Who is excused from fasting in Ramadan, and how do they make it up?

Who is excused

The obligation to fast Ramadan rests on the Muslim who is adult, resident and able. The scholars list the following as legitimately excused:

• The sick — one who is ill, or for whom fasting is severely difficult, may break the fast. If the illness is expected to pass, he makes up the days later.
• The traveller — travel lifts the obligation for the duration, and the days are made up afterwards.
• Menstruating and post-natal women — they do not fast, and they make up the missed days later. This is established from the practice of the Mothers of the Believers; Aisha رضي الله عنها used to delay her make-up fasts until Sha'ban.
• The pregnant and nursing woman — if she fears harm to herself or her child, she breaks the fast and makes up the days later, exactly like the sick person whose recovery is expected.
• The elderly and the chronically ill — one who is permanently unable to fast, whether through old age or an illness from which there is no hope of recovery, is excused and does not make up the days by fasting.

The Permanent Committee stated this last category clearly: the elderly man, the elderly woman, and the sick person whose illness will not pass are all alike — they feed a poor person for each day.

The two ways of making up

The distinction that governs everything is whether the excuse will end.

Temporary excuse — make up by fasting

Illness, travel, menstruation, post-natal bleeding, pregnancy and nursing all fall here. The obligation is not dropped; it is deferred. Once the excuse is gone — you recover, you return from travel, the bleeding stops — you fast the same number of days you missed.

Allah says:

"And whoever is ill or on a journey — then a number of other days."— Qur'an 2:184

The make-up does not have to be done immediately or in one stretch. Aisha رضي الله عنها delayed hers until Sha'ban, and the scholars note there is no requirement to make them up in a particular month. What matters is that they are completed before the next Ramadan, if you are able.

Permanent excuse — feed a poor person

When the inability will not end, the obligation to fast is replaced by feeding. For each day missed, you feed a poor person from the staple of the household, such as wheat, dates or rice. The Malikis and Shafi'is set the amount at a mudd — roughly 700 grams; the Permanent Committee specified half a sa'.

This is the fidyah (the compensation of feeding). It is not a substitute you may choose at will: you may only move to feeding when fasting is genuinely beyond you for good. As one fatwa puts it, you are not asked to feed and it does not discharge you from making up the days as long as you are able to fast — the shift to feeding is only for chronic illness with no expected recovery, or old age in which one cannot fast.

If the make-up is delayed

If you were able to make up the days but postponed them without an excuse until the next Ramadan arrived, then the make-up remains due, plus a compensation for the delay — feeding a poor person for each day. This is the position of the majority of scholars.

Two points soften this:

• If the delay was itself excused — you remained ill, or travelling, or you forgot, or you did not know — then there is no compensation for the delay; only the make-up is owed. Al-Nawawi explained that one who is excused in delaying may continue to delay as long as the excuse lasts, even for years, and owes only the make-up.
• The compensation for delay is not multiplied. Ibn Qudama, in al-Mughni, noted that if the make-up is delayed until several Ramadans have passed, one fidyah per day is owed, not more — because the obligation does not grow with further delay.

If you broke the fast deliberately

This is a different matter from being excused, and it carries its own consequences. Deliberate breaking of the fast without a valid excuse is a major sin, and the person must repent.

As for what is owed:

The expiation for intercourse is established by the well-known hadith of the man who came to the Prophet ﷺ and confessed. The Shafi'is and Hanbalis hold that this expiation applies only to intercourse, not to eating or drinking; the Hanafis and Malikis held that deliberately eating and drinking require it too.

Key takeaways

• Temporary excuses — illness, travel, menstruation, pregnancy, nursing — are made up by fasting the same number of days later.
• Permanent inability — old age or incurable illness — is not made up by fasting; instead you feed a poor person for each day.
• You may only switch to feeding when fasting is genuinely beyond you for good; as long as you can fast, the make-up remains due.
• Delaying the make-up without excuse until the next Ramadan adds a compensation of feeding a poor person per day — but this is not multiplied by further delays.
• Deliberate breaking of the fast requires repentance; intercourse additionally requires the major expiation, while eating and drinking require only the make-up according to the Shafi'is and Hanbalis.

And Allah knows best.