BENEFITS OF FASTING
- Fasting gives the individual a real taste of hunger and thirst which helps him to realize the experience of the poor. This experience should instil a desire to want to help those who are less fortunate by sharing food and wealth with them.
- It is required that the individual give up not only food, drink and sexual relations, but also that he restrain from all forms of lying (e.g. backbiting, slander, etc.) indecent acts and unnecessary talk.
- It has also been noted by Medical experts that fasting improves the physical health in numerous ways. For example, during the fast the body uses up stored Cholesterol (fats) which are often deposited in the blood system, as well as in other fatty areas of the body. Thus, it minimizes the danger of Heart attacks.
- Fasting trains the individual for Jihad (Fighting in the way of Allah) by giving him a good course in self-control. During war the desires of the stomach and the private parts often lead soldiers of war to either commit excesses or to unnecessarily expose themselves to danger.
EXEMPTION FROM FASTING
- Traveller
- Sick person
- Pregnant women
- Breast-feeding mother
- Weak or Old Aged person
- Mujahid while in Jihad
KAFFARA FOR NOT FASTING
- Kaffara is the punishment as a Compensation for a sin one has committed or for an obligatory deed that one was unable to do or the intentional breaking of the fast in Ramadan.
The Kaffarah for breaking the fast of Ramadan is as follows:
- If the fast of Ramadan is invalidated intentionally by intercourse, its expiation (Compensation) is Fasting for 2 months consecutively.
- A person who has become extremely weak due to old age or disease and has no hope of an early recovery and is unable to fast, is required by Shari'ah to feed a poor person for every missed day.
- A woman who breaks her fast due to menses, bleeding after child birth, pregnancy, suckling or the like is only required to make up the fast days which she missed before the next Ramadan.