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Questions About the 6 Days of Shawwal | Live Reminders
Should I make up my missed Ramadan fasts or fast the 6 days of Shawwal first? Should I fast them in sequence or spread them out? Can I combine intentions?
Here we cover some of the most frequently asked questions about the 6 days of Shawwal.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Hello everyone. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Once again, bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wassalamu ala rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. I want to begin by first and foremost once again saying Eid Mubarak to all of you. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless you and accept all of your deeds in Ramadan and beyond. May Allah keep you consistent upon those good deeds. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala keep you far away from the sins that you sought redemption from in Ramadan. And I pray that you all had a blessed Eid as well. And again just to thank you all on behalf of Yaqeen for tuning in to the Meeting Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam series throughout the month of Ramadan and of course Qur'an 30 for 30. I miss Sheikh Abdullah as well and all of the wonderful guests that we had alhamdulillah from our team. And you know it was just really touching to see all of the people sending in comments about how they reconnected with the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam this month in particular. So inshallah ta'ala I am going to be doing something soon inshallah on sort of the future of Meeting Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. I don't want it to stop there and inshallah ta'ala I will talk about some of the questions that were asked about the series. Some of the questions about some of the episodes and of course inshallah ta'ala the future of it to the best extent possible inshallah ta'ala. So that'll be soon and of course inshallah ta'ala you know with Al-Aqsa weighing heavy on our hearts and minds I want to remind you to keep your brothers and sisters in your du'a. I know that it is consuming us as it should but I hope that it keeps us activated. So while following organizations like American Muslims for Palestine or Friends of Al-Aqsa or others that are leading the way in terms of advocacy and continuing to make du'a and continuing to petition and protest and do whatever you're doing. I just want to remind you all that staying connected to your ibadah is essential. Du'a is one form of that ibadah and so we will continue to talk about Shawwal. This Thursday we will still have our webinar inshallah ta'ala about keeping consistent after Ramadan.
So stay tuned inshallah ta'ala for that on Thursday. And next week inshallah ta'ala we will continue with the firsts and we'll be talking about Hamza radiyallahu ta'ala anhu. One of my favorite biographies to cover and inshallah ta'ala with other programs in between and of course the Monday night reminder is also now back inshallah ta'ala. So you can tune in every Monday night at this time inshallah ta'ala for a short reminder. Now with that being said bi'dinahi ta'ala let me go ahead and get started. So I wanted to summarize all of the positions or all of the questions about Shawwal. And of course the basis of that is the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam where he said, من صام رمضان ثم أتبعه أو كما قال عليه الصلاة والسلام He said that whoever fasts Ramadan and then follows up Ramadan with six days from Shawwal it is as if they have fasted an entire lifetime. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is explaining to us that fasting every year Ramadan and Shawwal, the six days of Shawwal would be equivalent to having fasted your entire lifetime because a good deed is by minimum multiplied by ten by the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So a month by ten is ten months, six days is sixty days, right? So it's two months and so therefore if you fast 36 days of the year or approximately 36 days of the year it is as if you have fasted the entire year in the sight of Allah. Hence if you do that regularly it's as if you have fasted a lifetime. And subhanAllah that doesn't include the Mondays and Thursdays, which if you fast the 13th, 14th and 15th of every month which are the days of the full moon, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also said that whoever fasts those days it is as if they have fasted an entire lifetime because that covers the month. That doesn't include the days of Arafah and Ashura and the mighty rewards that they cover.
So this is a very specific hadith with a very specific injunction. And a few things come up in regards to it. And it's really based on first and foremost whether or not the virtue of the six days is six days after Ramadan or the virtue of the six days is six days within Shawwal itself. And these are not like the days of Ashura and Arafah that were taken from being obligatory days, the voluntary days of fasting after the legislation of Ramadan. These are six days that are directly connected to the month of Ramadan and keeping consistent after Ramadan. And so what are some of the questions that come up? The first question that always comes up is do I need to make up fasts before the six days or can I fast the six days and then make up my fasts? And this is an area of difference of opinion as are a few issues that are going to be brought up. So according to the Hanbalis, if you have make up days you should make up those days first and then you should fast the six days of Shawwal because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said whoever fasts Ramadan and then follows it up with six days then it is as if they have fasted the entire year. And so you make the intention, you make up your days and you try to get your six days done. Especially for women that might have a lot of days to make up if it goes into Dhul Qa'dah then Allah will reward you according to your intention to do so. So according to the Hanbalis, you would make up your days first on the basis of completing Ramadan and then you would fast the six days. However, according to the majority of scholars they say that the six days of Shawwal can be made up before the completion of the obligatory fasts because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned the six days of Shawwal restricted to Shawwal whereas the days of Ramadan can be made up all the way until the next Ramadan, meaning Sha'ban prior to the next Ramadan.
