the strength should be made to keep a fast and strong boys and girls should be forced to keep a fast (a few slaps not with a stick) [Durr-e-Mukhtar]. Fasting for the whole month of Ramadan is obligatory.

Description of fasting and age for beginning

According to Shariat, the definition of a fast is make the intention to fast for the sake of Allah from the break of dawn to sunset and to refrain from eating, drinking or having sexual intercourse. For fasting, a woman has to be clean from menstruation or bleeding after childbirth meaning, the fast will not count for a woman on her period or still bleeding after childbirth. It is obligatory for a woman on her period or bleeding after childbirth to fast after her state of bleeding is over and she is clean from it, meaning to make Qaza for the missed Roza. Fasting is not obligatory for children or for an insane person as long as they remain insane for the whole month of Ramadan, and if they gain sanity any period in the middle and it is still within the allocated time for intention, then they must make the intention and fast from that day onwards and the Qaza is necessary for the whole month, for example, if a person was insane from the first of Ramadan and gained sanity on the twenty ninth day from the break of dawn until midday then they will have to perform Qaza for whole month's fasts [Radd-ul-Mohtar].

ACTIONS THAT BREAK THE FAST

• Rule: By eating, drinking or having intercourse breaks the fast when you are aware that you are fasting and if you forget that you were fasting and eat or drank or had intercourse, then the fast will not break [Hidaya, Alamgiri, Qazi Khan etc.].
• Rule: The fast will break if you smoked a cigarette or other form of smoke inhalation or cigar etc.
• Rule: The fast also breaks by eating a paan or tobacco, even if you spit out the contents.
• Rule: If you put sugar, sweet, chewing gum or any item in your mouth which dissolves and you swallow the taste then the fast will break.
• Rule: If there was something stuck in your teeth the same size or larger than a chick pea and you swallowed it or it was smaller than a chick pea and you took it out of your mouth and then swallowed it again then the fast will break. Rule: If your gums bled and the blood was more or equal to your saliva and went down your throat or was less than the saliva and it went down your throat and you could taste it then the fast will break. If the blood was less than the saliva and you couldn't feel the taste and it went down your throat, then the Roza will not break [Durr-e-Mukhtar, Bahar].
• Rule: If a syringe is used or medicine is put up your nostrils or oil or medicine is put inside the ears then the fast will break, however, if water is put into or goes into the ears then the fast will not break [Alamgiri, Bahar].
• Rule: If you were cleaning your mouth out or was cleaning your nostrils and water went down your throat by mistake or went up too far in your nostrils that it went in your mouth canal even by mistake then the fast will break, if however, you forgot that you were fasting then the fast will not break [Alamgiri, Bahar].
• Rule: If you drank water or eat something whilst you were sleeping or your mouth was open and water went down your throat or snow went down your throat then the fast will break [Johra, Alamgiri, Bahar].
• Rule: To s

Actions that break the fast but only Qaza is necessary

• Rule: If you were under the impression that the break of dawn had not yet occurred and therefore you eat, drank or had sexual intercourse and then later on found out that the break of dawn had already happened, then the fast will not count and only Qaza is necessary [Durr-e-Mukhtar].
• Rule: If you were forced into eating or drinking and someone threatened you (either to kill you or cause you serious harm) if you did not break your fast then even if you eat with your own hands, only Qaza is necessary [Durr-e-Mukhtar etc.]. Meaning only one fast has to be performed to replace the one broken [Bahar-e-Shariat].
• Rule: If you had eatenor drank or had intercourse by mistake or you ejaculated just by seeing something or had a wet dream and then you thought that the fast had broken and therefore you deliberately eat or drank etc. then it is only compulsory to perform Qaza [Durr-e-Mukhtar, Bahar].
• Rule: If you put ear drops in your ear or there was a wound on your stomach or head and you put medication on it and it reached the stomach or brain or you took on a drip (of glucose) or you sucked up medicine up your nose or you eat a stone, soil, cotton, paper, grass or any item where people would not generally eat and would think awful of, or stayed in Ramadan as if in Roza but did not make an intention of fasting, or did not make an intention in the morning but made an intention before midday and then eat after midday, or made an intention of fasting but not for Ramadan or raindrops or snow went down the throat or drank many drops of tears or sweat or had intercourse with a very small child who was not capable of having intercourse, or had intercourse with a dead person or had intercourse with an animal or had intercourse on a thigh or stomach or kissed a woman on her lips or touched a woman and even if there was a piece of cloth in between but the warmth of the body is felt and in these situations you ejaculated or you masturbated or you ejaculated whilst performing foreplay or except for the fast of Ramadan you broke another fast whether it be the Qaza of Ramadan, or a woman was sleeping whilst she was fasting and someone had intercourse with her whilst in her sleep or a woman was in her sense in the morning and she made the intention of fasting and then she went insane and whilst in this situation sexual intercourse was committed with her, or you were under the impression that it is night and you had food or you were in doubt that it was night but you had food but in fact the morning had broken, or you thought that the sun had set and you eat but the sun had not set or two people gave witness that the sun had set and two people gave witness that it was still day and this situation you eat food then in ALL the above situations only Qaza is necessary not Kaffara [Durr-e-Mukhtar, Bahar, etc.].

