Embracing Islaam During the Day in Ramadaan

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Embracing Islaam During the Day in Ramadaan
Ash Shaykh Al ‘Allaamah Muhammad ibn Saaleh Al ‘Uthaymeen


Question: If someone embraces Islaam during Ramadaan, is he/she to make up for previous days?

Answer: This person is not required to fast previous days because he was in a state of disbelief at that time. He is not to be asked to make up what he has missed in regards to righteous deeds due to the saying of Allaah Ta’aala:
{Say to those who have disbelieved, if they cease (from disbelief), their past will be forgiven.} [Al Anfaal: 38]
Also due to the fact that people used to embrace Islaam during the life of the Messenger of Allaah (صلى الله عليه وسلّم) and he never ordered them to make up what they had missed in terms of fasting, prayers or Zakaat.


However, if someone embraces Islaam during the day in the month of Ramadaan;

1-Should he start fasting and is he to make up for that particular day?

2-Or is he to start fasting without having to make up for that day?

3-Or should he keep eating and drinking without having to either fast or make up for that day?

There is a difference of opinion amongst the scholars in this issue and the most correct opinion is that he should start fasting without having to make up for that particular day (in which he embraced Islaam in), so it is upon him to stop eating and drinking. It is compulsory upon him to fast because he is now considered to be from amongst those who must perform obligatory deeds, and he doesn’t have to make up for that day because before he embraced Islaam he wasn’t from amongst them. Therefore, [his situation] is like that of a child; if he attains puberty during the day it is upon him to fast and he doesn’t have to make up for that day according to the most correct opinion in this issue as well.

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48 Questions on Ramadaan, Q#: 22

Translated by: Abu ‘Abdul Waahid, Nadir Ahmad.