and the people broke their fast along with him. The plain sense of the report is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did so even though he had already formed the intention to fast the night before, and there is no doubt that the people likewise broke their fast after having made that intention.

A second narration, carrying the same purport, is the ḥadīth of Jābir ibn ʿAbd-Allāh:
“During the year of the Conquest the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) set out for Mecca. He travelled until he reached Kurāʿ al-Ghamīm while the people were fasting. He then called for a cup of water, raised it so that everyone could see, and drank. Later it was said to him, ‘Some of the people are still fasting.’ He replied, ‘They are the disobedient ones, they are the disobedient ones!’”

Abū Dāwūd also transmits from Abū Busrah al-Ghifārī that, once he had passed beyond the houses, he called for the food-bag. Jafar, the narrator, said: “I asked him, ‘Are you not still heading toward the dwellings?’ He answered, ‘Would you turn away from the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)?’” Jafar adds: “So he ate.”

Rational consideration (naẓar) runs as follows: since a traveller may only intend the fast on the night preceding his journey, it is not permissible for him to invalidate that fast once the intention has been made, in light of the Almighty’s words,
“Do not render your deeds void” (Muḥammad 33).

As for their disagreement over whether someone who returns home during the day must refrain from eating for the rest of it, the reason goes back to whether he should be likened to a person who ate on a day of uncertainty and then learned that it was indeed Ramadan. Those who draw the analogy say he must abstain; those who do not say he need not, for the first case involves eating out of ignorance, whereas the second involves eating for a legally recognised excuse. The Ḥanafīs hold that both situations require abstention from food once the licence to eat has ceased.

The fifth issue concerns a person already fasting in Ramadan who then initiates travel: may he refrain from fasting on that journey? The majority answer in the affirmative. Others—among them ʿUbaydah al-Salmānī, Suwayd ibn Ghafalah, and Ibn Mujliz—maintain that if he travels he must nevertheless continue fasting and has no permission to break it.

The root of their dispute lies in how they understand the verse,
“So whoever among you witnesses the month, let him fast it” (al-Baqarah 2:185). One possible reading is that anyone who experiences any part of the month is obliged to fast all of it; another is that he must fast only the portion he has witnessed. Since it is agreed that someone who is present for the whole month must fast the whole of it, by analogy one who witnesses only part of it would fast that part alone. The majority’s interpretation is further supported by the fact that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) himself set out on a journey during Ramadan.

As for the ruling on a traveller who does break the fast, it is unanimously agreed that he must make it up later, and the same applies to one who is ill, by virtue of the Divine statement,
“Then a number of other days must be made up” (al-Baqarah 2:184).