How Do I Pay the Penalty (Fidya) for Fasts I Delayed for Years?

Answered by Shaykh Irshaad Sedick

Question

In 2021, I missed 30 fasts due to an illness that lasted 8 to 10 months. I forgot about them and only made them up in 2025.

How should I pay the penalty for this delay? What exactly do I need to give? Can I send money to my brother in India so he can provide meals to thirty poor people? I am also concerned that my earlier fasts might not have been valid because I ate until the adhan.

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate.

May Allah alleviate our difficulties and guide us to what pleases Him. Amin.

You have already fulfilled the weightier obligation by making up the thirty fasts. What remains is the penalty (fidya) for delaying them past the Ramadans that followed your recovery. Following the lighter view, this is one payment of about 750 ml of staple food, such as rice, for each missed day, given to the poor as actual food rather than its cash value. Your earlier fasts were valid, and you do not need to repeat any of them.

Making Up the Fasts Was the Priority

The fasts you omitted were obligatory to make up, and you have done so. [Nawawi, Minhaj al-‘Abidin] The make-up (qada) and the penalty for delay are two separate matters. Completing the qada in 2025 settled the first. The second is what your question is really about.

The Penalty for Delay (Fidya)

It is not permissible for a person with unperformed fast days of Ramadan to delay making them up until the next Ramadan unless there is a valid excuse. If one delays until the next Ramadan, one must pay the penalty (fidya) of about 750 ml of staple food to the poor for each fast-day missed, in addition to making it up. [Misri, ‘Umdat al-Salik]

The strict rule in the Shafi’i school is that if the make-up is delayed until a second Ramadan comes, one pays double for each day, and so forth; every year that passes upon an unfulfilled fast-day adds 750 ml of staple food for that day. But if one’s excuse for not performing them persists, such as travel or illness, then it is permissible to delay as long as the excuse is present, even if it lasts for years, with no penalty owed for that delay. [ibid.]

How Your Illness Affects Your Case

Your illness was a valid reason, so there is no penalty for the time you were sick. This exemption only lasts as long as the excuse remains. Once you’ve gotten better, you need to make up for the fasts, and any delay after your recovery is what requires a penalty.

If you find the strict, compounding rule too heavy, you may follow the lighter view, which holds that only one penalty payment is owed for the delay, without the year-on-year multiplication. [Shirbini, Mughni al-Muhtaj] On that view, you owe about 750 ml of staple for each of the thirty days, that is, thirty measures in total, paid once.

What Must Be Given, and in What Form?

The fidya is a measure of staple food, not a cooked meal, and not a sum of money. For each day, it is roughly 750 ml (one mudd) of the staple of the area, such as rice. Note that a saa is the larger measure (about 3 litres, four mudds) used for the charity of Eid al-Fitr; the fidya here is the smaller single mudd per day.

In the Shafi’i school, the food itself must be given, and ownership of it transferred to the poor person. Paying the cash value does not discharge the penalty in our school, though the Hanafi School permits giving the monetary value. [Keller, Reliance of the Traveler] So the obligation is met by handing over the staple grain to the poor, not by serving a prepared dish.

Giving It Through Your Brother in India

Since you cannot readily find deserving recipients where you live, you may appoint your brother as your agent. You send him the money, and he buys staple food and gives it to the poor on your behalf. The key is that what reaches the poor is the food, purchased with your funds through him, rather than cash placed directly in their hands as the fidya itself. Directing it to the poor of India, where there is need, is acceptable in your situation. Please refer to this answer.

Your Earlier Fasts Were Valid

Eating and drinking up to the entry of true dawn (fajr), which is what the adhan marks, is exactly what the Sacred Law permits. Allah (Most High) says, “And eat and drink until the white thread of dawn becomes distinct to you from the black thread [of night].” [Quran, 2:187]

Stopping a few minutes early is a recommended precaution, not a condition of validity. Eating right until the adhan does not harm the fast. Your fasts in those years were sound, and you must not make them up. These recurring doubts are waswasa, and the way to treat them is to act on the certainty that your worship was valid and to give the misgivings no further attention.

Principle and Practical Guidance

To resolve this, count the 30 days as 30 measures of staple food (about 750 ml of rice each), using the easier opinion. Ask your brother to buy this food and give it to the poor, and then consider the penalty fulfilled. As for your concern about the adhan, let it go. Going back over valid acts of worship only leads to unnecessary doubts.

And Allah (Most High) knows best.

[Shaykh] Irshaad Sedick
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

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Shaykh Irshaad Sedick was raised in South Africa in a traditional Muslim family. He graduated from Dar al-Ulum al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Strand, Western Cape, under the guidance of the late world-renowned scholar Shaykh Taha Karaan (Allah have mercy on him), who taught there.

Shaykh Irshaad received Ijaza from many luminaries of the Islamic world, including Shaykh Taha Karaan, Shaykh Muhammad Awama, Shaykh Muhammad Hasan Hitu, and Mawlana Abdul Hafeez Makki, among others.

He is the author of the text “The Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal: A Hujjah or not?” He has been the Director of the Discover Islam Center and, for 6 years, the Khatib of Masjid Ar-Rashideen in Mowbray, Cape Town.

Shaykh Irshaad has 15 years of teaching experience at some of Cape Town’s leading Islamic institutes. He is currently building an Islamic podcast, education, and media platform called ‘Isnad Academy’ and has completed his Master’s degree in the study of Islam at the University of Johannesburg. He has a keen interest in healthy Prophetic living and fitness.