Fasting in Islam: obligations, exemptions and missed fasts

This guide explains the foundations and major practical questions through Sunni legal sources. Where recognised authorities differ, it identifies the difference rather than presenting one ruling as universal. It is an educational reference, not an individual fatwa (religious ruling) or a medical assessment.

Why Muslims fast

The Quran prescribes fasting and connects it with becoming mindful of God. In the same passage, it identifies Ramadan as the month in which the Quran was revealed and instructs those present to fast, while providing for illness and travel. The command and the exemptions appear together. Quran 2:183–185.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ also linked fasting with conduct. A report in Sahih al-Bukhari describes fasting as a shield and instructs the fasting person not to respond to provocation with abusive behaviour. Another warns against false speech and acting upon it. Fasting therefore has an ethical purpose alongside its rules of abstention. Sahih al-Bukhari 1894, sahih; Sahih al-Bukhari 1903, sahih.

Legal validity and spiritual reward are nevertheless different questions. Malaysia’s Federal Territories Mufti Department explains that lying does not invalidate the fast, although it diminishes its reward. That distinction prevents two errors: treating wrongdoing as inconsequential because a fast remains valid, or assuming every sin automatically creates an obligation to repeat the day. Federal Territories Mufti Department, ruling on lying.

Who is required to fast?

The ordinary obligation concerns a Muslim who has reached religious accountability, has the required mental capacity and is able to fast, subject to the relevant exemptions. Puberty is a condition of obligation; children are not required to make up Ramadan days missed before puberty. These are legal criteria, not a claim that every adult has the same physical capacity. Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, inability to fast; Dorar, conditions of fasting.

Illness and travel are expressly addressed in Quran 2:185. A person who misses days under these dispensations makes up an equal number later. This is different from permanent inability to fast, which has a separate ruling, and from menstruation, during which fasting is prohibited rather than merely optional. Quran 2:185; Dar al-Ifta, menstruation.

When the fasting day begins and ends

The fast begins at dawn, not sunrise. Quran 2:187 permits eating and drinking until dawn becomes distinct, then directs completion of the fast until night. A hadith narrated by Umar identifies sunset as the point for breaking the fast. These are the boundaries of the fasting day; they should not be replaced by an assumed fixed number of hours. Quran 2:187; Sahih al-Bukhari 1954, sahih.

The month itself is addressed in a separate report: begin fasting upon sighting Ramadan’s crescent and end upon sighting Shawwal’s; if the sky prevents sighting at Ramadan’s start, complete thirty days of Sha‘ban. This report establishes the underlying lunar-month rule. Questions about local or international sighting and calculation require a separate discussion, not an unsupported claim that all communities must announce the same date. Sahih al-Bukhari 1909, sahih.

Intention, suhoor and iftar

Intention means resolving to undertake the fast as worship. Its place is the heart. Jordan’s General Iftaa’ Department describes it as determination to abstain from the fast’s invalidators in obedience to God, rather than an exercise in repeatedly checking whether the correct words have been recited. Jordan General Iftaa’ Department, intention.

The schools differ on timing and renewal. The Hanafi, Shafi‘i and Hanbali schools require a separate intention for each day, whereas the Maliki position allows one intention for an uninterrupted sequence, renewed after a legitimate interruption. Dorar’s comparative summary attributes the pre-dawn requirement for obligatory fasting to the Maliki, Shafi‘i and Hanbali majority. Dorar, intention rules.

The Hanafi rule needs a further distinction. For a current Ramadan day, intention may be made before the midpoint between dawn and sunset, provided nothing invalidating the fast has occurred since dawn. This is not necessarily clock noon. For a Ramadan make-up fast, intention must be made before dawn. Daily intention and pre-dawn intention are therefore not interchangeable requirements. SeekersGuidance, Hanafi intention rules.

