Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch
Question Summary
Am I required to perform the sixty-day expiatory fast for committing fornication during Ramadan? If so, how many expiations must I do, if I do not know how many times I committed this sin?
Question Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate
Breaking one’s fast by eating, drinking, or sexual intercourse intentionally in the month of Ramadan necessitates for those fasts to be made up and kaffara (60 days of expiatory fasts). That is if one already intended from the night to fast that day. If one did not have any intention to fast, the fast must be made up, but no expiation is required. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]
The sixty expiatory fasts must be done in succession. Therefore one should time them so that no days that are prohibited to fast come within that time period. The prohibited days are the two days of ‘Eid and the three days following ‘Eid al-Adha.
The only exception to this is the days of a woman’s menstruation or post-natal bleeding, as it is unlikely for a woman to go sixty days without menstruation.
One Set of Expiatory Fasts Suffices
If one has repetitively broken their fast in Ramadan and has not performed the expiatory fasts for the first of those breakings – one set of expiatory fasts is sufficient, even if the prior breakings were from more than one Ramadan. This is according to Imam Muhammad (Allah has mercy on him), and this opinion is the relied upon position. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali; Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah citing Bazzaziyya, Mujtaba and others.]
Summary
If you have broken your Ramadan fast due to intercourse, you must perform the aforementioned expiation. If you commit the same sin again and break another fast before expiating for that fast, one expiation is sufficient. The principle is that one expiation suffices all the breaks that were not expiated for before it. [Tahtawi,Shurunbulali; Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]
Moving Forward
Due to your breaking multiple fasts in Ramadan, you must calculate, with reasonable surety, the number of days you did not fast and make them up. Thereafter you must fast sixty consecutive days, timing it that no prohibited days fall within that time. This will suffice you in the obligation of rectifying your situation. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al -Falah]
Hope this helps
And Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani