and transgressed.” (1) At the very least, therefore, it is disliked. If he exceeds three times and water reaches his throat, his fast is not invalidated, because this was unintentional. If you were to ask the person who rinsed his mouth more than three times, “Did you intend for the water to reach your throat?” he would say, “No.”

His statement, “Or he rinses excessively and water enters his throat: it is not invalidated,” means that if he is excessive in drawing water into his nose or rinsing his mouth—although it is disliked for a fasting person to be excessive in either—and water enters his throat, his fast is not invalidated, because it was unintentional.

Note: The author—may Allah have mercy on him—mentioned six cases in which he made the ruling contingent upon water reaching the fasting person’s throat. Thus, he made the operative factor water reaching the throat rather than the stomach. The apparent view of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah is that the operative factor is the invalidating substance reaching the stomach. There is no doubt that this is what is intended, since neither the Quran nor the sunnah states that the operative factor is reaching the throat. However, the jurists—may Allah have mercy on them—said that its reaching the throat makes it likely that it will reach the stomach; or that the operative factor is an invalidating substance reaching a hollow internal cavity, and the throat is a hollow cavity.

Issue: If his mouth becomes dry, as may occur during the summer days—and with some people whose saliva is scant, so that their mouths become dry—and he rinses his mouth in order to moisten it, or gargles with water and it goes down into his stomach, his fast is not invalidated, because it is unintentional.