Breaking Fast Through Intercourse: What's the Expiation?

Continuing in Al-Wajeez fi Sunnah wal Kitab al-Aziz fi Kitab al-Siyam, the book of fasting, in the chapter regarding the pillars of fasting. And we are discussing the sub-chapter of the things that break a person's fast, the things that will nullify a person's fast. And we've mentioned six of them. Let's see if we can name them. The first and second, eating and drinking purposely. Number three, inducing yourself to vomit. Number four and five, menstruation and postpartum bleeding. And number six, al-jima, which is intercourse. And we were discussing the evidence for the sixth. And that evidence is the narration, one of the evidences. The book is named Al-Wajeez, the summary. Right? The summary. It's an abridged, summarized book. It's not going to mention every single evidence. It is a book that is geared towards mentioning the most prominent evidence in that particular issue. And so, he chooses, the author chooses, the narration of Abu Hurairah, which is in Bukhari and Muslim and Sunan al-Tirmidhi and Sunan Abi Dawud and Ibn Majah and Muwatta Malik, on the authority of Abu Hurairah, who narrates that.

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He says, Abu Hurairah narrates, "Once while we were sitting in the company of the Prophet, a man approached and he said, 'Oh messenger of Allah, I am done. I'm finished.'" And so he asked, "What is the matter?" The man responded, "I have fell into intercourse with my wife while I was fasting." Now, we mentioned before, the Prophet didn't need to increase the man's anxiety. The man already came saying, "I'm done." I'm done. And in the narration of Muwatta Malik, "I'm burned." I've I'm burned. Right? Meaning I'm finished. And so the man doesn't need to be told this is a major sin, what you did was wrong. Right? He doesn't need judgment. He needs recourse at this point. We also learn from this something very important. And that is fear. Unnecessary anxiety and hopelessness after a sin has been committed is not beneficial. It is beneficial in that fear keeps us away from haram. And fear drives us to repent. But anything that does not serve a purpose beyond helping us to abstain from haram and driving us to repentance will breed hopelessness. Will breed unnecessary anxiety. Will breed negativity associated with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and his message. And so, a shaytan uses this. He uses this. He is Al-Waswas Al-Khannas. What is Al-Waswas? He whispers. What is Al-Khannas? He retreats. What does that mean? He whispers, whispers, whispers, and then when you do what he says, he leaves you. That's you, buddy. You deal with that. I didn't tell you to do that. Look what you've done. Or when a person seeks refuge in Allah, he retreats. Or he whispers and then retreats and leaves a person hanging. But he also whispers after the sin to breed hopelessness. To breed unnecessary undue anxiety. Allah describes those that disbelieve in Allah and the last day. Those who are hopeless of Allah's mercy are those who disbelieve in Allah and the last day. Not the believer. Believer is never hopeless. As a matter of fact, a human being, as long as he has air in his lungs, as long as his soul is not being dragged out of his body, he still has hope. Right? And what is the Quran? It's a book of hope. The whole thing. Even the verses of punishment, even the verses of wa'id, it's a book of hope. Because the fact that you're listening to these verses that scare you, this is hope. There's still hope. And so the Quran is a book of hope. It came to people in a time of darkness. A time of deep darkness and confusion. And it pierced that darkness with hope. Right? And so, a shaytan whispers. When a person has already committed a sin, that excessive anxiety that comes even after a person has repented, a lot of this is all is often driven by a shaytan. And likewise, hopefulness while committing a sin is also from a shaytan. See, we are supposed to have fear before committing a sin. Hope after committing a sin. A shaytan will give us hope while committing a sin and give us fear after. And so, he said, "Do you have a slave that you could free or emancipate?" He said, "No." He said, "Are you able to fast two consecutive months?" He said, "No." He said, "Then do you have the ability to feed 60 poor people?" He said, "No." So, this guy is not bringing many options here. He's got this big problem and he's got no way to address any of the solutions that the Prophet has laid before him. Has laid before him. And we take from this narration order. Meaning that these are to be done in order. Right? First, a person is is able to to free a slave. If he's unable, then he is obligated to fast two consecutive months. If he is unable, then and only then would he feed 60 poor people. And this is never to be skipped by anyone, no matter how wealthy a person is, no matter how able a person is. It has to be in that order. It's mentioned in the books of Usul al-Fiqh that once a very wealthy sultan you know, committed this sin here. And so he asked one of his fuqaha, one of his close scholars and advisers. And this scholar said for him to fast two consecutive months. What did he skip? Freeing the slave. Why did he skip it? This is a sultan, of course he can free a slave, he can free a hundred slaves. Why did he skip it? His reasoning was because if he frees a slave, that's too easy. He's going to get off too easy. And for him to really learn his lesson, he needs to fast two consecutive months. The scholars The scholars all have consent have reached consensus after him that that fatwa was wrong. Why? Because sure maybe this sultan will be benefited by learning his lesson by fasting 60 consecutive days. But what happened to the slave that could have been freed? Right? So we don't skip around and cherry-pick from the from the laws of our prophet It is in that order. The benefits of the reasons why Allah commands what he commands are very multifaceted. It's not just from one angle. And the human being could never take into consideration all of those angles. And so for this reason, we judge by the book of Allah by the Sunnah of the prophet and we find usefulness in that. And so he asked him these three questions. The man said, "No, he doesn't have the ability to do any of these three things." So the prophet just sat there. I mean, what else are we going to say? There's nothing left to say. And so the scholars understood from this that if a person were in this situation then there's nothing upon him to do until one of these three things makes itself available to him. As soon as one of these three things becomes accessible to him, he is obligated to do them in the same order. So he's poor and he's unable to fast. Let's say after 10 years he becomes he's somebody who who is able to own a slave, then immediately he is to emancipate a slave as a kaffarah. It doesn't go away. It only is it is only suspended as long as his circumstances are the same. But once his circumstances change he is still obligated to do it. He said.

