Islamic Fiqh > Fasting > Ramadan: fasting, rules and dispensations > What breaks the fast of Ramadan
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Updated on 27 September 2026 at 3:52 AM
The fast of Ramadan is a strict act of worship: certain acts invalidate it and require a makeup day, sometimes an expiation as well. This page reviews, school by school, the cases that break the fast: sexual intercourse, deliberate eating or drinking, ejaculation through touching or thoughts, anything introduced into the body, the treatment of wounds, deliberate vomiting and menstruation.
People of knowledge agree: whoever has complete intercourse on a day of Ramadan while resident and having intended the fast at night has disobeyed Allah and His Messenger, and the major expiation is due from him. It consists of freeing a slave, or fasting two consecutive months, or feeding sixty poor people (Ibn Hubayra, al-Ifsah 1/400; an-Nawawi, al-Majmu' 7/531; Ibn Qudama, al-Mughni 4/176).
Eat and drink until the white thread becomes distinct to you from the black thread of dawn; then complete the fast until night.
Surah al-Baqara, 187
This verse made lawful at night what it forbids by day: whoever has intercourse in daytime has therefore violated the sanctity of an explicit text, and this is one of the strongest proofs of the expiation.
The jurists differed: does one who eats or drinks deliberately owe both makeup and expiation, or only makeup, the expiation remaining specific to intercourse?
The Hanafis and the Malikis hold that whoever breaks the fast deliberately with food or drink owes the makeup day and the expiation, because the fast, legally, is refraining from food and from intercourse: what is established in one is established in the other, and the one who combines both has violated the sanctity of the month by a deliberate breaker; the expiation is then that of zihar (Bidaia al-Mujtahid 1/414-415; Badai' al-Sanai' 2/639; al-Mabsut 3/73; al-Majmu' 7/454; al-Mughni 4/170).
Abu Hanifa however set a condition: the substance taken must serve for nourishment or treatment; whoever swallows a pebble or a pit owes no expiation, and two positions are transmitted from Malik concerning the swallowing of a pebble.
The Shafi'is and the Hanbalis hold that whoever eats or drinks deliberately owes only the makeup day, without expiation. Ibn Rushd explains: their divergence concerns the validity of drawing an analogy between the breaker who eats and drinks and the breaker who has intercourse; those who see only one shared feature, the violation of the fast's sanctity, unified the two rulings, while those who see the expiation, although it punishes a violation of sanctity, as better suited to intercourse than to anything else, because the purpose of punishment is deterrence, kept it for intercourse (Bidaia al-Mujtahid 1/414-415).
As for the hadith Malik reports in the Muwatta of a man who broke his fast in Ramadan and whom the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) ordered to offer the expiation, they do not take it as proof: the narrator's words, "he broke his fast", are vague, and no general ruling can rest on a vague wording; the narrator would not have needed that word unless he held the expiation tied to the very occasion of breaking (Bidaia al-Mujtahid 1/414-415).
The Hanafis add: the expiation is due only if the faster had intended the fast and then broke it; whoever enters the day of Ramadan without intending to fast and then eats, drinks or has intercourse owes only the makeup of that day, without expiation. Al-Sarakhsi states it: "whoever eats or drinks deliberately owes, in our view, the makeup and the expiation", while according to ash-Shafi'i there is no expiation, because the text instituting it targets intercourse that destroys the fast, and extending it to food would rest on analogy: yet the specific motives of intercourse do not transfer to it (al-Mabsut 3/73-74; Badai' al-Sanai' 2/649).
The Hanafis also rely on the hadith of Abu Hurayra in which a man says: "I broke my fast in Ramadan", whom the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) questioned before ordering a freeing, and on the statement of Ali: "the expiation concerns only eating, drinking and intercourse".
On the swallowed pebble, the Hanafis say: the pillar of the fast is abstaining from getting anything into the body's interior, and that vanished through swallowing the pebble, so the fast is broken but without expiation; Malik, for his part, counts him as one who broke without excuse and owes the expiation, for his transgression here is more blatant, no craving driving him to such an act (al-Mabsut 3/74).
Does the expiation follow an order, or may the person concerned choose one of its three forms?
