I am personally not inclined to relate religious duties and directives, especially in matters of worship, to their apparent physical advantages. The underlying purpose of all such duties and directives is to equip man adequately to fulfill his role in this life and to prepare him for the achievement of the standard of perfection designed for him in the hereafter. Nevertheless, I do not deny any benefit which we may observe or scientists may discover to result from the fulfillment of such religious duties and directives. It goes without saying that Allah takes into consideration the physical constitution of man before He lays down his duties for him. We must not, however, relate our religious duties solely to what our human knowledge discovers. Our knowledge is, after all, limited and cannot comprehend fully the divine wisdom behind everything that relates to man and his education and training, let alone comprehend everything that relates to the universe.

Allah realizes that man requires help and motivation in order to respond to duty and fulfill it regardless of its benefits. It takes time for man to get used to a certain duty and to be convinced of its wisdom. Hence, the decree of fasting starts with the address made to the believers which reminds them of their essential quality, that is, they believe in Allah. They are then told that fasting has always been a duty required of the believers in all religions. Its principal aim is their education and training so that they acquire a high standard of sensitivity and purity and that the fear of Allah is well established in them: "Believers, fasting is decreed for you as it was decreed for those before you, so that you may remain God-fearing."

The fear of Allah, then, is the great aim of fasting which looms large before our eyes. As the believers fulfill this duty, in total obedience to Allah and in pursuit of His pleasure, they feel the quality of fearing Allah to be a life within them. This is indeed the quality which guards their hearts against spoiling their fast by indulging in sin, even if it is of the type which only passes through the mind. Those who are addressed by the Qur'an are fully aware of the value Allah attaches to this quality of fearing Allah and being conscious of it. Its acquirement is something for which they yearn. Fasting is a tool with which it is achieved, or, we may say, a way which leads to it. Hence, the Qur'an raises it before them as a noble objective which they try to achieve through fasting.

They are then told that fasting is prescribed only for a certain number of days. It is not to be practiced every day in their lives. Exempted from it, however, are the ill, until they have recovered, and the traveling, until they have settled: "Fast a certain number of days. But whoever of you is ill, or on a journey, shall fast instead the same number of days later on."

Taken at its face value, the statement concerning the exemption of the ill and the travelers is general, unrestricted. Hence any illness or journey is a good reason for exemption from fasting, provided that compensation is made when the case which justifies the exemption no longer obtains. This is my understanding of this general, unqualified Qur'anic statement. Moreover, it is more in line with the Islamic concept of relieving the strain and causing no hardship. The exemption is not related to the severity of the illness or the hardship of the journey; it is related to sickness and traveling generally. The purpose of the exemption is that it is Allah's wish to make things easy, not hard, for men.

There may be some considerations known to Allah and unknown to man in these two cases. There may be some hardships which may not immediately appear to us or we may tend to overlook. Since Allah has not attached this exemption to any particular reason, we refrain from making any judgment concerning it. We obey any statement Allah has made, even if its wisdom does not appear immediately to us. What is certain is that there is a wisdom behind it, although we may not necessarily recognize it.

Some people may fear that such an opinion may cause people to be lax or to neglect their worship duties for any reason. Indeed, this is what has prompted Islamic scholars to adopt a more strict attitude and to lay down conditions. This argument, however, does not justify, in my opinion, attaching any restrictions to an unqualified statement made by Allah. Islam does not compel people to be obedient. Its method is to implant in them the fear of Allah so that they obey Him. The acquirement of the quality of fearing Allah is the particular aim of this type of worship. He who tries to make use of certain concessions made by Allah in order to evade fulfilling a duty is, in the first place, devoid of goodness. With such an attitude, the aim behind the religious duty cannot be fulfilled. We must not forget that Islam is a religion laid down by Allah, not man-made. Allah knows best that this religion achieves a perfect balance between the relaxation of certain duties and strict adherence to duty. A certain exemption or concession may serve a certain interest which cannot be served otherwise. Indeed, this must be the case. Hence, the Prophet has ordered Muslims to make use of the concessions and exemptions Allah has allowed them.

If it so happens that people, in a particular generation, have become corrupt, their reform cannot be achieved through an extra strict application of Allah's rules, but through their education and motivation to acquire the quality of fearing Allah. If a strict application of the rules which govern human transactions may be used as a deterrent or as a means to prevent evil when corruption spreads, the same cannot be applied to matters of worship. Worship is a relationship between man and his Lord which has no direct effect on the interests of human beings, in the same way as the rules governing human transactions have. Appearances in matters of worship are irrelevant, unless worship is based on fearing Allah. If this quality is present, no one would try to evade a duty or utilize a concession except when he is fully satisfied that making use of it is preferable, in obedience to Allah, in the particular case in which he finds himself. A strict application of the rules which govern acts of worship generally, or a tendency to restrict the exemptions which have not been qualified originally, may cause some people to refrain from using them when they need them. Moreover, it has little effect in checking those who want to be evasive. It is far better to handle matters in whatever way Allah has made clear to us. He has far more wisdom than [what may be apparent from] His rules which lay down duties or relax them.