Suhoor, the pre-dawn meal, is encouraged. The Prophet ﷺ described it as blessed; al-Bukhari places the report under a chapter identifying it as non-compulsory. Missing the meal is not the same issue as failing to intend the fast. Sahih al-Bukhari 1923, sahih.

At the other end of the day, the Sunnah encourages breaking the fast promptly. Read alongside the sunset report, this means promptness when the fast has ended, not permission to eat before sunset. Sahih al-Bukhari 1957, sahih; Sahih al-Bukhari 1954, sahih.

What invalidates a fast?

Deliberate eating, drinking and sexual intercourse during fasting hours contradict the abstention prescribed in Quran 2:187. But determining what follows a broken fast requires more information: what occurred, whether it was deliberate, whether an exemption applied and which legal ruling governs the case. Quran 2:187; Darul Iftaa Chicago, distinctions between forgetfulness and accident.

Eating or drinking forgetfully

A sahih report instructs a person who eats or drinks forgetfully to complete the fast. Jordan’s General Iftaa’ Department applies this ruling to both obligatory and voluntary fasting. In Hanafi guidance, forgetting that one is fasting is specifically distinguished from accidentally swallowing something while remembering the fast; the latter can invalidate it. “It was an accident” is therefore not a sufficiently precise description for every case. Sahih al-Bukhari 1933, sahih; Jordan, forgetful eating; Darul Iftaa Chicago.

The Maliki treatment of an obligatory fast differs. The Maliki Risalah distinguishes unintentional breaking of a voluntary fast, which does not require a replacement day, from unintentional breaking of an obligatory fast, which does. Guidance on inadvertent eating in Ramadan also requires abstention for the remainder of the day. This obligation to repeat the day should not be extended to voluntary fasting. Maliki Risalah, sections 23.2h and 23.3b; Shaykh Rami Nsour, Maliki ruling.

Smoking

Smoking cigarettes invalidates fasting, according to Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta. This is a ruling on the validity of the fast, not simply a statement about good manners during Ramadan. It should not be confused with the separate question of whether ablution remains valid: the same fatwa distinguishes the two. Dar al-Ifta, smoking and fasting.

Injections and medical treatment

An injection is not one uniform legal category. The International Islamic Fiqh Academy’s Resolution 93 (1/10) includes subcutaneous, intramuscular and intravenous injections among procedures that do not invalidate fasting, but excludes perfusions and injections of nutritious fluids from that allowance. Jordan’s Iftaa’ Department likewise distinguishes treatment injections from nutritional intravenous injections, which it rules invalidating. International Islamic Fiqh Academy, Resolution 93; Jordan, medical questions.

There is a documented contrary ruling. Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta states that intravenous and intramuscular injections do not invalidate fasting even when given for nutritional purposes. The ruling on nutritional injections therefore should not be treated as unanimous. Dar al-Ifta, injections.

Whether a treatment invalidates fasting is separate from whether a patient can safely fast. Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust advises people taking regular medicines to consult their healthcare team or pharmacist and not to change how they take medicine without professional advice. A religious ruling about an injection is not permission to postpone treatment or change a dose. Guy’s and St Thomas’, medicines during Ramadan.

Menstruation and postnatal bleeding

Women must not fast during menstruation or postnatal bleeding under the ruling set out by Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta. The rule does not depend on whether a particular woman feels physically capable of completing the day. Aisha’s report states that menstruating women were instructed to make up missed fasts, but not missed prayers. Dar al-Ifta, menstruation; Sahih Muslim 335c, sahih.

If menstruation begins during the fasting day, that day must be made up. If it ends before dawn, the timing of the ritual bath is a different issue: Jordan’s Iftaa’ Department states that bathing after dawn does not itself invalidate the fast, although the prayer still has to be observed within its prescribed time. Jordan, menstruation beginning during a fast; Jordan, purification before dawn and later bathing.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding

Pregnancy and breastfeeding require attention to the reason for not fasting and the school’s ruling on compensation. In Hanafi guidance, a pregnant woman who fears harm to herself or her fetus may refrain and make up the missed days when able; fidyah does not replace those fasts. Hanafi guidance for breastfeeding likewise requires making up missed days without an additional fidyah for that reason. Darul Iftaa Chicago, pregnancy; SeekersGuidance, breastfeeding.