The Hanafis, the Shafi'is and the Hanbalis in the most widely known position hold it ordered, like the expiation of zihar, on the basis of the hadith of Abu Hurayra:
A man came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said: I am ruined. He asked: what is the matter? He answered: I had intercourse with my wife while fasting. He asked: do you have a slave you could free? He said: no. He asked: can you fast two consecutive months? He said: no. He asked: can you feed sixty poor people? He said: no. The Prophet waited, then a large basket of dates was brought to him. He said: where is the one who asked? The man came forward, and he said: take this and give it as charity. The man said: to someone poorer than me, Messenger of Allah? By Allah, between the two districts of Medina there is no household poorer than mine. The Prophet laughed until his canine teeth showed, then said: feed it to your family.
reported by al-Bukhari 1834 and Muslim 1111
The Malikis and Ahmad in one transmission hold it by choice: freeing a slave, fasting two consecutive months, or feeding sixty poor people; among the Malikis, feeding the poor is preferred to freeing and to fasting, on the basis of the hadith in which the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) ordered a man who had broken his fast in Ramadan to expiate by freeing a slave, or by fasting two consecutive months, or by feeding sixty poor people (Muslim 1111; Malik, al-Muwatta 657). The word "or" expresses choice, and this expiation has no cause in destruction nor in a compelled excuse, which introduces choice into it as into the expiation of the oath (ash-Sharh al-Saghir 1/460; al-Majmu' 7/554; al-Mughni 4/187-188).
Ibn Rushd gives its cause: the conflict between explicit reports. The wording of the Bedouin's hadith imposes the order, since the Prophet questioned him on his ability form by form, while Malik's report expresses choice through the conjunction "or", which in Arabic expresses nothing else (Bidaia al-Mujtahid 1/417-418).
The jurists agree: whoever has intercourse on a day of Ramadan, expiates, then does so again on another day owes a second expiation, for the cause of the ruling repeated itself and each day is a separate act of worship (Bidaia al-Mujtahid 1/418; al-Mughni 4/194; Badai' al-Sanai' 2/650; Zufer reports from Abu Hanifa that one expiation suffices, but the main transmissions require two).
The divergence concerns one who repeats on the same day before expiating.
The Malikis, the Shafi'is and Ahmad in the sounder transmission require two expiations: each day of Ramadan is a distinct act of worship, he corrupted the fast of two days, and those two fasts are not corrupted by one another, like two pilgrimages or two umras.
The Hanafis, with Abu Bakr al-Khiraqi whose view this is apparently, impose only one: the expiation is the penalty for a transgression whose cause repeats before it is fulfilled, so the penalties must merge like the fixed punishments; the hadith of the Bedouin, who ordered a single freeing, shows the ruling does not vary with repetition. Al-Kasani adds: this expiation carries a meaning of deterrence achieved by one expiation alone, and when he repeats after expiating he knows the first failed to deter (Badai' al-Sanai' 2/650).
The jurists agree: a woman forced into intercourse in daytime of Ramadan has her fast broken and must make the day up. The divergence concerns the expiation.
Abu Hanifa, Malik, ash-Shafi'i in one view and Ahmad in the most apparent transmission impose it on her as on the man: the cause of the expiation is the transgression of the fast's sanctity, not intercourse itself, in which she shared; every ruling of intercourse applies to her as to him: the full bath, the breaking, the fixed punishment, the state of inviolability, the makeup, and so also the expiation (ash-Sharh al-Saghir 1/457; al-Ishraf 299; al-Mughni 4/186).
Ash-Shafi'i in his madhhab and Ahmad in a transmission exempt her: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) ordered the offender to free a slave without prescribing anything to the woman, though he knew her situation; the expiation is a property right attached to intercourse, like a bride gift owed by the man alone. In al-Umm he says: when he expiates, it suffices for him and his wife, as in pilgrimage; and the Sunna went this way, since neither the Prophet nor the report of the pilgrimage ordered the wife to expiate.
The qadi Abd al-Wahhab states among the Malikis: if dawn rises while he is inside her and he stays there, the expiation is due from him; likewise for one who eats forgetfully then eats deliberately: if it is an excusable interpretation, no expiation; if it is boldness and an intent to violate, the expiation is due (al-Ishraf 299).
