Invalidation of the fast is not triggered simply because something reaches the body cavity or the throat; the decisive factor is that the substance reaches the stomach and is transformed into something from which a person derives nourishment, thereby assuming the status of food or drink.
- The fast is also broken when substances leave the body in a way that exhausts and debilitates it, adding weakness to the weakness already caused by fasting—such as sexual intercourse, cupping, menstruation, post-partum bleeding, and vomiting. Out of mercy for the fasting person and concern for his strength, the Lawgiver forbade these acts so that his weakness would not be compounded.
These two elements are the foundation of anything that nullifies the fast. The matters under discussion belong to neither category and cannot be analogically linked to them, for analogy cannot bring together fundamentally disparate things.
Fourth: The hadith of Laqit ibn Sabirah furnishes no evidence here. The danger in over-zealous nasal rinsing is that water may reach the throat and then the stomach; the nasal passage opens directly into the stomach, which is why many patients are fed through the nose into the stomach. It is unanimously agreed that water breaks the fast, so the warning is entirely appropriate with respect to water itself. Water, however, is not like these other practices and cannot be compared to them, as already explained. Allah knows best.