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A Ramadan Reader: A Comprehensive Answers Guide to Getting the Most Out of Ramadan

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Preparing for Ramadan

The Complete Guide to Fasting

Imam Tahir’s 5 Simple Steps to Prepare for Ramadan

Preparing For Ramadan Advice from Habib Umar bin Hafiz

Ramadan Detox‬‏ for a Healthy Ramadan

40 Hadiths on Ramadan

Tarawih

Can I Pray 8 Rakats for Tarawih?

Should We Stop Praying Tarawih Once the Qur’an is Completed?

Is it Necessary to Perform Tarawih Prayers in the Mosque?

Is it Obligatory to Complete the Entire Qur’an During Tarawih Prayers?

Performing Tarawih Prayers Again as an Imam

Is It Valid for a Child to Lead Tarawih?

The Ruling of the Tarawih Prayer: A Confirmed Sunna

Reciting From a Copy of the Qur’an (Mushaf) in Tarawih and Other Prayers

Expiatory Payment (Fidya) for Missed Ramadan Fasts

Brief Overview of Expiatory Payments (fidya) for Missed Ramadan Fasts

Feeding People to Expiate For a Corrupted Fast

Is Expiation (kaffara) Necessary For Not Fasting in Ramadan?

When Is Expiation Required For A Fast?

How Many Expiations Are Required For Multiple Broken Fasts?

Can My Sister Pay Expiatory Payments (fidya) For Missed Fasts Due To Her Diabetes?

Can I Pay Fidya for Missed Days of Fasting Due to Menses?

Can a Healthy Person Skip Prayer and Fasting and Pay Expiation?

The Expiation (Kaffara) for Having Sex While Fasting

Must I Fast 180 Days as Expiation for 3 Broken Fasts?

 

 

Things that Break the Fast

Principles on what invalidates the fast

Does Watching Pornography While Fasting Break One’s Fast

Using Creams, Powders, or Topical Medications While Fasting

Does Swallowing Phlegm Break Your Fast?

Vaseline On Lips While Fasting, and Hitting Kids

Applying Medicine to One’s Teeth: Does it Invalidate the Fast?

Ramadan: Injections, Eye Drops, And Doubts

Using Chapstick While Fasting

Accidental & Forgetful Breaking of the Fast: What Is the Difference?

What Corrupts a Fast: Questions About Water Entering the Body

Bleeding Gums While Fasting

The Effect of Smoking on Fasting, and the Effect of Sins on Faith

Using Asthma Medication: Is My Fast Invalidated?

Accidentally Inhaling Perfume While Fasting

Does breathing in Air break one’s Fast?

Passionate Kissing While Fasting

Fasting and Illness

Too Sick to Fast in Ramadan, Too Poor to Pay the Expiatory Payment (Fidya)

Long-Term Illness that Prevents Fasting

How Can I Benefit From Ramadan When I Can’t Fast Due to Being Ill?

Laylat al-Qadr

When is Laylat al-Qadr?

Worship & Prayer on Laylat al-Qadr

Making Up Missed Fasts

Making Up Missed Fasts and Illness

Can I Combine My Intentions for a Missed Ramadan Fast and An Optional Sunnah Fast?

Do I Have To Make Up Missed Fasts Within A Year?

Making up Obligatory Fasts and Prayers

Making of Missed Fast

Years of Missed Fasts and Expiation (kaffara)

Breaking One’s Fast/Not Fasting Due to Hardship

Breaking One’s Fast Due to Weakness & Migraines

Can I Break My Fast If My Job Makes Fasting Too Difficult?

Fasting in Extreme Latitudes

Attending Juma, Praying and Fasting While Training to be a Firefighter

Can I Break My Fast If My Job Makes Fasting Too Difficult?

Fasting and Pregnancy

Pregnant Women & Fasting

Pregnancy & Making Up Fasts: Does She Really Have To?

