Five Conditions Make Fasting Obligatory

No Happy birthday.

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Alhamdulillah. Continuing in a an abridgement of sorts of authored by may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala have mercy upon him. May he lengthen and make spacious for him his grave and may he subhanahu wa ta'ala fill it with light and reward him for what he had put forth for the ummah of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam and all of the scholars of Islam and students of knowledge. And so we are in the book of fasting and the chapter regarding the pillars of fasting. Before we go into the pillars, let's do a little bit of review. What are the points of criteria or we could say the conditions for fasting being obligatory upon a person. How many are there? Five. Good. Very good. Number one, Muslim. Number two, of of age of puberty or above. Number three, sanity. Number four is health. Number five, resident, not a traveler. And for a female there's an additional and that is that she is not upon on her menstrual cycle or postpartum bleeding. Now on to the pillars of fasting. How many pillars for fasting? Two pillars. The first one intention. The second refraining refraining from anything that will break a person's fast from the break of dawn until sunset. Okay. Now before we get into the things that will break a person's fast, I want to mention one thing and that is with respect to intention. We mentioned that for an obligatory fast for fasting Ramadan vows kafur experation for you know the the various reasons a person would fast but it is an obligatory fast. A person must have his intention set out when the night before the break of dawn. So before the aden of fud. Now having said this this intention is a pillar. Now remember what we mentioned about pillars that a condition is outside and a pillar is part of the act of worship. There's a reason why the scholars place intention in fasting as a pillar and not as a condition because in most instances most acts of worship salah for instance. The scholars mention they list intention as being a condition of salah not a pillar of salah. So what's the difference here? What changed even in this same book here? If we go to the book of Salah and we look at the chapter regarding the conditions of salah, we find that one of the conditions of salah is intention. It's not one of the pillars. It's counted as a condition. We fast forward to the book of fasting and intention now isn't a condition. It is a pillar. The question is why? What is the author telling us with this? Well, what this means is that a person must have that intention of fasting throughout his day. A person must have the intention of fasting. They are refraining from eating or drinking, refraining from anything that will break their fast from the break of dawn until the sun sets. And that intention runs through the entirety of the day. That's why it's counted as a pillar. Why? Well, for instance, let's say a person is fasting and they decide they're going to break their fast right before the time before the time of sunset say, "You know what? I'm going to break my fast." But then as they go and pop open the refrigerator or whatever it is that they're going to break their fast, their eye catches the clock and they see there's only half an hour left, right? They said half an hour. I might as well just continue. They need to make this day over. Why? Because they intended to break their fast. This is why the scholars place intention as a pillar of fasting whereas in salah it is a condition of salah. There's a difference there that the intention has to be maintained throughout the day. Whereas if a person were to intend its opposite, even if they don't break their fast physically with their intention, they have broken their fast. And this is something that could come up. for instance, let's say someone has an allowance to break his fast. Let's say someone is traveling. Same scenario. They're traveling. So they can break their fast if they want, right? It's an obligatory fast. It's Ramadan. and they decide they're going to fast and you know they start getting thirsty or whatever they they decide I'm going to break my fast right as they're driving. So they pull over into the rest stop. They put some money in the in the soda machine. They grab a soda, grab a snack. As they go to open it, their eye catches the clock. There's only 20 minutes left. They say there's only 20 minutes left. I might as well finish it. Right? They have already broken their fast because the intention to break a person's fast breaks a person's fast. That's why the scholars place intention in the pillar section of fasting and not in the condition section. That intention has to be maintained throughout the day. Right? This is important. Now, there is a difference between contemplating breaking your fast and having the set intention to break your fast. What breaks your fast is a set intention to break your fast. And this is why we say, you know, he opens the fridge or he takes the glass of water, what have you. He has the intention to break his fast. The the the fact that he didn't is incidental, but he had the intention to break his fast. That's different than, well, I'm going to prepare myself to break my fast, but I'm still unsure. Unsure doesn't break a person's fast. It is only when they have the solemn intention to break their fast. At that moment they have broken their fast. Yes.

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An allowance to break their fast, traveler, illness, etc. They can break their fast at any time they choose. They can break their fast anytime they choose. If they start the day fasting and then they decide to break their fast later, they have the allowance to do that. However, they have to make the day up. Same thing with the intention. The person intends to break his fast 10 15 minutes before time and then doesn't, they've already broken their fast. So, they have to make that day up because it's an obligatory fast. Now if it is a if it is a fast that is a meaning it is a optional right so not Ramadan not making up days from Ramadan not a kafar right not something that is obligatory there's many types of obligatory fasting let's say a person is fasting for a person is fasting fasting for ada person is fasting a Monday or Thursday person is fasting one of the three days of each month or just any optional fast they can continue their fast and inshallah their fast is accepted and it doesn't break by merely intention because optional fasting has a little bit different rules with respect to intention than obligatory fasting Yes, that's what it was. Okay. So, where do we get this from? We might as well go ahead and discuss this now. And that is that narrates that the prophet sallall.aii wasallam and his wives in general narrated that the prophet sallall.aii Wasam would come at midday midday so before and he would ask his wives do we have anything to eat and if they said no he would then say then I am fasting right he can't eat anyways there's nothing to eat might as well fast now this is midday he didn't have the solemn intention to fast at the break of dawn. This is an optional fast. The scholars have cited this narration and others it that optional fasting a person can intend to fast at any time throughout the day as long as they haven't done anything that would otherwise break their fast since the break of dawn. So, a person can't have breakfast and then say, "I'm fasting, an optional fast." Okay? They have to have not eaten or drank anything or had sexual activity, not done any of the things that will break a person's fast since the break of dawn. They can choose to fast at any time throughout the day. Some scholars say we need to stay within the parameters of the narration and that is before. So before a person can intend to fast after a person cannot because most of the day has gone by. However, this parameter is not necessarily the case. Optional fasting a person may choose to fast at any time throughout the day. Right? if a person hasn't eaten or or hasn't done anything that would break their fast from the break of dawn and 10 minutes before me decides you know what I haven't eaten or drank anything today I haven't done anything that would have broken my fast I'm going to intend this to be fasting and break my fast in 10 minutes is that permissible yes this is permissible inshallah this is acceptable a person intends to break his fast during an optional fast but then doesn't do they need to make it up no they can continue their fast and inshallah is acceptable so intentions with respect to optional fasting is less strict is less stringent however with obligatory fasting the intention must be there coherent and clear from the break of dawn on until the sun sets uninterrupted. Uninterrupted meaning they have not when we say interrupted meaning they have not had the intention to oppose their fast.

