Answered by Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
Do lying, backbiting and tale-telling invalidate one’s fast?
![In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful](../../_images/bism01.jpg)
Lying, backbiting and tale-telling and other such sins that take away the reward of fasting, but do not invalidate the fast itself. Whoever does such a thing, his fast is not broken, but he loses the reward of it, as has come in the hadith, “How many may fast but get nothing from their fast except hunger and thirst.”
For this reason, a fasting person should avoid these things even more than a person who is not fasting, for it has come in a hadith, “Whoever does not leave speaking ill and acting by it, then Allah has no need to give him food and drink.”
It is clear that the great purpose of fasting is to try controlling the nafs (ego), and keeping it from disobedience, not just by leaving food and drink, because this is done by the pious and the sinners, alike. The Real, Most High (Allah) has indicated this in His verses of fasting, where He has said, “ .so that you may have taqwa”.
As for what was related from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that, “Five things invalidate one’s fast, backbiting, tale-telling, lying, kissing and the false oath”, this hadith is false, as Imam al-Nawawi said in the Majmu`. If it was authentic, the meaning of it would have been loss of reward, as Imam al-Mawardi has said; Ibn Hajar related it in the Tuhfa (3:424).
Amjad Rasheed
[Translated by Sr. Shazia Ahmad]