Islamic Fiqh > Fasting > Ramadan: fasting, rules and dispensations > What does not break the fast
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Updated on 27 September 2026 at 3:52 AM
Many actions are wrongly believed to ruin the fast: eating out of forgetfulness, intercourse one does not remember, swallowing what remains between the teeth, being cupped, vomiting without seeking it. This page establishes, school by school and proof by proof, what does not break the fast of Ramadan.
The majority of jurists (Hanafis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis) hold that the fast of one who eats or drinks forgetfully in daytime of Ramadan remains valid, with no makeup day, on the basis of these hadiths:
Whoever forgets while fasting, then eats or drinks, let him complete his fast: it is Allah who fed him and gave him drink.
reported by al-Bukhari 1933 and Muslim 809
Whoever eats or drinks out of forgetfulness should not break his fast: it is only a provision Allah granted him.
reported by at-Tirmidhi 721 and ad-Daraqutni 2/180, sahih hadith
Whoever breaks his fast in Ramadan out of forgetfulness owes neither makeup nor expiation.
reported by Ibn Khuzayma 3/239 and Ibn Hibban 8/287, judged hasan
This fast is an act of worship with its own prohibitions and permissions, some of which do not vary with deliberateness and forgetfulness, like prayer and pilgrimage (al-Ikhtiyar 1/268; al-Majmu' 7/536; al-Mughni 4/171).
The Malikis declare broken the fast of one who eats or drinks forgetfully, with makeup due, on the generality of Allah's words: "eat and drink until the white thread becomes distinct from the black thread": he did not complete the fast until night, abstaining has become forbidden, and he thus resembles the deliberate one; and any act of the kind that breaks the fast, done deliberately, invalidates it, hence also by inadvertence, like leaving the intention. The makeup is due because he is a legally responsible person from whom a meal took place in Ramadan, like the deliberate one; and makeup already falls on the sick man, who has more excuse than the forgetful one, so all the more for one who forgot.
All this concerns the obligatory fast: in the voluntary fast, eating forgetfully does not break it. Malik says: whoever eats or drinks heedlessly or forgetfully in a voluntary fast owes no makeup, let him complete his day and not break it (al-Muwatta 1/306). Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar reports that Ibn al-Arabi declared all the jurists of the cities committed to the apparent sense of the hadith, while Malik examined the question from its root: breaking is the opposite of fasting, abstaining is its pillar, and the forgetful one resembles one who forgets a rak'a of the prayer. Ibn al-Arabi adds that ad-Daraqutni transmitted the version: "no makeup upon you", which the scholars interpreted as: no makeup for now (Fath al-Bari 4/156). Al-Qurtubi observes that those who denied the makeup answer that the hadith does not mention it, and that ad-Daraqutni reported a version that removes it explicitly; if its chain is confirmed, the makeup falls away. The chains exist: Ibn Khuzayma and al-Hakim reported it through Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Ansari, naming the month of Ramadan explicitly and removing the makeup, and ad-Daraqutni declared one of them: "this is a sahih chain"; Ali, Zayd ibn Thabit, Abu Hurayra and Ibn Umar also ruled this way by their own judgment, and the rule agrees with Allah's words: "But He will hold you accountable for what your hearts have earned": forgetfulness is not the heart's earning.
The Hanafis and the Shafi'is hold that one who has intercourse out of forgetfulness owes nothing: neither makeup nor expiation, by comparing his case to the one who eats or drinks forgetfully, on the hadith: "whoever forgets while fasting, then eats or drinks, let him complete his fast", a text on eating and drinking extended by analogy to every breaker of the fast, intercourse included.
The Malikis in their madhhab and Ahmad in one transmission declare his fast broken, with makeup, without expiation, on the generality of the verse "eat and drink until the white thread becomes distinct from the black thread": he did not complete, abstaining became forbidden, and he resembles the deliberate one; any act of the kind that invalidates the fast invalidates it forgetfully as it does deliberately, like leaving the intention. As for the major expiation, it follows the sin and vanishes with its absence, on the Prophet's words (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "My community has been lifted from error and forgetfulness".
The Hanbalis in the apparent position of their madhhab, with Malik in another transmission (reported by Ma'n ibn Isa and al-Harawi, and the view of Ibn al-Majishun among the Malikis), go further: the fast is broken, with makeup and expiation, for the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) ordered the expiation to one who had intercourse with his wife in Ramadan without asking him whether he acted deliberately; had the two situations differed, he would have asked and inquired. Ibn Qudama answers the objection drawn from his words "I am ruined": he may have announced his ruin according to what he believes about intercourse committed with forgetfulness, namely the corruption of the fast and his fear beyond it; the fast is an act of worship that forbids intercourse, in which the deliberate and the forgetful are equal as in pilgrimage; and the corruption of the fast and the expiation are two rulings attached to intercourse that excuse does not remove (al-Mughni 4/179-187; al-Majmu' 7/533-536).