You have quoted me correctly. If a person wakes up in the morning of a day of fasting and finds himself in the state of ceremonial impurity i.e. janabah, his fasting remains valid. He needs only to have his grand ablution, i.e. ghusl. The same applies if he gets into the state of ceremonial impurity during the night and delays having a shower to remove it. That does not invalidate his fasting. Obviously, he may miss Fajr prayer if he delays having a bath.

On the other hand, it is not enough that you learn that it is your duty to pray, pay zakah, fast or do the pilgrimage. In each one of these, you have to make a further study in order to know when or how you have to fulfill any of these duties. Moreover, you should learn what things to avoid in order not to render your efforts null and void. How can any Muslim offer a valid prayer, if he does not know that he has to have ablution before it and to stand up facing the direction which leads from his spot to the Ka'aba in Makkah and that he should offer five prayers every day and that each one of them has its time range during which it must be offered? How can one fast properly if he does not know that it is during the month of Ramadhan that fasting is a duty, or that he should start this fasting at dawn and finish at sunset?

Fasting in the month of Ramadhan is one of the main Islamic duties. Every Muslim who is able to do so must fast every day of the month of Ramadhan from dawn to dusk, during which hours he may not eat or drink or have sex with his wife. Allah knows that people may go through certain conditions when they cannot fulfill the duties of fasting or when its fulfillment presents considerable hardship. Therefore, he has allowed people who may have such conditions not to fast on those days when fasting becomes too hard, outlining the conditions for doing so, requiring them at the same time to compensate by fasting later in the year an equal number of days to those days of Ramadhan during which they could not fast. This means that the idea of compensating for non-fasting in Ramadhan is acceptable while such an idea is not acceptable in another major Islamic duty, namely, prayers. It is not open to any person to decide that he is unable to offer prayers at this particular time and he will offer it at a later time. This principle is acceptable in fasting on certain conditions. Moreover, the compensation is of duration similar to the concession. If a person does not fast two days in Ramadhan for valid reasons, he has to compensate for them by fasting two days [sometime] later. There is no punishment and no need for doing an additional duty by way of atonement.

The situations which allow or require a Muslim not to fast during the month of Ramadhan are illness, traveling and, for women only, being pregnant, breast-feeding and having menstrual or postnatal period. There are certain details for each of these conditions.

When people know about the concession of not fasting when one is ill or traveling, they assume that the illness must be of the severe variety and the travel must be of the very tiring variety to qualify the ill person or the traveler to make use of this concession. This is not right. Allah has stated this condition in the Qur'an in the most general of terms. Therefore, any situation which people normally describe as illness is all that is needed for a person to make use of Allah's concession. The only thing required of him is to compensate after Ramadhan is over by fasting one day for each day of non-fasting in Ramadhan. It is not necessary that those compensatory days be offered consecutively. Compensatory fasting may be taken at any time during the rest of the year until the next month of Ramadhan is due.

Exemption from fasting during illness or travel is a concession of which all Muslims may avail themselves. If they fast, then their fasting is valid, although it is perhaps more preferable they should avail themselves of the concession. In the case of a woman in her menstruation or her postnatal period, non-fasting is mandatory. If she fasts, her fasting is not acceptable. Indeed, she puts herself in a difficult position if she does. Compensation by fasting a similar number of days would still be required in these cases.

As for a woman who is pregnant or who is breast-feeding, she may not fast if she fears for her health or [for the health of] her baby. I will come to the compensation she has to offer in a little while. My reader asks about feeding a poor person? This is a compensation, for not fasting, which was required of Muslims in the very early days of Islam when fasting was not obligatory. A Muslim could then choose not to fast, but to feed a poor person instead. Ever since the second year of the Prophet's settlement in Madinah, fasting in the month of Ramadhan became obligatory on all Muslims who are able to undertake this duty. It is no longer a matter of choice between fasting and feeding a poor person. However, if a person is in such a condition that makes him unable to fast in Ramadhan and unable to fast later, what can he do? The answer is that compensation by feeding a poor person is operative in this case. For each day of Ramadhan, he should give every poor person two meals of the average type he has in his home normally. He may, if he so wishes, give the poor person the cost of that meal in cash, according to a number of eminent scholars. The persons to whom this opinion remains valid are: 1) a very old man or woman who can no longer bear the difficulty of fasting from dawn to dusk; 2) a person who is chronically ill and has little hope of recovery; and 3) a woman who is pregnant or breast-feeding, particularly one who finds herself pregnant this year, breast-feeding next year, pregnant again the following year and breast-feeding the year after that. She is thus in a similar situation to a person who is chronically ill. In all these cases, compensation may be offered by way of feeding a poor person for one day (two meals) in place of each missed day of fasting.