Who Is Exempt from Fasting? Qada, Fidyah and Kaffarah

Those who make up the days later (qada)

• The sick person whose illness is worsened or delayed in healing by fasting.
• The traveller on a journey that allows shortening the prayer, even if travelling is comfortable.
• The menstruating woman and the woman with postnatal bleeding, for whom fasting is not allowed.
• The pregnant or nursing woman who fears for herself or her child.

“Whoever among you is ill or on a journey, then an equal number of other days” (Qur’an 2:184). The days should be made up before the next Ramadan, consecutively or separately.

Those who pay fidyah instead

The elderly who cannot fast and the chronically ill with no hope of recovery do not make up the days; they feed one poor person for each day missed (fidyah), about half a sa‘ to one sa‘ of staple food, or a meal, depending on the school. Many scholars also allow its value in money.

For the pregnant or nursing woman who broke the fast out of fear for her child, schools differ between making up only, or making up and paying fidyah.

Kaffarah: the major expiation

Kaffarah is due only for breaking a fast of Ramadan through marital relations during the day (and, in the Hanafi and Maliki schools, through deliberate eating and drinking without excuse): fasting two consecutive months, or, if unable, feeding sixty poor people.

Children

Fasting becomes obligatory at puberty. Parents are encouraged to train children gradually, as the Companions did, with half days or a few days at first.

Illness, medication and medical advice

Islam forbids harming oneself: “Do not throw yourselves into destruction” (2:195). A person with diabetes, kidney disease or another condition should ask a trustworthy doctor whether fasting is safe, and many hospitals now publish Ramadan guidance for patients. If fasting would genuinely harm them, not fasting becomes the act of obedience.

Medication schedules can sometimes be moved to suhoor and iftar, which allows some patients to fast. Travelling by plane counts as travel, so the exemption applies to air journeys just as it did to camel journeys.

In brief

• The sick and travellers may break the fast and make it up later.
• The chronically ill and the very old pay the fidyah instead.
• Pregnant and breastfeeding women may break it if they fear harm.
• Menstruating women do not fast and make up the days.
• Missed days should be made up before the next Ramadan.

A closing note

The concessions of fasting are a mercy. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Allah loves that His concessions be taken as He dislikes that His disobedience be committed” (Ahmad). Using a concession when its reason exists is not weakness in religion but obedience, just as breaking the fast without excuse is neglect of a great pillar.

Read next

• What Breaks the Fast in Ramadan (and What Does Not)The things that invalidate the fast in Ramadan, those that do not (toothbrush, injections, blood tests, swimming), and what to do if you ate by mistake.