Ibn Rushd summarizes: ash-Shafi'i and
Abu Hanifa prescribe nothing for forgetful intercourse; Malik prescribes the makeup alone; Ahmad and the Zahiris the makeup and the expiation. The cause is the confrontation between the analogy with the one who forgets a prayer, whose makeup is explicit, and the hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "whoever forgets while fasting, then eats or drinks, let him complete his fast", reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim, which confirms the words: "My community has been lifted from error, forgetfulness and what they are coerced into". The divergence extends to one who believes the sun has set, breaks his fast, then sees the sun reappear: he is in error, and the mistaken and the forgetful share one ruling, so the effect of forgetfulness on removing the makeup remains clear (al-Mughni 4/180; al-Mudawwana al-Kubra 1/208; Rawdat at-Talibin 3/143).
Ibn al-Mundhir reports the consensus: nothing is due from the faster for what he swallows of what flows with the saliva and remains between his teeth and that he cannot expel (al-Ijma' 33; al-Majmu' 7/529). If he can expel it and swallows it deliberately,
Abu Hanifa holds that he does not break, and the rest of the scholars that he does: he swallowed what he could avoid, with no need pressing him; his fast is annulled as though he had removed it to his hand and swallowed it. An-Nawawi advises dislodging at night what remains in the gaps of the teeth and cleaning the mouth: whoever rises fasting and deliberately swallows what remained there breaks his fast without divergence in their view, the position of Malik, Abu Yusuf and Ahmad. A very light morsel, like a grain of sesame or mustard, breaks the fast without divergence by the majority; as-Sarakhsi tempers this: what remains between the teeth counts as phlegm so long as it is less than a light mouthful, for it ordinarily stays between the teeth (al-Majmu' 7/522; al-Mughni 4/167; al-Mabsut 1/195).
Phlegm (nukhama) is what a person expels from his throat, whether the mucus descending from the head or the phlegm rising from the chest through coughing or clearing the throat. The Hanafi madhhab and the adopted view among the Malikis: they never break the fast, so long as they do not become excessive. The Maliki texts add that phlegm does not break the fast at all, even if it reaches the tip of the tongue, on account of the hardship, against Khalil's view, which declares the fast of one who lets it pass the throat, then brings it back and swallows it, broken with makeup. A transmission from Ahmad holds that swallowing it does not break: it is ordinary in the mouth and does not come from outside, resembling the saliva (Hashiyat al-Qalyubi 2/55; al-Mughni 4/160; ash-Sharh al-Kabir of ad-Dardir 1/525).
Among the Shafi'is the detail runs: whoever pulls the phlegm from within and expels it is untouched, in the soundest view, for the need recurs; another view counts it as breaking, like deliberate vomiting. If it rises by itself or with a cough and he expels it, he certainly does not break; if he swallows it after it reached the outside of the mouth, he certainly breaks. When it gathers at the outside of the mouth, he must cut its path to the throat and spit it out; if he leaves it while able, and it reaches the interior, he breaks in the soundest view through negligence, while another view keeps him intact since he did nothing, having merely abstained from acting.
The Hanbalis, for their part, declare it unlawful for the faster to swallow phlegm once gathered in his mouth, and breaking if he swallows it, whether in his body or in his chest after it reached his mouth: it comes from outside the mouth, like vomit, and he could guard against it, as against blood (Kashshaf al-Qina' 2/329; al-Rawd al-Murbi' 1/143; al-Majmu' 7/524). Ibn al-Shihna notes in closing that it is better to spit it out, so that the fast be valid by consensus.
Whoever doubts the rising of dawn may eat, drink and have relations until certainty: the majority (Hanafis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis) impose no makeup on one who benefited without verifying, on the verse that extends eating to the distinction of the white and black threads, and on Ibn Abbas's words: "Eat as long as you doubt, until it becomes clear to you", or in another wording: "Eat as long as you doubt, until you doubt no longer" (reported by Abd ar-Razzaq 4/172, Ibn Abi Shayba 2/287-288 and al-Bayhaqi 4/221; an-Nawawi declared a sahih chain in al-Majmu' 7/504). The default is that night remains the time of doubt so long as its end is not certain; the reverse holds for sunset: whoever eats doubting its setting must make the day up, for the default is the day's persistence.
