How to Fulfill Sixty Expiatory Fasts (Kaffara) for Broken Ramadan Fasts?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

I’ve broken my fasts multiple times over several Ramadans by eating, drinking, and other reasons. I’m thinking of doing kaffara for thirty days to feel better.

My question is, do I have to do the kaffara and make up the missed fasts without a break, or can I do sixty fasts first and then, every couple of days, do the make-up fasts?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

If someone intentionally eats or drinks during Ramadan, if one already intended from the night to fast that day, necessitates qada’ (make up fasts) and kaffara (sixty days of expiatory fasts)

The make up fasts should be completed first, followed immediately by the expiatory fasts. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

Exception for Women

The expiatory fasts should be done consecutively, ensuring that no days prohibited from fasting, such as Eid days, fall within that period. However, exceptions are made for a woman’s menstruation or post-natal bleeding, as it is unlikely for her to go sixty days without menstruating.

One Set of Expiatory Fasts Suffices for Multiple Ramadans

If someone has repeatedly broken their fasts during Ramadan and hasn’t yet observed the expiatory fasts for the first instance of breaking, according to Imam Muhammad (may Allah have mercy on him), one set of expiatory fasts is enough. This applies even if the previous instances of breaking were from multiple Ramadans. This opinion is considered the relied-upon position. [Tahtawi, Hashiyat al-Tahtawi ‘ala Maraqi al-Falah citing Bazzaziyya, Mujtaba and others.]

Summary

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

Hope this helps
And Allah knows best
Yusuf Weltch

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.