Chronic Asthma and Fasting

Wa Alaykum Assalam wa Rahmatullah wa Barakatuhu,

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful & Compassionate

From a previous question answered by Sidi Sohail Hanif:

However, this [i.e. expiatory payment] is only an option for somebody who is physically unable to make up the fast such as somebody who has an illness which he is not expecting to be cured of, or an old man at the end of his life whose health is diminishing daily, or somebody who has died with fasts not made up and whose inheritors want to atone for his not having made up those fasts by giving money to the poor. As for the one who is able, then he must make up the fasts by actually fasting and he cannot resort to feeding the poor. (Radd al-Muhtar, 2:119, Bulaq).

Also, Shaykh Abdurrahman ibn Yusuf mentioned the following in an answer to a seriously diabetic individual:

If this is not possible and the problem of headaches and vomiting remain a serious problem at all times (even after working with a new regimen of medicine and insulin), then you are considered a person incapable of fasting due to terminal weakness or illness. It is permissible for you to forgo your fasts and pay fidya instead (Tahtawi alal-Maraqi 453). It must be remembered though that in any case, if you somehow become capable of fasting again (even through advanced medicines or treatments), all the missed fasts will have to made up again, even if you had already paid fidya for them (Fatwa Hindiyya 1:207).

Wassalam,

SunniPath Fiqh Team