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Okay. So going on into the pillars of fasting, we can mention them very quickly and then we will unpack them one by one tomorrow inshallah. So the things that will break a person's fast are five things. Some scholars mention them as six. Here in this book, the author mentions them as six, but we can say five because one is very similar to the other and that is right. So five or if you wish six things will break a person's fast. six things. When we learn these things, we know that anything aside from these six will not break a person's fast. Okay? Anything outside of these six, if they're not on this list, the fast is correct. All right? The first and second, eating or drinking anything intentionally. This is a very important a very important stipulation and that is eating or drinking anything purposely. Meaning a per a person knows that he's fasting and then proceeds to eat or drink something. Right? This will break a person's fast. Eating or drinking anything purposely and we'll discuss these things in detail tomorrow inshallah. We want to set them out. I want them to I want these things to be in your mind. This list kind of turn it over in your mind. Let it simmer on the back burner and then we can unpack it in more detail tomorrow inshallah. So we want to just plant the seed today. So the first and second eating or drinking anything intentionally that's one and two. Number three.

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The third is inducing vomiting. is that a person induces vomiting. That a person does this vomiting on purpose. He makes himself vomit. Right? If a person were to just vomit, they smell something, they think of something, they get an upset stomach, whatever it is, and they vomit. They're ill, they're sick, they're feeling sick, and they vomit. This will not break their fast. A person making himself vomit, right? Inducing vomiting. He sticks his fingers in and makes himself vomit. This will break a person's fast. Now, this might sound strange to some people. You say, you know, what are you making yourself vomit for? Right? It's like, but no, this is actually one of the prophetic remedies in the Sunnah. One of the prophetic remedies in the Sunnah is to vomit. A person eats something bad. A person, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam made himself vomit on a number of occasions. Abu Bakr, others of the companions. This is part of the prophetic medicine. Number four and five or you could count it as four is ministration or postpartum. We mentioned that postpartum bleeding. We've mentioned before that so menration and postpartum bleeding they have the same rulings throughout all of the Islamic legislation except in three places only in three instances there's the the Islam Islam differentiates between ministration and postpartum. Other than that, it's a rule of thumb that menration and postpartum have the same rulings across the board. Okay. And number six, the sixth and final is intercourse. Intercourse. And intercourse has parameters. It it can be quantified what is intercourse, what is the threshold of intercourse. The prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam identified the threshold of intercourse and intercourse purposely knowingly during the day of Ramadan without an allowance to break one's fast is a major sin in Islam and it has one of the most strict repercussions which is to fast two consecutive months Right. This is only matched by a and and accidental killing killing some a Muslim by accident. So this really shows you just how serious this infraction is in Islam. This is the sixth elim which is intercourse. Now the author doesn't stipulate amden. He doesn't say intercourse purposely he did with eating and drinking he did with and we'll discuss that issue inshallah when it comes up. So six things or we could say five. Let's list them very quickly. Number one and two, eating and drinking anything knowingly. Three, intentional vomiting, inducing vomiting. Number four and five, ministration and postpartum. Number six, intercourse. Very easy. Sheh, I got my arm cut off. Does that break my fast? It's not on this list. I pulled a tooth. Does this break my fast? You look at the list. It's not on the list, right? I have blood drawn. Does it break my fast? It's not on the list. A suppository. Does it break my It's not on the list. Eye drops. Does it break my It's not on the list. This is why we learn the list, right? And we will detail these tomorrow inshallah. Yes. nasal spray which goes into is a very good question which goes into eating and drinking intentionally. Why? Because the nose and the mouth both empty to the throat. And so a nasal spray, , this is actually a type of prophetic medicine as well to use, , black seed and to drop it into the back of the nasal and so forth. This will break a person's fast. This is part of eating and drinking intentionally because eating and drinking doesn't necessarily mean something that you chew, right? And that's why we have to unpack these six things tomorrow. But I want you to memorize the list today. Six things. Eating and drinking intentionally. Self-induced vomiting. Four and five. Ministration. Postpartum bleeding. Number six. Alcourse. for.