So let me give you some context. If the virtue of the six days is limited to a time frame of a month whereas making up the days of Ramadan you have the entire year to do so then you should prioritize the six days of Shawwal not because they're more important but because they're restricted and you can get the benefit of both. And one of the evidences of that is Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala Anha mentioning that she would make up days of Ramadan in Sha'ban the next year, meaning prior to the next Ramadan. That is to suggest that she of course would have availed herself of the six days of Shawwal, of Arafah and Ashura but she also would make up the days. And so that is the opinion of the majority that you can make up the six days, I'm sorry, you can fast the six days of Shawwal and then make up the days that you're missing from Ramadan. Now, can you combine the intentions? No, because you cannot combine the intention of an obligatory voluntary deed. As virtuous as the six days of Shawwal are at the end of the day they're voluntary fasts. So you can't combine the intention of two. However, you can combine the intention of Shawwal fasts with other voluntary fasts. So for example, the Monday and Thursday or if you want to fast three of those six days in the middle days of the month the 13th, 14th and 15th or if you want to space out the days of Shawwal in accordance with Mondays and Thursdays and that way you can double the intention to observe those days while also observing Shawwal because you can combine voluntary intentions in that regard naafilah intentions in that regard in the broadest sense possible. So I'll get to the best timeline but this is just to say that again, according to the Hambadis you would make up your days first and then you would fast your six days according to the majority of scholars you are able to fast the six days and then make up those days. So what do I just advise people and suggest to people in that regard? Obviously, the opinion of the majority
makes it easier for people in this regard to be able to attain both and there is strong evidence in that regard however, if you have the ability if you only have to make up two or three days or maybe four days and you feel like you can make up the days of Ramadan and you can make them up immediately and then you can do the six days of Shawwal then do so bi'l ninahi ta'ala. If you feel like it's going to be a burden because that would remove you from the difference of opinion in that regard if you feel like it's going to be tough and you might miss out on the six days of Shawwal if you try to make up the days especially if there are a lot of days then make the priority insha'Allah ta'ala to fast the six days first and then make up those days afterwards bi'l ninahi ta'ala up until Sha'ban of the next year and of course the earlier the better for you bi'l ninahi ta'ala depending on the proportion that you have to fast. Now, another question that comes up is it better to do the six days of Shawwal early meaning as soon as Shawwal starts or is it better? Scholars like Imam Al-Nawwi rahim Allah Abdullah Mubarak rahim Allah ta'ala and others, they mention that it's preferable to fast them as soon as possible Why? Because the way the hadith is sequenced and also that you'll be amongst the sabiqoon in that regard the forerunners in that regard you'll be quick in that regard and so you can insha'Allah ta'ala do them quickly and you don't miss out on them you don't risk missing out because we know that sometimes we might plan to space them out but then things happen and we're not able to fast them and so you will find some of the scholars mentioning that it's preferable to fast them in sequence or at least earlier within the month in that regard to really say one way or the other and so you can fast them as quick as possible insha'Allah ta'ala if you want to develop the consistent habit of fasting now that Ramadan is over and your body is adjusted then insha'Allah ta'ala you can again combine with Mondays and Thursdays and if you combine the first Mondays and Thursdays or whatever
Mondays and Thursdays you can as well as Ayyam al-Bir the three middle days of the month insha'Allah ta'ala then hopefully you're in the safe zone in that regard as well so again, you know, sooner is better in the sense that you don't want to miss out and end up with the last few days because it has happened to many people, right, where they make the intention and then they missed a Monday or Thursday here for whatever reason and then there are three days of Shawwal left and they they have to still fast three days to be able to partake in that reward so definitely sooner the better but combining is also good if you want to make it a habit Mondays and Thursdays insha'Allah ta'ala and the middle three days of the month again, these are broad concepts insha'Allah ta'ala, these are you know, ways for us to continue to take advantage of the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as He's given it to us the last advice that I'm going to give you in this regard is try to bring about some of the Ramadan ingredients to your Shawwal fast as well we all know that fasting in Shawwal is not as easy as it becomes in Ramadan and there are many reasons that we could explore in that regard but try to make sure, for example, if you had the habit to read a juz of Qur'an every day in Ramadan or some other amount then read that amount if you can insha'Allah ta'ala for the days that you're fasting in Shawwal as well try to give Sadaqah on those days as well make Dua before Iftar on those days if you can pray some Qiyam insha'Allah ta'ala on those days as well so try to bring some of those Ramadan ingredients to your fast as well in Shawwal and I think that covers most of what gets asked and insha'Allah ta'ala, whatever else is asked that I didn't cover, I may have forgotten to cover we can talk about it on Thursday during our webinar but in the meantime please do insha'Allah ta'ala avail yourselves of this wonderful opportunity may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept it from all of us, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
allow us to use these fasts not just to get closer to Him but to also insha'Allah ta'ala remember our brothers and sisters in Dua remember the Hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam that the Dua, the supplication of the fasting person until they break their fast is accepted that is not restricted to Ramadan and so in Shawwal, right before your fast, remind each other insha'Allah if you have people around you to make Dua for Al-Aqsa, to make Dua for Gaza, to make Dua for your Uyghur brothers and sisters to make Dua for your brothers and sisters in Afghanistan who are also suffering brutal attacks Syria, Yemen, wherever they are keep them in your Dua insha'Allah ta'ala as you are about to break your fast and of course Allah knows when you say in every place in the world when you are making Dua for people Allah knows and Allah encompasses what you cannot encompass and Allah remembers and knows what you at times may forget, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala help us to do so insha'Allah ta'ala, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept our deeds I will see you all insha'Allah ta'ala at the minimum by Thursday bi-idhnillahi ta'ala JazakumAllahu khairan wa salam
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