How Do I Make Up Multiple Broken Fasts?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question 

If one has missed fasts from many past Ramadans, are they required to make-up all the previous fasts or does it suffice them to makeup the fasts of only one Ramadan?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

If one has missed fasts, either from one Ramadan or many, it is obligatory for them to makeup every individual day missed. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]

You may be confusing this specific issue with that of expiations (kaffarat). Unpaid expiations from multiple past Ramadans are joined together (combined as one) and one expiation suffices for all; that is as long as none of the previous expiations were paid. This does not apply to the making up of the fasts. Making up the fasts remains an obligation. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar] 

Hope this helps

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 several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.