The Spiritual Retreat (I`tikaf)

The Spiritual Retreat (i`tikaf)

The Three Types of I’tikaf (Spiritual Retreat)

Ramadan Advice, Benefits and Inspiration

Worship in Ramadan For a Menstruating Woman

How Do I Make The Most Of Ramadan?

Fasting Its Principles and Virtues-Imam Ghazali from al-Arab’in

Inner Dimensions of Fasting-Imam Ghazali

The Spiritual Purpose of Fasting – Closeness to Allah

Practical Tips for Fasting During Ramadan

Work Ethics for Muslims Fasting During Ramadan

Prophetic Supplications for Fasting

Virtues of Fasting in the Summer

Health Benefits of Fasting, and the Maximum Recommended Fast

General Ramadan Answers

When and Where Do I Break My Fast on a 20 Hour Airline Flight?

Should I Feel Bad for Not Fasting When I Had to Travel?

At What Age Must One Start Fasting?

Eating After Dawn & Breaking The Fast For An Invitation

The Chaining of Shayateen (Devils) During Ramadan

Does Each Makeup Prayer During Ramadan Count as 70 Makeup Prayers?

Intercourse during the month of Ramadan

Is Your Ramadan Fast Still Valid If You Stop Eating and Make Your Intention to Fast Between Fajr and Islamic Midday?

Should I Feel Bad for Not Fasting When I Had to Travel?

Brief Miscellaneous Q & A Relating to Fasting

Newlyweds Having Intercourse While Fasting During Ramadan

Traveling Daily During Ramadan

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Answered by Ustadh Tabraze Azam
Question: Salams brother,
I will travel daily at least 100 Kilometers due to work.
Should I count this as a travel for exemption from Fasting? How about prayers? reduced or full?
Answer: Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
I pray that you are in the best of health and faith, insha’Allah.
(1) Yes, you will shorten your prayers during your journey. You can begin shortening them from the point you leave your city boundary. [see: Shortening Prayers when Traveling for Leisure?]
(2) You will be excused from fasting if you initiate your journey and have left your city boundary before the entrance of Fajr time. However, if it does not pose a difficulty for you to fast, you should strive to do so. [see: Should I Feel Bad for Not Fasting When I Had to Travel?]
And Allah alone gives success.
Wassalam,
Tabraze Azam
Checked & Approved by Faraz Rabbani

When and Where Do I Break My Fast on a 20 Hour Airline Flight?

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Answered by Ustadh Salman Younas

Question: I am a little bit confused due to this part of response to a former question:

“As a final note, please be aware that if one begins the day (when Fajr enters) as a resident (i.e. non-traveler) then they must fast, and complete the fast of the day, even if they travel later in the day. In order to be exempt from fasting, the traveler must be in the state of travel when Fajr enters. [Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]”

Our flight is at midday and takes more than 20 hours. Do we have to fast now because Fajr has already entered? And if yes, when and where do we have to break our fast??

Answer: assalamu `alaykum

I pray you are well.

According to the Hanafi school, in order for an individual to be excused from the fast, he would have to be deemed a traveler before the time of Fajr enters. There is no difference when it comes to this in the Hanafi school based on my knowledge. [Mawsili, Ikhtiyar; Ibn `Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

This is also the position of the Shafi`i and Maliki schools. [Nawawi, Majmu`; Dasuqi, Hashiya `ala Sharh al-Kabir]

The Position of the Hanbali School

The only school to make an exception to this rule is the Hanbali school. According to them, so long as a person is resident when the time for fasting begins, he must initiate the fast. However, they clearly stipulate that if a person is fasting a specific day and then initiates a journey, he may break the fast as soon as he leaves his city limits – regardless of whether this is before or after Fajr. [Hijawi, Zad al-Mustaqni`; Ibn Qudama, al-Mughni]

The Issue of Dispensations & Planning Ahead

My advice to you would be to try your best to fast the day you are traveling. You will have to initiate the fast as you will be leaving after Fajr. Despite having a twenty hour journey, it is highly unlikely that you will be fasting for twenty hours straight. You are bound to enter a time zone before the completion of your journey where the time of Maghrib would enter, thus ending your fast.

