Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #210 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 13 Apr 2021 › Segment 48 of 50
Can I fast for a fixed 12 hours when the days are very long?
sawm roza siyam rozah saum imaam imams prayer leader ramadhan ramzan ramazan ramadaan suhur suhoor sehri sahari sehar pre-dawn meal masjed masaajid masajid mosque fatwah fatawa fatwaa fataawa legal opinion muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam in sha allah insha'allah in shaa allah insha allah inshaa allahWhen to start and end the fast: any calendar, and the 12-hour fatwa
Most recent answer on Who is excused from fasting1 earlier answer on this topic, oldest 2021 ↓
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This segment3:21:50 to 3:28:21 · 6 min 31 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenFollow any timetable you like; Mufti Abu Layth endorses the al-Azhar-derived fatwa that a fast of twelve hours or more is valid for anyone who needs it.
In more detail
Noting that the session covered few Ramadan topics, Mufti Abu Layth takes a question on the start and finish of the fast. He says either start date for Ramadan is fine, and that for daily timings one may follow any calendar, whether the local mosque's, one's city's or one's country's, including the one that gives more ease. He says he has endorsed, in detailed videos, a fatwa going back to an Egyptian al-Azhar ruling and re-endorsed by many, that since day and night in Arabia near the equator were roughly twelve hours each, any fast of twelve hours or more is valid for those who need it, and that nobody can judge another's need. He describes how people apply it, either starting with everyone and counting the hours or setting fixed times such as closing the fast at 4 am and opening it at 5 or 6 pm, and says he is not telling anyone to do this, but those who do have a valid fast in his understanding and should not be condemned.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedWhat is the ruling on the start and finish of the fast in a day?
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says one may follow any reasonable fasting timetable, and that he endorses the fatwa that a fast of twelve hours or more is valid for those who need it, whose need others may not judge.
“i feel that fatwa is valid for people who need it how do you know you need it well i'm not nobody can judge that”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine3:21:50 to 3:28:21 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
you don't know the future there's many great things yet to unfold inshallah for you as there are for for everyone here so people you know what ramadan right here for many of you so let's wrap this up right it's gone on quite a bit um somebody just sent a rock black super chat chakra and ramadan mubarak to you and your family your followers and the beloveds of course to all our beloveds guys i hope you have an awesome ramadan huh right so and what is the ruling of start and
finish of the fast in a day you know we didn't actually deal with many topics about ramadan today it was just like a really good kind of um just i suppose just a nurturing nurturing the kind of session so but i i think that's a great question look i was asked another question as well about ramadan i'll tackle that as well and that was uh so this is about the fast how do we fast and somebody had you know asked that you know there's this whole feel of ramadan and stuff and they don't really um they themselves don't really feel it
is that this is is that bad are they a bad person so that's a very uh good question so firstly fasting i would say when do you fast you can go it's absolutely fine with the differences you can go with whether it's your family or whatever so if you're doing it shortly now or tomorrow it's absolutely fine i don't feel that one is necessary over the other okay fine what about timings once again i would say you can follow any calendar
that you have you can follow your local masjid you can follow one from your city or your country that you find online absolutely fine they may have diversity in them so you may follow one that gives you more ease absolutely fine right what are some of the the leeways or the in this i have got a video and from and i explained in great detail in the last two years that look are people allowed because are people allowed to time their fasts and have time
uh responsive fast as opposed to the regular fast so i have mentioned and i've got a detailed response available online you'll find it if you keep if you search keywords on youtube that yes i do believe that fatwa is valid um that if historically but and it's based going back through the egyptian al-azhari fatwa going back and then being re-endorsed by many people um i have said that look not i've endorsed the fatwa that if you
historically look and you take day and night as two halves they would then make 12 hours so because arabia was pretty close to the equator uh it would have been you know reasonably static throughout so let's say so they say anything 12 hours above is a valid fast now if people were to take that because life is difficult for them um you know it's there's a lot whatever whatever reason people have their own reasons you see
i can't judge your reason because a particular reason of yours may be nothing to me but maybe a reason of mine may be nothing to you like i can't we're not to judge allah is only to judge us but if a person was to take that fatwa and decide you know what i just want i'll tell you what i'll have a 13-hour fast of anything from 12 hours onwards so people may have 12 people may have 13 i mean you know if they go over that they could just go with the normal timing i guess because that's you know they're going to be about whatever 16 whatever hours
anyway so in these situations i feel that fatwa is valid for people who need it how do you know you need it well i'm not nobody can judge that if you felt you needed it and you took it i feel it is valid okay i feel nobody else can judge you in line with that okay how do the these timings work then so with that they've you know people have disagreed some people had said look why don't you just start it when everybody starts it and then you just count the hours fine some people had just said look arbitrarily you could just set
a time so if people said i don't know let's say sunrise was at averaging because it may vary whatever let's say they said like four a.m i'm just going to close my fast at 4 a.m and i'm going to open it at 6 00 p.m fine or they said i'm gonna open it at 5 00 p.m that would be valid according to that fatwa okay now so it can have somewhat somewhat of an arbitrary nature that makes life easy for them a lot that's how i've seen those people who do do that that's how i've seen them do it they just tend to take an arbitrary
time which is usually close to the normal sahur kind of sunrise thing and they just stick to it but some people i've seen they just go with the soho time and just count the hours forward like that so these things are fine i'm not saying you should do that i'm not saying you need to do that all i'm saying is people who do do that you it's not your place to condemn them or judge them okay so their fast is valid in my understanding and it's it's between them and god there's the issue some people say that can they not fast because of certain
difficulties sometimes there's exams sometimes there's other things um you know sometimes it really makes life quite difficult for them in the you know there's certain people who for example um even you know just due to the overall health if they're not consuming water regularly it impacts them negatively there's some people who due to their work environment just don't have that luxury um to you know be kind of whatever look if you are in a position where you can not fast my first point is it is your call
ultimately i cannot make that call you are as imam shatterby says you have to decide whether you are you know you can do it or not and if you feel that you know this is too much for me right now then you can choose not to fast but what do you do instead so the first option would be that you would make this fast up later on if you felt that you know for where you are in the world that you can't but i would feel most people can make it up but if you felt for some reason like let's say it's this health condition like you know my kidneys i need to be drinking certain water every so many
Paragraphs overlapping 3:21:50 to 3:28:21. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-04-13-S48, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/48/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, April 13). Can I fast for a fixed 12 hours when the days are very long? [Video, segment 2021-04-13-S48, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/48/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Can I fast for a fixed 12 hours when the days are very long?" Video, segment 2021-04-13-S48, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 13, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/48/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-04-13-S48, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Can I fast for a fixed 12 hours when the days are very long?}}, year = {2021}, month = {4}, date = {2021-04-13}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/48/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/48/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-04-13-S48, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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