The Hanafis, for continuing without withdrawing at once, impose only makeup: his intercourse met no valid fast, so he corrupted nothing, the expiation requiring the corruption of an existing fast; the makeup answers the absence of that day's fast (Ibn Abidin, Hashiyat Ibn Abidin 2/397-398; al-Ifsah 1/389).
First case: dawn overtakes him during intercourse and he withdraws at once.
The Hanafis, the Shafi'is and the Hanbalis in one view, which is the choice of Ibn Taymiyya and al-Mardawi, hold his fast valid, on the hadith reported by al-Bayhaqi through Nafi', from Ibn Umar: when the call to prayer was made while the man was with his wife, that did not keep him from fasting if he intended to fast: he would rise, wash and complete his fast (al-Bayhaqi 4/219; an-Nawawi declared its chain sahih in al-Majmu' 7/513). Withdrawal is an abandonment, and what is tied to an act is not tied to abandoning it: one who swears not to wear a garment he is wearing, then takes it off, has not broken his oath.
The Malikis declare his fast broken with makeup only: intercourse took place in part of the day, as though he had continued. A Hanbali transmission, held by Ibn Hamid and the qadi and supported by Ibn Aqil, adds the makeup and the expiation if the withdrawal occurs at the very first rising of dawn, for withdrawal is intercourse savored, which carries the effects of continuing (al-Insaf 3/331-332; al-Mughni 4/185).
Second case: he continues after dawn. The majority of the schools, Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, impose the expiation. The Hanafis impose only the makeup, for the reason given above: as long as he continues, no valid fast exists for him to corrupt (Ibn Abidin 2/397-398).
The four imams agree that masturbation is unlawful, but it does not break the fast unless it ends in ejaculation, without divergence, and the makeup day is then due: it is an ejaculation produced by direct pressure, like the one produced by kissing (Tuhfat al-Fuqaha 1/358; al-Ikhtiyar 1/141; al-Majmu' 7/530; al-Mughni 4/169). On the expiation, the Malikis impose it, while the majority of the schools (Hanafis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis) do not.
The jurists also agree that whoever ejaculates on a day of Ramadan through touching below the private parts has his fast broken and owes the makeup. On the expiation,
Abu Hanifa, ash-Shafi'i and Ahmad in one transmission refuse it: it is not complete intercourse, it resembles kissing, and the absence of expiation is the default outside a text. Malik and Ahmad in another transmission impose it, for ejaculation by touching holds the same place in wrongdoing as intercourse (al-Mughni 4/169-170; al-Insaf 3/301; al-Mabsut and its sources).
The majority of the schools (Hanafis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis) hold the fast of one who entertains mental images and ejaculates thereby valid, on the hadith: "Allah has overlooked for my community what their souls suggest, so long as they do not act or speak" (al-Bukhari 4968). No text nor consensus institutes breaking for this, and it cannot be drawn as an analogy to touching or repeated looking, both of which summon desire more strongly and lead more quickly to ejaculation; they differ from it only in its unlawfulness: with a stranger, or even with the wife when it offends, disapproval remains.
An-Nawawi reports from al-Mawardi: whoever stirs such images in his heart alone, without looking, and ejaculates taking pleasure in them owes neither makeup nor expiation by consensus; if he repeats his glances until he ejaculates he sins, though without makeup (al-Majmu' 7/532).
The Malikis, with Abu Hafs al-Barmaki and Ibn Aqil, who makes it his choice among the Hanbalis, declare the fast of such a person broken, with makeup: the thought can be summoned, it therefore falls under choice; Allah praised those who reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) forbade reflection on His essence while commanding reflection on His creatures, proof that this field lies within one's capacity, unlike the nocturnal emission. The Maliki detail: ejaculating from a mere thought or glance without lingering in them never entails an expiation, but the makeup is due, unless this is a habit beyond his control that he cannot repel, in which case no makeup either because of the hardship; if he lingers in them until he ejaculates, the expiation is certain if that is his habit, and if it was not, two views clash, the more apparent being the absence of expiation (at-Taj wa-l-Iklil 4/40; Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil 2/253; Hashiyat al-Dasuqi 2/159).
