Do I Need to Observe the Sixty-Day Expiatory Fast for Engaging in Fornication during Ramadan?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Am I required to perform the sixty-day expiatory fast for committing fornication during Ramadan? If so, how many expiations must I do if I do not know how many times I committed this sin?

Answer 

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Breaking one’s fast by eating, drinking, or having sexual intercourse intentionally in the month of Ramadan necessitates for those fasts to be made up and kaffara (60 days of expiatory fasts). That is, if one already intended from the night to fast that day. If one did not intend to fast, the fast must be made up, but no expiation is required. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]

The sixty expiatory fasts must be done in succession. Therefore, one should time them so that no days are prohibited from fasting within that period. The prohibited days are the two days of ‘Eid and the three days following ‘Eid al-Adha.

The only exception to this is the days of a woman’s menstruation or post-natal bleeding, as it is unlikely for a woman to go sixty days without menstruation.

One Set of Expiatory Fast suffices.

If one has repetitively broken their fast in Ramadan and has not performed the expiatory fasts for the first of those breakings – one set of expiatory fasts is sufficient, even if the prior breakings were from more than one Ramadan. This is according to Imam Muhammad (Allah has mercy on him), and this opinion is the relied-upon position. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali; Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah citing Bazzaziyya, Mujtaba and others.]

Summary

If you have broken your Ramadan fast due to intercourse, you must perform the expiation above. One expiation is sufficient if you repeat the same sin and break another fast before expiating for that fast. The principle is that one expiation suffices all the breaks not expiated for before it. [Tahtawi,Shurunbulali; Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]

Moving Forward

Due to your breaking multiple fasts in Ramadan, you must calculate, with reasonable surety, the number of days you did not fast and make them up. After that, you will need to fast for sixty consecutive days, timing it so that no prohibited days fall within that time. This will suffice for you to be obliged to rectify your situation. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al -Falah]

Hope this helps

And Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.