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So as we were sitting there in the same gathering the prophet was brought a basket a type of basket full of dates. In other wordings of this narration, the dates were described as they were still fresh ripe, they were not dried and they were still on their stems. So it was a lot of dates, right? He said, "Where is the man that was just asking, inquiring?" He said, "I am here." He said, "Me, I'm right here." He said, "Take this and give it in charity. So this here would count towards the 60 poor people to feed. It may not be able to feed all 60, but if it fed three, four, five, 10 of them, then it counts towards that. Right? So the man still has something up his sleeve. We're not done yet.

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He said, "Take this and give it in charity." He said, "Give it to someone more poor than me? I swear by Allah, there is no household in Medina more poor than my household.".

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He said, "Should I feed it to someone more poor than me? I swear by Allah that there is not in Medina a household more poor than my household." And so the prophet smiled until his teeth showed. And he said, "Feed it to your family then." You know, imagine this narration. A man comes and says "I am burned, I'm finished, I'm hopeless." And leaves with food. Imagine that. This really captures the prophet's message. If we were to say, "Give us an image of what he was sent with." We have sent you not but as a mercy to all of creation. If we were to say, "What image, what story really captures all of that?" It would be this story. A man comes saying, "I am finished, I'm hopeless." And leaves with food for his family. Subhan Allah. And so this narration is the evidence that the author cites.

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And another wording of this narration in Sunan Abu Dawud, Abu Hurayrah narrates that this man came to the prophet having had broken his fast in Ramadan. He's summarizing. He says, "And so the prophet was brought a basket in it containing tamr." And then he tells us the amount of dates. The amount was roughly 15 sa'. 15 sa'. a sa' is a handful this. You put your hands together. You fill it with dates. And these are the little dates that are still soft. You put these together this, 15 of those. So how much is that? I don't know, maybe couple couple pounds. Three, four pounds, something that. I'm not I'm not sure of the exact math, but that helps you to kind of capture that. He says And so the prophet said to him, "Take this, eat it along with your household and fast one day and seek forgiveness from Allah. What is the one day for? Huh? Qada. The one day is for the one day that he broke his fast. But does this mean that he is completely out of the woods for the rest of time? No. Only if his circumstances never change. However, if any of his circumstances change to where he is able to free a slave or to fast 60 consecutive days or to feed 60 poor people, it would still be obligatory upon him. And we also understand from this narration that if he's able to feed some poor people some of the 60, then he would feed some of those 60. Even if it took him 10 years to feed those 60 poor people over time, then that would be correct. But it doesn't work that way for fasting. For the fasting, it has to be consecutive. For the fasting, it has to be consecutive. But he commanded him to make up the day that he missed. So, this is for intercourse. Now, intercourse has a bare minimum. It's been quantified by the prophet salallahu alayhi wasallam. He said salallahu alayhi wasallam itha qa'ada bayna shu'abiha arba'a.

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Aqallahu wuluj al-hashafa. Alladhi hu ra'su al-dhakar. Hadha aqallu al-jima'. And so even intercourse has been quantified. Now, what about other things a wet dream? A wet dream will not affect a person's fasting because it's involuntary. But what about you know, a person gratifies himself, right? Until he climaxes or she. This will break a person's fast and they must make that day up according to the vast majority of the scholars. And there's a very long debate with respect to this, but the four madhahib and the vast majority of the scholars, including the madhhab of ahl al-hadith, is that this will break a person's fast and that the person must make this day up and that it is prohibited and is one of the things that breaks a person's fast. The author didn't mention this. And the reason the author didn't mention this is because the author doesn't hold that opinion. The author holds the opinion of Ibn Hazm al-Dhahiri and Dawud al-Dhahiri, which is anna al-istimna'.

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Nadhar.

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Kulli hal tomorrow, inshallah, we will go into the preferred things to do for the person who is fasting. As'alu Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bi-mannihi wa karamihi wa judih an yufaqqihana fi.

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Alla yaj'alana mashghulina 'an wahyihi.

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Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala an yuriyana al-haqqa haqqan wa an yarzuqana ittiba'ahu wa an yuriyana al-batila batilan wa an yarzuqana ijtanabah. Wallahu a'lamu salallahu wasallam 'ala.

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Maybe at the end we'll have a question and answer or something. What do you think? If you guys have questions as we're talking, just, you know, ask as we go along. Yes.

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Fast for 60 days? Huh? How can someone make the judgment that they're unable to fast for 60 days? if a person has health problems or if a person works a very strenuous job that they can't change or if a person, you know, a person knows himself. It's a very difficult thing to do. It's not easy. Right? You can't.