The enema (huqna shar'iyya) is the injection of medicine through the anus, liquid or otherwise. The majority of jurists, Hanafis, Malikis in the most famous position, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, hold that a liquid enema, water-based or not, breaks the fast and requires the makeup: it brings water into the body's interior through an open passage, and the unusual joins the usual in what arrives; the fast is abstaining from everything that reaches the body's cavity, and this reached it.
Breaking comes from what enters, not from what leaves.
attributed to Ibn Abbas, reported by Ibn Abi Shayba in al-Musannaf 2/308 and al-Bayhaqi 1/116 (4/261); al-Albani judged its chain sahih (al-Irwa' 2/377)
The solid enema is disputed.
The Shafi'is and the Hanbalis: whatever enters the body through the anus breaks the fast, for it reaches the interior by one's own choice, like one who eats; the same applies to inserting a finger into the anus during cleansing: an-Nawawi says that by the majority of his school the fast is annulled, whether part of the finger remains outside or not (al-Majmu' 7/517; al-Mughni 4/157; Kashshaf al-Qina' 2/318).
The Hanafis admit it only if it disappears entirely inside; if part remains outside, like a dry finger, the fast stands, but a finger wet with water or oil breaks it (Maraqi al-Falah 370; Radd al-Muhtar 2/102; al-Ikhtiyar 1/141).
The Malikis confine breaking to the liquid enema, by text: Khalil guarded his wording with "liquid" to exclude the solid enema, with no makeup, and lightly oiled cords impose nothing. Asked about cords prepared for an enema, Malik said he saw it as a light matter, owing nothing, but whoever injects something that reaches his body owes the makeup, without expiation (ash-Sharh al-Kabir 1/524; al-Mudawwana 1/197). The Maliki madhhab counts four positions on the enema: the famous, textual one, breaking by a liquid enema; breaking by any enema; disapproval of its use, for Ibn Habib reports that some of the early generations and people of knowledge disliked this treatment outside pressing necessity; last, absence of breaking, favored by al-Lakhmi, for nothing reaches the stomach or the place that nourishes the body. This last view is the one Ibn Taymiyya chose (Mawahib al-Jalil 2/424-425; Majmu' al-Fatawa 25/234).
Dripping into the vagina breaks the fast according to the Hanafis in the soundest view, according to the Malikis in their madhhab, and according to the Shafi'is and Hanbalis insofar as their texts cover this passage; al-Kamal ibn al-Humam likened it to the enema. Among the Malikis two conditions must be met: a lower, wide passage, and a liquid injection that stays in. Al-Dardir states breaking explicitly, al-Dasuqi attaches the makeup to it in the most famous view, and Ibn Habib counts only a recommended makeup, when the liquid reaches the stomach, through the anus or the vagina; the solid product imposes nothing, nor do oiled cords (ash-Sharh al-Kabir with the Hashiya of al-Dasuqi 1/524; Fath al-Qadir 2/344; al-Mughni 4/154-156; al-Insaf 3/299).
Kohl (eye cosmetic) that descends to the throat divides the jurists.
Abu Hanifa and ash-Shafi'i: it does not break, on the report of Aisha: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) applied kohl while fasting (reported by Ibn Majah 1678, sahih hadith), and of Anas ibn Malik: he used to apply it while fasting (reported by Abu Dawud 2378, judged hasan). The eye is not an orifice, what enters it reaches the throat only through the body's pores, and what passes through the pores does not break: one who bathes entirely in water feels its coolness in his belly and does not break.
Malik and Ahmad: if he tastes it in his throat or knows it reached it, he breaks; otherwise not, for he has conveyed to his throat a substance he is forbidden to take in, as though it had passed through the nose (Mukhtasar al-Quduri 62; al-Mudawwana 1/177; al-Majmu' 7/577; al-Mughni 4/157-158). Two views further clash on kohl that enters the body: one assimilates it to kohl and breaks the fast, the other does not, for taste alone does not break, like one who coats the soles of his feet with colocynth and feels its bitterness in his throat (al-Kafi 1/361).
The amma is a wound of the head, the ja'iha a wound of the belly; al-Kasani defines the topic as whatever reaches the body's interior outside the natural orifices (Badai' al-Sanai' 2/627). The jurists differ over one who treats such a wound.
