Ramaḍān · 01 of 08
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Ramaḍān
رمضانরমাদান
Scholarly review: pending
This text comes from the Sabīl print library. Its scholarly review is still in progress; every item will carry its reviewers’ names and the date once two scholars have signed it.
The Month of Fasting
رَمَضَانُ
Ramaḍān
What breaks the fast, what is owed afterwards, and how the last ten nights are kept.
2 · What breaks the fast
3 · Qaḍā’, fidyah & kaffārah
4 · Suḥūr, ifṭār & their du‘ās
5 · Tarāwīḥ & the night prayer
6 · I‘tikāf & Laylat al-Qadr
7 · Zakāt al-Fiṭr
8 · The thirty days
Ḥ = Ḥanafī · M = Mālikī · S = Shāfi‘ī · Ḥb = Ḥanbalī.
02What breaks the fast
Eating or drinking deliberately.
Intercourse — the gravest, and the only one carrying expiation by agreement.
Deliberately inducing vomiting.
Ejaculation brought about deliberately.
The onset of ḥayḍ or nifās, at any hour of the day.
Anything nutritive taken into the body, including feeding by drip.
Bukhārī, Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ. Vomiting: Abū Dāwūd, Tirmidhī · ṣaḥīḥ.
What does not break it
Eating or drinking in forgetfulness — continue, and it is a provision from Allah.
Involuntary vomiting; a nosebleed; blood taken for testing.
Rinsing the mouth and nose, without exaggeration.
Bathing, swimming, applying kohl or perfume.
Injections that carry no nourishment; inhalers, per the majority of contemporary rulings.
Waking in a state of janābah and bathing after Fajr.
Tasting food on the tongue without swallowing.
Bukhārī, Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ — “Whoever forgets and eats, let him complete his fast.”
03What is owed
Qaḍā’ — making up the day
Owed by the traveller, the temporarily ill, the menstruating woman, and one who broke the fast deliberately. Made up any time before the next Ramaḍān; consecutive days are not required.
Fidyah — feeding instead
For one who cannot fast and never will: the very old, and the chronically ill. Feed one poor person for each day missed. No qaḍā’ is owed.
Q 2:184; Bukhārī · the ruling of Ibn ‘Abbāsـؓ
Kaffārah — the expiation
Owed for intercourse during a day of Ramaḍān, in strict order, each only if the one before is beyond reach:
1 Free a slave.
2 Fast sixty consecutive days.
3 Feed sixty poor people.
The day itself is also made up. Ḥ and M extend kaffārah to deliberate eating and drinking; S and Ḥb confine it to intercourse.
Bukhārī, Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ — the ḥadīth of the man who came saying “I am ruined.”
04Suḥūr & ifṭār
The intention
Formed in the heart before Fajr, once for the whole month per M; nightly per Ḥ, S and Ḥb. Nothing is said aloud.
Suḥūr
Delay it until close to Fajr. Even a sip of water fulfils it — “in suḥūr there is blessing.”
Bukhārī, Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ
Ifṭār
Hasten it at sunset with fresh dates, or dried, or water. Said after breaking:
ذَهَبَ الظَّمَأُ وَابْتَلَّتِ الْعُرُوقُ وَثَبَتَ الْأَجْرُ إِنْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ
Dhahaba-ẓ-ẓama’u wabtallatil-‘urūqu wa thabatal-ajru in shā’Allāh
The thirst has gone, the veins are moistened, and the reward is assured, if Allah wills.
Abū Dāwūd · ḥasan. The widely quoted Allāhumma laka ṣumtu is weak — this is the established wording.
If provoked, say: innī ṣā’im — I am fasting. One who does not abandon false speech has given Allah no need of his hunger.
Bukhārī · ṣaḥīḥ
05Tarāwīḥ
Prayed after ‘Ishā’ in pairs of two, ending with witr. A confirmed sunnah, not an obligation — and praying it behind an imam until he finishes is written as a whole night in prayer.
Tirmidhī, Abū Dāwūd · ṣaḥīḥ
The number
Twenty rak‘ahs — the position of all four madhāhib, on the practice settled under ‘Umarـؓ and unbroken in both Ḥaramayn.
Eleven rak‘ahs — eight and three of witr, on the report of ‘Ā’ishahـؓ that he never exceeded it in or out of Ramaḍān.
M records thirty-six, the practice of Madīnah.
Bukhārī, Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ; Muwaṭṭa’ · the report of Yazīd ibn Rūmān.
Both are established practice and neither is censured. Length of standing outweighs count of rak‘ahs.
Witr
Wājib per Ḥ, three joined without a salām between; a sunnah mu’akkadah per the other three, prayed one, three, five or more. Do not repeat it if you rise again to pray.
Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ — “Make the last of your night prayer witr.”
06The last ten
I‘tikāf
Seclusion in the masjid for worship. The Prophet ﷺ kept it every Ramaḍān, and twenty days in the year he died. Entered before sunset on the 20th, left at the ‘Īd.
Leave only for necessity — the washroom, or food if none is brought.
Ḥ and M require fasting alongside it; S and Ḥb do not.
A woman may observe it with her husband’s consent, in a partitioned space.
Bukhārī, Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ
Laylat al-Qadr
Better than a thousand months. Sought in the odd nights of the last ten — the 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th and 29th — and most often found on the 27th.
Q 97:3; Bukhārī, Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ
اللَّهُمَّ إِنَّكَ عَفُوٌّ تُحِبُّ الْعَفْوَ فَاعْفُ عَنِّي
Allāhumma innaka ‘afuwwun tuḥibbul-‘afwa fa‘fu ‘annī
O Allah, You are Pardoning and love to pardon, so pardon me.
Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah · ṣaḥīḥ — taught to ‘Ā’ishahـؓ when she asked what to say if she found it.
07Zakāt al-Fiṭr
Obligatory on every Muslim who has food beyond his need for the day — for himself and all he supports, including a child born before the ‘Īd dawn.
The amount
One ṣā‘ of the staple food of the land — dates, barley, raisins, rice or wheat.
1 ṣā‘ = 4 mudd ≈ 3.0 litres
≈ 2.04 kg wheat · ≈ 2.4 kg rice
Give by volume, not weight, where you can.
In cash?
Ḥ permits its value in money, and this is the practice of most institutions today. M, S and Ḥb require food, as the text specifies it.
When
Best on the morning of ‘Īd before the prayer; permitted a day or two earlier. Given after the prayer it is ordinary charity, and the obligation remains.
Bukhārī, Muslim · ṣaḥīḥ — the ḥadīth of Ibn ‘Umarـؓ; Abū Dāwūd · ḥasan
Its purpose: to purify the fast of idle and indecent speech, and to feed the poor so that they need not ask on the day of ‘Īd.
08The thirty days
Mark the fast kept, the night prayer stood, and the portion read.
Ṣ
Q
J
Ṣ
Q
J
Ṣ fast · Q night prayer · J daily portion. Heavy rules mark the odd nights of the last ten.
Lines with a dotted edge give the sound of the Arabic, worked out by rule from its vowel marks. They are not from the print titles and have not been reviewed: where one differs from the Arabic, the Arabic is right.
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