Fasting

What Breaks the Fast in Ramadan (and What Does Not)

The fast lasts from true dawn to sunset. It is broken by deliberately taking in food or drink and by a few other acts. Knowing what breaks the fast, and what does not, prevents both carelessness and needless worry.

What breaks the fast

Eating or drinking deliberately, including smoking.
Marital relations during the day (this also requires kaffarah).
Deliberately causing ejaculation.
Deliberately vomiting (involuntary vomiting does not break it).
Menstruation or postnatal bleeding, even shortly before sunset.
Nutritional injections or drips that replace food and drink.

What does not break the fast

Eating or drinking by mistake: “Let him complete his fast, for it is Allah who fed him and gave him drink” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim).
Brushing the teeth or using a miswak, without swallowing toothpaste.
Rinsing the mouth and nose gently during wudu.
Non-nutritional injections, blood tests and vaccinations, according to most contemporary scholars.
Eye drops and ear drops according to many scholars; swallowing saliva; tasting food with the tongue without swallowing.
Waking up in a state of janabah: the Prophet ﷺ sometimes started the fast in janabah and performed ghusl after Fajr.

Making up and expiation

A day broken without excuse must be made up, with sincere repentance. Breaking the fast through marital relations during the day also requires kaffarah: freeing a slave, or fasting two consecutive months, or feeding sixty poor people (Sahih al-Bukhari). Days missed for an excuse are simply made up before the next Ramadan.

Things to avoid

The fast is not only abstaining from food: “Whoever does not give up false speech and acting upon it, Allah has no need of his giving up food and drink” (Sahih al-Bukhari). Backbiting, arguing and wasting time reduce its reward.

Intention, suhoor and iftar

The obligatory fast needs an intention made at night, before Fajr (Abu Dawud, an-Nasa’i); the Maliki school accepts one intention at the start of Ramadan for the whole month. Eating suhoor is a blessing (al-Bukhari, Muslim), and the Sunnah is to delay it and to hasten the iftar as soon as the sun has set.

Break the fast with fresh dates, otherwise dry dates, otherwise water (Abu Dawud, at-Tirmidhi). Whoever eats thinking the sun had set and then sees it still up must stop and, according to the majority, make up that day; the Companions faced this once on a cloudy day (al-Bukhari).

In brief

Eating, drinking and intercourse during the day break the fast.
Eating by mistake does not break it.
Toothbrushing, eye drops and non-nutritive injections do not break it.
Intercourse requires both making up the day and an expiation.
Suhoor is a blessing and iftar should not be delayed.

Questions and answers

Does an asthma inhaler break the fast?

Many contemporary scholars consider that a metered-dose inhaler does not break the fast because it delivers mainly air and medicine to the lungs; others disagree. Ask a local scholar for your case.

I ate after Fajr without knowing the time. Is my fast valid?

Scholars differ: many say you should make up the day, others say it remains valid because you did not know. Taking care with the time of imsak avoids this.

What if the Fajr adhan begins while I am drinking?

Stop as soon as you are certain that Fajr has begun. Some muezzins call a few minutes early, which is why many timetables add a margin called imsak.