The majority (Hanafis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis) hold that if the medicine reaches the inside of the skull or of the body, the fast is broken and the makeup due: the fast is abstaining from everything that reaches the cavity, and this arrived by his choice, as though he had eaten; the fast is already broken by what arrives without being food, like snuff and the enema. An-Nawawi says: whoever treats his wound and whose medicine reaches the body or the skull breaks his fast in our view, whether the medicine is moist or dry (al-Majmu' 7/516). In doubt about arrival, the Hanafis give details: with moist medicine,
Abu Hanifa presumes arrival as long as a passage exists; his two companions admit no breaking without certainty; dry medicine breaks by consensus; al-Babarti reports that most of his masters took actual arrival as the criterion (Sharh al-Hidaya with al-Inaya 2/266-267).
The Malikis and Ibn Taymiyya state that treating a wound does not break: the wound is not an orifice into the interior, and what settles there is like what remains in the mouth or nose. Al-Dardir justifies oil placed on a belly wound communicating with the interior thus: it does not reach the place of food, else the sick man would die at once (ash-Sharh al-Kabir 1/533; al-Mudawwana 1/198; al-Insaf 3/299).
Ibn Taymiyya adds a deeper argument: this fast belongs to the religion of the Muslims, which scholar and layman alike must know; if such things had broken it, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) would have had to explain it and the community would have transmitted it like the rest of his Law; yet no scholar reports any hadith on it, whether sahih, weak, connected or suspended. Those who break on the enema and wound treatment hold their view only by analogy, the strongest of which rests on the words: "sniff water up the nostrils strongly, unless you are fasting"; but water sniffed through the nose truly nourishes the body, quenches thirst and cooks the stomach's food, whereas kohl, the enema and wound medicine neither nourish nor descend to the stomach; the fast's relation to water through the nose is therefore the relation to drinking, and nothing shows that Allah tied breaking to the mere fact of reaching the skull or the cavity (Majmu' al-Fatawa 25/234-253).
Making oneself vomit deliberately (istiqa') breaks the fast and requires the makeup. Ibn al-Mundhir reports the consensus on the fast of one who makes himself vomit being annulled (al-Ijma' 33), and the hadith cited below establishes it in its own wording. One proof is the account of Fadala ibn Ubayd: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) called for a drink, and someone said: had you not been fasting today, Messenger of Allah? He answered: yes, but I vomited (reported by Ahmad 23993; a version in Ibn Majah 1675 is judged weak).
Ibn Hubayra reports in al-Ifsah 1/390 a divergence over one who makes himself vomit: Malik and ash-Shafi'i declare his fast broken;
Abu Hanifa admits it only if the vomit fills the mouth; Ahmad is transmitted in four views: breaking occurs only for the copious, manifest vomit, the famous transmission; or for a mouthful; or for half a mouthful; or for any amount that voids the ablution. All these transmissions require deliberateness, on which Ahmad's madhhab does not vary. Ibn Battal says: whoever makes himself vomit deliberately owes the makeup by the majority, narrated from Ali, Ibn Umar and Abu Hurayra (Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari by Ibn Battal 4/80).
The jurists agree that the menstruating woman or the one bleeding after childbirth, even at the last instant of the day, has her fast broken and makes that day up. They also agree, all four imams, that she whose bleeding stopped before dawn and who intended the fast fasts validly, even if she delays the full bath until morning or sunrise: her state had lifted before dawn and only the act of purification remained, as with the one in major impurity; she must however intend the fast from the night (al-Ifsah 1/405; al-Majmu' 7/419; al-Mughni 2/201; Sharh Fath al-Qadir 2/371-372; al-Mudawwana al-Kubra 1/184).
In practice: deliberate intercourse on a Ramadan day requires makeup and the major expiation, paid in the order of the hadith; eating or drinking deliberately requires the makeup in most views, with the expiation for Hanafis and Malikis and makeup alone for Shafi'is and Hanbalis; any ejaculation obtained deliberately, through touching or by continuing intercourse after dawn, breaks the fast and requires makeup, the expiation remaining debated; liquid enemas, vaginal injections and medicine reaching the skull break the fast by the majority, while Ibn Taymiyya and the Malikis break it only for what nourishes; making oneself vomit breaks, vomiting involuntarily does not; the menstruating woman makes her day up, even if her bleeding stopped just before dawn.