Jordan’s Iftaa’ Department distinguishes harm or unusual hardship affecting the mother from fear solely for the fetus or infant. It requires later make-up fasts in the first case and both make-up fasts and fidyah in the second. These different conditions explain why “pregnant women pay fidyah” is too broad, while “pregnant women never pay fidyah” misrepresents another established ruling. Jordan, pregnancy and breastfeeding.

These are legal conditions, not a clinical assessment of any pregnancy. This guide does not determine whether fasting is medically appropriate for an individual mother or child.

Missed fasts: qada, fidyah and kaffarah

These terms describe different obligations and should not be used interchangeably.

Qada means making up a missed fast. The Quran requires an equal number of later days for illness and travel. Aisha also reported making up Ramadan fasts in Sha‘ban, showing that the replacement days were not necessarily observed immediately after Ramadan. Quran 2:185; Sahih al-Bukhari 1950, sahih.

Fidyah, in the case of lasting inability to fast, involves feeding a poor person for each missed day. Ibn Abbas’s explanation of Quran 2:184 applies this to elderly men and women unable to fast. Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta also applies it to incurable illness that prevents fasting. This is not a general option to pay instead of fasting whenever fasting is inconvenient. Sahih al-Bukhari 4505, a sahih report of Ibn Abbas’s explanation; Dar al-Ifta, inability to fast.

Delaying qada is a further question. Hanafi guidance does not impose an additional fidyah merely because another Ramadan arrives. Shafi‘i guidance published by Malaysia’s Federal Territories Mufti Department distinguishes an unjustified delay from an ongoing valid excuse; it does not impose a delay-related fidyah where the excuse continues. Neither rule means the make-up fasts disappear. SeekersGuidance, Hanafi guidance; Federal Territories Mufti Department, continuing excuses.

Kaffarah is a separate expiation. A well-known report concerns a man who had intercourse while fasting: the Prophet ﷺ asked about freeing an enslaved person, then fasting two consecutive months, then feeding sixty poor people. That report must not be turned into a blanket claim that every missed fast requires sixty days of fasting or a payment for sixty people. Its application requires a ruling on the particular circumstances. Sahih al-Bukhari 1936, sahih.

Fasting after Ramadan, and the days when fasting is prohibited

Fasting on Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha is prohibited. The prohibition is explicit in a report narrated through Umar. An intention to make up a missed day does not turn an Eid day into an ordinary fasting day. Sahih al-Bukhari 1990, sahih.

Voluntary fasting after Ramadan has its own textual basis. Sahih Muslim records the virtue of following Ramadan with six days of Shawwal. This is distinct from the obligation to make up missed Ramadan days; the report should not be presented as cancelling that obligation. Sahih Muslim 1164a, sahih; Quran 2:185.

Alongside these questions about fasting, Ramadan’s devotional life extends beyond the fasting hours. Ibn Abbas reported the Prophet’s ﷺ increased generosity in Ramadan and his nightly Quran study with Gabriel. The source supports an emphasis on generosity and engagement with the Quran without needing invented numerical promises about the reward of every activity. Sahih al-Bukhari 6, sahih.

The practical starting point is to identify the right question. Is a fast obligatory now? Does a recognised exemption apply? Has something invalidated the day? Is the remaining obligation qada, fidyah or a separate expiation? The sources above answer different questions. Keeping those distinctions intact is essential to understanding the rules.

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Related reading: Ramadan: concise, sourced answers · When does the daily fast begin and end? · Why do Ramadan and Eid dates differ? · Ramadan hub.