Try to have a nourishing and ample breakfast (suhur) with a lot of water. When you are in the plane and see that it is clearly getting dark outside, you may break your fast (iftar). Maghrib is perhaps the easier of the prayer times to judge while on a plane.

If you feel you are unable to fast during the journey, you may take the Hanbali position mentioned above.

Salman

Checked & Approved by Faraz Rabbani

The Basic Rulings of Travel

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Answered by Shaykh Faraz A. Khan

Question: My university is some 95 miles from my home address and I stay there five nights a week and return home for two. When not at university, I attend an unpaid placement some 200 miles from my home address and approximately 125 miles from the university. I usually stay here between 14 and 28 days at a time.

According to the Hanafi school of thought, do I qualify for the conditions of travel (safar) whilst at university and on placement and how do I correctly fulfill these?

Answer: Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah,

I pray this finds you in the best of health and states.

According to the Hanafi school, the conditions of being deemed a traveler are to:

(a) go to a place at least (roughly) 48mi (77km) from one’s home, and

(b) stay there for less than 15 days.

Hence, you do meet the conditions of travel when you are at university. You also meet those conditions when you are on placement as long as you stay there for less than 15 days at a time. If you stay there for 15 days or longer, you are legally a resident there.

When one is a traveler, it is mandatory (wajib) to shorten the obligatory four-rakat prayers (zuhr, asr and isha) to two rakats. One still prays the sunna prayers though, unless in the midst of a journey and in the rush of travel.

If one is a traveler during the month of Ramadan, then fasting is optional, although it is superior to do so if it does not pose undue hardship. Of course if one does not fast, it is obligatory to make up the missed days.

This is merely a quick summary; for more details on the rulings related to travel, it would be strongly advised to take a basic course such as:

Absolute Essentials of Islam: Beliefs & Worship

[Shurunbulali, Ascent to Felicity; Maraqi Falah]

And Allah knows best.
wassalam
Faraz A. Khan

Checked & Approved by Faraz Rabbani

Related Answers:

When Is a Person Considered a Traveler Who Can Shorten Their Prayers?

Shortening Prayers when Traveling for Leisure?

A Real Life Case Study of When to Shorten Prayers and Refrain from Fasting When Traveling

Should I Feel Bad for Not Fasting When I Had to Travel?

Are We Supposed to Pray Sunna and Witr Prayers When Traveling?

Should I Feel Bad for Not Fasting When I Had to Travel?

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Answered by Ustadha Sulma Badrudduja

Question: I had to travel 77miles to a work workshop which lasted all day. I did not fast.

Although I know in fiqh one has leeway to not fast when travelling I feel extremely guilty.

My naffs overwhelmed me and I could not but help but make use of this leeway

I understand I am not sinful in doing this but why do I feel so bad.

I will make up this fast but have I done anything wrong?

Answer: Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

I hope you are doing well inshaAllah. A traveler may leave fasting and make up the fast later. There is absolutely no sin in this, even if the journey is easy for him. You do not need to feel guilty for using this dispensation that Allah has given us out of His mercy.

It is better for one, if able, to fast while traveling, as mentioned in the Quranic ayah. However, again, it is neither sinful nor disliked to leave the fast even if the journey is easy. You have not done anything wrong in deciding to leave it.

As a final note, please be aware that if one begins the day (when Fajr enters) as a resident (i.e. non-traveler) then they must fast, and complete the fast of the day, even if they travel later in the day. In order to be exempt from fasting, the traveler must be in the state of travel when Fajr enters. [Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

Wassalam,
Sulma

Checked & Approved by Faraz Rabbani