How Do I Calculate Fidya for Missed and Delayed Fasts?

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate. May Allah alleviate our difficulties and guide us to what pleases Him. Amin.

In the Shafi‘i School, an escalating penalty applies if you delay the fasts over multiple Ramadans. The penalty increases by 750 ml of staple food each year. Yet, if a valid excuse persists, like travel or illness, you can delay without the penalty, only making up for the missed fasts.

A lighter view exists if the strict rule seems challenging, requiring only one penalty payment for delaying a missed fast without the compounding effect.

The fasts omitted from reaching puberty until now are obligatory to make up. [Nawawi, Minhaj Al-‘Abidin]

To do this, one must first determine how many fasts you omitted. You could estimate a number that makes you reasonably sure covers the number of fasts. Then you can add a bit more to be cautious.

After determining the number of days, you should intend to make up all the estimated fasts. It is best to schedule your fasts so you can fulfil them comfortably without causing harm to your health, creating excessive difficulty, or that would turn you away from fasting entirely (Allah forbid).

If you follow the suggested steps above, you will consistently chip away at the number of fasts owed until you eventually fulfil them, and Allah knows best.

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

The strict rule in the Shafi’i School, reads as follows:

If making up a fast-day is delayed until a second Ramadan comes, one must pay double this amount for each day. And so forth; every year that passes upon an unfulfilled fast day adds 750 ml of staple food to be paid for that day.

But if one’s excuse for not performing them persists, such as travel or illness, then it is permissible to delay making them up as long as the excuse is present, even if it lasts for years. One is not obliged to pay the penalty fee for this delay even if several Ramadans go by but is merely obliged to make up the missed fast days. [ibid.]

If you find the strict rule too challenging for you, I advise you to follow the lighter view, which holds only one penalty payment for delaying a missed fast without the compounding effect as above, and Allah knows best. [Shirbini, Mughni Al-Muhtaj]

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I pray this is of benefit and that Allah guides us all.

[Mawlana] Irshaad Sedick

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. 

Shaykh Irshaad received Ijaza from many luminaries of the Islamic world, including Shaykh Taha Karaan, Mawlana Yusuf Karaan, 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 served as the Director of the Discover Islam Centre and Al Jeem Foundation. For the last five years till present, he has served as the Khatib of Masjid Ar-Rashideen, Mowbray, Cape Town.

Shaykh Irshaad has thirteen years of teaching experience at some of the leading Islamic institutes in Cape Town). He is currently building an Islamic online learning 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 living and fitness.