Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #210 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 13 Apr 2021 › Segment 49 of 50
Can I skip fasting because of work, exams or health, and what do I do instead?
sawm roza siyam rozah saum imaam imams prayer leader ramadhan ramzan ramazan ramadaan fatwah fatawa fatwaa fataawa legal opinion muftis wajib waajib wajibat koran quraan al-quran ayah aya ayat ayaat aayah aayat ulama ulema ulamaa al-din ad-deen ad-din religion ibadah ibada ibaadah ibadat rahmah rahma rahmatIf I cannot fast: my own call, making up, fidya and the reading of 2:184
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This segment3:28:21 to 3:34:59 · 6 min 38 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenIt is your call: make the fast up later if you can, or give fidya if your situation will not change, which Mufti Abu Layth bases on the plain wording of Quran 2:184.
In more detail
On whether people may leave the fast because of difficulties such as exams, health or work, Mufti Abu Layth says it is ultimately their own call, as al-Shatibi says, and that they should make the fast up later if they can. If the condition will not change, such as needing water every few hours for the kidneys or a job that will not change, he says they give fidya for each day, based on the apparent reading of the Quran that those who are capable of fasting give fidya (2:184); he says the majority read an implied negation into the verse and calls this a poor attempt at reconciliation, holding that God left the wording as a mercy for those who need it. To the objection that he is giving people an excuse not to fast, he says he is explaining the deen as it is and that another's fasting should not bother anyone, since resentment reflects treating worship as a punishment. To the objection that a twelve-hour fast is nothing, he says fasting is about personal commitment, not starving.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedCan people not fast because of certain difficulties, such as exams, their health or their work environment?
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says whether one can fast is one's own decision, that those who cannot should make the fast up later or, if their situation will not change, give fidya on the apparent reading of 2:184, and that fasting is a personal commitment, not a punishment.
“in that case i would say that you give fidya for each day that you miss okay and this is based on the apparent reading of the quran”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine3:28:21 to 3:34:59 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
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
hours then that's not going to change or i'm in this job and this job doesn't change you know i'm in this job in that case i would say that you give fidya for each day that you miss okay and this is based on the apparent reading of the quran and as to those who are capable of fasting but don't that well what is obligatory for them so allah says is obligatory for those who are actually capable as in physically they could do it they have the physical like if they were stretched they could physically do it you they have the taka
uh that they they then give a video instead of now i know the majority scholars interpret this verse because apparently it reads as exactly as as i've told you so they say no there's a negative missing here uh so a little on those who are not capable but allah just dropped the not so i find that you know a bit poor of an attempt to reconcile such an important word of the quran because how can because you're saying
allah you know that he he put in a positive with the affirmative where there was meant to be a negative and that's an absolute opposite it's like me saying go and then you say yeah but he forgot the word or he missed the word don't that is exactly what they're saying here so i feel that allah left that in there for all time that they will whenever because islam is to reach all time and all people and there will be a people who for some reason may need to lean in on that verse and use it as a source of mercy for them and ultimately is allah's quran you know it's his is ultimately this is no you know it's
nobody's personal deen is not your dad's thing and if people felt that dire need to lean in on it then fine it is there it is a clear verse of the quran now people will say that mufti by saying this stuff you're giving people an excuse not to fast i would say in response to that first of all that's not what i'm doing i'm just explaining the deen as it is i'm not going to hide things which are clear verses of the quran that would be a hypocrisy on my part secondly what i'm going to say is that look why does it bother you like why does it because look to me if i'm gonna fast why do i care whether
the other person is not i mean sure i would like people to but i need to focus on my own deen look that's like me saying that i'm only going to pray for everybody praise why i'm only going to be a nice human being if everybody's a nice human being oh i'm fasting why is he not fasting in everybody should be fast otherwise why am i fasting you're fasting because it is your commitment to allah it is not you see whether he or she fast is not who cares okay fine you know you you would like every it's like i would like everybody on earth to be a good person to be a nice person but that shouldn't stop me from not
being a good person i shouldn't think well why is he not being a good person why do i have why should i then be a good person see we should focus on ourselves it shouldn't bother me because if it bothers me that much then that problem lies within me that goes to show that i've got a problem with what i'm doing i don't even want to be doing it and that is a problem because if you are doing something just ah god has forced me to do this that's not how i do things personally and i don't recommend that that be your take on your deen that is
something you do almost as a punishment because that to be honest that is the punishment response isn't it like if like if we're all sitting here chilling and somebody came in and said i've got to do this then that would be my response let's let's be real isn't it i would be like but why do they get to chill then you know that's because it's like a punishment isn't it it's like i'm being i'm doing something i i don't want to do it i i completely dislike it i i want to do this so i have a problem with what you're telling me so i'm saying well either make all of us do it or don't
make me do it and that's usually to do with punishments and fasting is not a punishment or these things are not a punishment okay so and that ties into the next point that people would say well mufti you know if they fast 16 17 hours you know they really feel it by telling somebody to fast 12 or hours above and by the way i'm not the one who's come up with that that fatwa has been going on for for decades on end but i just also endorse its validity it must be by telling somebody to fast i don't know anything 12 hours forward let's say 12 13 hours onwards it's nothing you know somebody could just
whatever you know this piece of cake you could start your faster i don't know let's say they said somebody started a four and opened it at five that's nothing right because they didn't even really starve they just well my answer to you is that the fasting was not about starving fasting was not about you know it was about a personal commitment so you have got the very basis of it wrong right so
mufti you have 15 minutes to have your last meal i'm not fasting today i'm starting it on wednesday i said that in the beginning guys let's wrap this up have an awesome time wherever you are i know you guys are not uh right oh damn i did say i'll mention as well look somebody this topic if you don't find you know somebody said they don't find these things very spiritual like in the sense everybody else does uh are they a bad person no they're not a bad person you know it doesn't just because look it is a great vibe for many people this whole ramadan thing or things like
Paragraphs overlapping 3:28:21 to 3:34:59. Full text on the recording page.
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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-S49, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/49/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, April 13). Can I skip fasting because of work, exams or health, and what do I do instead? [Video, segment 2021-04-13-S49, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/49/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Can I skip fasting because of work, exams or health, and what do I do instead?" Video, segment 2021-04-13-S49, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 13, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/49/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-04-13-S49, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Can I skip fasting because of work, exams or health, and what do I do instead?}}, year = {2021}, month = {4}, date = {2021-04-13}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/49/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/49/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-04-13-S49, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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