مفسدات الصيام

What breaks the fast, according to all schools: • Eating or drinking deliberately, knowing that one is fasting. The broken day must be made up. • Marital relations during the day. Besides making up the day, there is an expiation (kaffaara): freeing a slave, otherwise fasting two consecutive months, otherwise feeding sixty poor people (Bukhari 1936, Muslim 1111). • The start of menstruation or post-natal bleeding, even just before sunset. The day must be made up. • Making oneself vomit deliberately. Involuntary vomiting does not break the fast (Abu Dawud 2380, Tirmidhi 720) [À VÉRIFIER : numéros et degré].

What does not break the fast: • Eating or drinking out of forgetfulness. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Whoever forgets he is fasting and eats or drinks, let him complete his fast: it is Allah who fed him and gave him drink." (Bukhari 1933, Muslim 1155). For the Maliki school, however, the day must be made up [À VÉRIFIER]. • Swallowing one's saliva, rinsing the mouth or nose without overdoing it (the Prophet ﷺ asked not to sniff water in too hard while fasting: Abu Dawud 2366) [À VÉRIFIER : numéro]. • Waking up in a state of major impurity (janaaba): one takes the ghusl and fasts normally (Bukhari 1925-1926). • Using the siwaak (tooth stick). Some scholars advise against toothpaste, for fear of swallowing it.

A difference between the schools: does eating or drinking deliberately, without excuse, also require the kaffaara (two months of fasting, etc.)? For the Hanafi and Maliki schools, yes; for the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools, only the make-up day is owed (with repentance), the kaffaara being reserved for marital relations. In every case, deliberately breaking the Ramadan fast without excuse is a grave sin that calls for sincere repentance.

Questions debated today. Contemporary scholars and fiqh academies do not always agree on: • injections (nourishing or not), drips; • asthma inhalers, drops in the nose, eyes or ears; • blood tests, dental treatment, suppositories; • hijaama (cupping), which breaks the fast according to the Hanbali school and not according to the majority. The course does not settle these cases: ask the imam what the centre teaches, and your doctor what your health requires [À VÉRIFIER : position du centre sur les traitements médicaux].

A mistake about the time. If someone eats believing dawn has not yet come, or that the sun has already set, then learns they were mistaken, most scholars require that day to be made up; others do not [À VÉRIFIER]. The centre's prayer timetable helps avoid such mistakes.

Understanding the lesson

Explanation Behind the list there is a logic. Fasting means deliberately abstaining from food, drink and marital relations. So what breaks the fast is first of all deliberately taking food or drink into the body, and marital relations. What happens without our will (forgetting, involuntary vomiting, swallowed dust) is treated leniently. Allah teaches the supplication: "Our Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make a mistake" (meaning of part of 2:286).

For modern medical questions, scholars start from these principles and ask, for example, whether a substance nourishes the body or reaches the stomach by a usual route. Their answers differ, which is why the course does not decide. A piece of advice: don't take religious rulings on these questions from videos or messages without a source, but ask the imam, and the doctor about your health.

Excessive doubt should also be avoided. Someone who swallows their saliva, rinses their mouth carefully or wakes up in a state of major ritual impurity need not worry: their fast is valid.

Lessons to draw from it • Knowing the logic of the rules helps us not to worry for nothing. • For medical treatment, ask the imam and the doctor, not social media. • Whoever deliberately broke the fast without excuse repents sincerely and makes it up, asking the imam what else is due. • Use the centre's timetable to avoid mistakes at dawn and at sunset.

Key points to remember • What breaks the fast: deliberately eating or drinking, marital relations, menstruation or post-natal bleeding, deliberately making oneself vomit. • Eating or drinking out of forgetfulness does not break the fast for the majority (Bukhari 1933, Muslim 1155); the Maliki school requires the day to be made up. • The schools differ on kaffarah for deliberate eating and on medical treatments: ask the imam.

The main message The fast is broken by what we do deliberately; Allah forgives forgetfulness, and for debated cases we ask the imam.