Whoever hears the call to prayer while the vessel is at his mouth: the majority of jurists, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, whose position al-Bayhaqi and an-Nawawi report as that of most people of knowledge, say that at the call marking true dawn he removes what is in his mouth without swallowing and completes his fast; if he swallows after knowing that dawn has risen, his fast is broken, without divergence. The hadith of Abu Hurayra reads otherwise:
If one of you hears the call while the vessel is in his hand, let him not put it down before taking from it what he needs.
reported by Abu Dawud 2350, Ahmad 10637, al-Hakim 792 and al-Bayhaqi 7809, sahih hadith; in a version: the caller called at the first appearance of dawn
The call meant is the first one, Bilal's, who called at night: "eat and drink until Ibn Umm Maktum calls", and the vessel is a subject whose predicate follows; the prohibition of eating is tied to dawn, not to the call, for the caller may precede dawn, and no weight is given to a call one does not know follows the rising. This ruling belongs to those who know dawn; the common people, who do not know it, must take precautions. Al-Bayhaqi confirms: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) knew that the call came before dawn in such a way that drinking ended just before its rising. A servant woman relates that she ate with him from one dish, remembered she was fasting, and he told her: "complete your fast: it is only a provision Allah caused to reach you" (Fath al-Bari 4/156-157). Abu Hurayra is reported to have said twice to one who asked him about meals eaten in forgetfulness: "there is no harm: Allah fed you and gave you drink", then: "you are a man not accustomed to fasting".
The majority of jurists (Hanafis, Malikis, Shafi'is) hold that cupping does not break the fast: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was cupped while fasting (reported by al-Bukhari 1939, from Ibn Abbas). Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reports: "the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) granted a concession for cupping to the faster" (reported by an-Nasa'i in al-Kubra 3241, ad-Daraqutni 2/182 and al-Bayhaqi 4/264; Ibn Hazm declared its chain sahih). Thabit asked Anas ibn Malik: did you feel any reluctance about cupping the faster in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)? He answered: no, except out of weakness (reported by al-Bukhari 1940): it is blood leaving the body, like venesection. The reported words "cupping broke the fast of the cupper and the cupped" (reported by Abu Dawud 2367 and at-Tirmidhi 774, sahih hadith) are taken figuratively: the affair of both will end in breaking, and another hadith reported by Abu Dawud 2374 confirms this, in which the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) disapproved of the practice without forbidding it, out of consideration for his companions.
The Hanbalis hold that cupping breaks the fast of both the cupper and the cupped, on the same wording. Ibn Taymiyya explains: this breaking accords with the principles and with analogy to menstrual blood, deliberate vomiting and masturbation; by any route of drawing blood one breaks, as by any route one induces vomiting; the cupper draws air into the vessel, and some blood may rise with the breath into his throat without his noticing: the ruling then rests on probability, like the sleeper from whom wind escapes; blood is among the gravest of breakers, and the faster was commanded to dry up this humor. The scarifier who does not use a suction vessel is not such a cupper and does not break (Majmu' al-Fatawa 25/257-258). Ibn Rushd lists three schools: breaking with the duty to abstain, the view of Ahmad, Dawud, al-Awza'i and Ishaq; disapproval without breaking, the view of Malik, ash-Shafi'i and ath-Thawri; neither one nor the other, the view of
Abu Hanifa (Bidaia al-Mujtahid). The divergence springs from the conflict between the hadith through Thawban and Rafi' ibn Khadij, which Ahmad held sahih, and that of Ibn Abbas, which is sahih; three approaches were drawn from them: preferring one over the other, harmonizing them, or setting both aside in favor of the absence of obligation.
People of knowledge agree: the fast of one overtaken by vomiting without seeking it remains valid, and nothing is due from him. Ibn al-Mundhir reports their consensus, as Ibn Battal reports the consensus on the absence of makeup (al-Ijma' 33; Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari by Ibn Battal 4/80), on the basis of this hadith:
He whom vomiting overtakes owes no makeup; whoever makes himself vomit deliberately must make it up.
reported by Abu Dawud 2380, at-Tirmidhi 716 and Ibn Majah 1676, sahih hadith
The opposite case, that of one who makes himself vomit, was covered on the page about what breaks the fast.
In practice, the rule retained by most scholars is this: eating, drinking or intercourse in forgetfulness does not break the fast, which must then be completed; the Hanafis and Shafi'is add nothing to it, the Malikis require a makeup day for forgetful intercourse alone; what remains between the teeth, phlegm and involuntary vomiting do not break, nor does cupping by the majority of the schools, while the Hanbalis annul it; at doubtful dawn one eats until certainty, and at the call marking true dawn one removes what is in the mouth without swallowing it.