QADA AND KAFFARAH
As mentioned earlier, breaking a fast early, whether accidentally or on purpose, renders your fast invalid. In a Hadith, the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said:
Whoever misses a day of fasting in Ramadan without a concession or an illness, he will not be able to make up for it even if he were to fast forever. (Tirmidhi)
Therefore, we should be wary about those things that break our fasts and try our best to avoid them, as the reward we’ll lose will be immense.
If our fast does break and become invalid, ideally we should continue to avoid eating and drinking as though we are fasting. Not only will this let the spirit of Ramadan continue for everyone, and also encourage others to continue their fast, it may also be that our fast wasn’t in fact broken and we had wrongly assumed that it was. By not eating, we may preserve our fast and its reward.
However, if someone does one of the actions mentioned earlier that renders the fast invalid, they will have to make up for it later. This is called a Qada fast. They will have to make up this fast after Ramadan, though there are five days in the year in which we can’t keep this Qada fast (along with the days of Ramadan):
1. The two Eid days
2. The three days after Eid al-Adha (known as the Ayyam al-Tashriq)
If a person breaks their fast specifically in the following ways:
• Eats or drinks deliberately whilst being aware that they are fasting without having a valid reason to do so
• Engages in sexual intercourse whether or not there is ejaculation whilst being aware that they are fasting
In such cases, a Kaffarah will be necessary too. Kaffarah is a penalty and a punishment for violating the command of Allah Ta’ala to fast for the entire duration of fasting. It’s a deterrent to discourage anyone from breaking their fast.
The Kaffarah penalty requires the person who broke their fast to primarily fast for sixty days consecutively along with the Qada for the original broken fast. The Qada doesn’t need to be on consecutive days though. If during the sixty day period, they miss a fast, they must begin the sixty days again.
If they can’t fast for that long due to weakness or an illness, they can either feed the poor or pay for their food in one of the following ways:
• Feed sixty poor people two full meals a day
• Feed one poor person two meals a day for sixty days
Nowadays, charity websites already calculate Kaffarah costs, so there may not be a need for calculating, unless you’re personally organising the feeding in a poor area. Note that you can’t choose which Kaffarah you want to give. You must primarily fast, and only give charity if you can’t fast.
BY HUDA PRESS
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