Answered by Shaykh Sohail Hanif, SunniPath Academy Teacher
I have a question regarding making up years of missed fasts. I am 25 years old but only started to practice the deen when I was about 20. I spoke to a very knowledgeable imam at my local mosque and he told me that according to hanafi fiqh, a monetary payment can be calculated based on the number of fasts that have been missed and can be given to rectify missing the fasts. The imam calculated to be around £2,500 and I eventually saved up the money. The imam told me that I would have to give the money as an equivalent of feeding the poor. Upon saving up the money, I found out that the family of the imam of my local masjid (different imam to the previous) in Pakistan were severely impoverished and that they may not have anywhere to live without an immediate source of finance. I gave the imam this £2,500 as my recompense for missing the fasts. I am now really concerned as to whether this was the right type of cause to give the money for? Please can you help, it’s a lot of money I am worried that I conducted the whole things in a manner contradictory to what the shariah commands.
Assalamu alaykum
Your imam was only part-way correct in mentioning that fasts can be made up by giving a certain amount of money in charity, this is termed the fidya. Why this is the case and how it is to be given is discussed at following link:
Expiatory payments on behalf of the dead?
However, this 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).The money that you gave, therefore, does not atone for the fasts which you have missed. However, do not think that you have wasted the money. It was spent with a good intention and Allah does not neglect the reward for those who do good. Giving charity is one of the secrets by which one is granted tawfiq in one’s life.
May Allah grant us all tawfiq in fulfilling what is due of us.
Sohail Hanif