Actions that break the fast and Kaffara is also necessary

If the fast of Ramadan is purposely broken then Kaffara is necessary. The Kaffara (compensation) is either to free one slave and if this is not possible then keep sixty fasts consecutively without a gap and if this is also not possible then feed fully sixty beggars twice in a day. If the sixty fasts are kept and in the middle even if one day's fast is missed then you must start the sixty again the previous ones will not count. If someone had kept fifty nine fasts and was unable to keep the sixtieth due to illness etc. then they must start again the previous fifty nine are wasted. However, if a woman starts her period in between then she must miss them and continue the fasts once she becomes clean and the previous fasts before the period started will count and when completing sixty the Kaffara will be completed [Radd-ul-Mohtar, Bahar, Alamgiri]. When breaking the fast and for Kaffara to become necessary there are a few conditions that have to be fulfilled and only then the Kaffara become necessary.

Conditions where Kaffara become necessary

1. A fast is kept in the month of Ramadan with the intention of keeping a fast of Ramadan.
2. The person keeping the fast is a resident and not a traveller.
3. The person is an adult and is sane (if a child or madman breaks the fast then Kaffara is not necessary).
4. The intention for the fast of Ramadan was done at night (if the intention for the fast was made in the day before midday and then broken then only Qaza is necessary not Kaffara).
5. After breaking the fast an act occurred which gives reason to miss a fast which you had no control over such as a woman started her period or such an illness occurred where it is allowed to miss a fast then the Kaffara will not be necessary. If however, after breaking the fast a person became a Ma'zoor (had a problem) which was within their control such as a person injured themselves and therefore became Ma'zoor or became a traveller then the Kaffara will not be cancelled as these things are within their control and Kaffara becomes necessary [Durr-e-Mukhtar, Johra, Alamgiri, Bahar].

• Rule: A person fasting purposely eat or drank some medicine or tablets or drank water or had something to eat or drink for pleasure or had intercourse in the front or back passage with a person capable of having intercourse (male or female) and whether they had an orgasm or not or had intercourse with another person fasting then in all these situations both Qaza and Kaffara is necessary.
• Rule: If such an act is done whereby the thought is that the fast will not break(except eating, drinking or having intercourse), but you thought that the fast has broken and then you eat or drank, for example, you extracted blood or put on Surma (eye colour) or you had intercourse with an animal or touched a woman or kissed a woman or laid next to a woman or performed foreplay but in all these cases you did not reach orgasm i.e. did not ejaculate, or you put a dry finger up the anus and then after this you purposely eat or drank then in all these cases it is necessary to perform Qaza and Kaffara. If however, an act is performed where the thought is that the fast does not break and you thought that the fast had broken and a Mufti (Islamic jurist) gave a Fatwa and the Mufti is respected within the local community and the Fatwa is that the fast has broken and then you purposely eat or drank, or you had wrongly misinterpreted a Hadith and thought that the fast had broken and then you eat and drank, then the Kaffara is not necessary even though the Fatwa is wrong or the Hadith heard is not proven [Durr-e-Mukhtar, Bahar].

Acts that do not break the fast

• Rule: If you eat, drink or have sexual intercourse by mistake then the fast does not break.
• Rule: If a fly, smoke or dust goes down the throat then the fast does not break, however, if you purposely inhaled smoke then the fast will break if you know that you are fasting. For example, incense, loban was lighted and was brought near the mouth and the smoke was sucked up the nose, then the fast will break.
• Rule: If you apply oil or lotion or surma on the body or eyes then the fast will not break and if the taste of the oil or surma is felt in the throat or if the saliva is coloured due to the surma then the fast will still not break [Radd-ul-Mohtar, Johra, Bahar].
• Rule: If a fly goes down the throat then the fast will not break and if it is deliberately swallowed then the fast will break [Alamgiri, Bahar]. If whilst talking the lips got wet or you cleared your throat and then drank the saliva, then the fast will not break but you should refrain from doing this [Alamgiri, Durr-e-Mukhtar, Radd-ul-Mohtar, Bahar]
• Rule: If your gums bled and the blood reached the throat but did not go down it, then the fast will not break [Durr-e-Mukhtar, Fatahul Qadir].
• Rule: If you were eating by mistake and as soon as you remembered you spat out the food then the fast will not break and if you swallowed the food then the fast will break [Alamgiri].
• Rule: You started eating (sehri) before the break of dawn and whilst you were eating you saw that the morning had broken and you spat out the food in your mouth then the fast will not break and if you swallowed the food then the fast will break [Alamgiri].
• Rule: If you chewed a linseed or something of equivalent size and it went down the throat with your saiiva then the fast will not break, if however, you felt the taste of it then the fast will break [Fatahul Qadir].

Acts that make the fast Makrooh

• Rule: To lie, backbite, tell-tale, to swear, talk shamelessly, to cause someone harm are all Haram acts anyway, but to do these acts whilst fasting are even more Haram and because of this the fast become Makrooh.
• Rule: For a fasting person to taste or chew something without reason then the fast becomes Makrooh. The acceptable reason is when a husband or master is very short tempered and due to there being less salt will cause him disappointment then to taste (but not swallow) will not make the fast Makrooh. Another reason is when there is a small child or elderly or disabled person who cannot chew a chappati or bread and there is no other person available who is not fasting then the fast will not become Makrooh [Durr-e-Mukhtar, Bahar].