Except for the sick person who lapses into unconsciousness or insanity, the jurists disagreed about whether such a person must make up the fast. The jurists of the major centers hold that the one who faints is obliged to make it up, but they differ concerning the insane. Mālik rules that the insane person must also make up the fast, yet this opinion is weak because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “and from the madman—until he regains his senses.”

Those who obligate a make-up for either state disagree further as to whether unconsciousness or insanity actually invalidates the fast. One group says it does; another says it does not; a third distinguishes between fainting that occurs after dawn and that which occurs before it; and a fourth—Mālik among them—holds that if the fainting happens at the beginning of the day the fast must be made up. All of these views are weak, for unconsciousness and, even more so, insanity suspend legal responsibility. Once the obligation has been lifted, a person cannot be described as fasting or as having broken the fast. How, then, can a condition that removes accountability itself be deemed to invalidate the fast—except in the same way one might speak of a deceased person, or of someone incapable of valid action, whose fast and deeds have likewise lapsed?

Making Up the Fast for the Traveller and the Sick

The first question: Some scholars held that the make-up fasts must be kept consecutively, just as the original fast was; others did not. Among the latter, some give the person a choice, while others merely recommend consecutiveness. The majority do not regard it as obligatory.

The cause of their disagreement is the tension between the literal wording of the text and analogical reasoning. Analogy would require the make-up to mirror the original act, as in prayer and pilgrimage. The explicit wording of the verse—“then a number of other days [must be fasted]” (al-Baqarah 2:184)—imposes only the number of days, not that they be consecutive. ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) related that the verse was revealed with the word “consecutive,” which was later omitted.

If someone delays the make-up until another Ramadan enters, one group says that after fasting the new month he must both make up the missed days and offer an expiation; this is the view of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad. Another group holds that no expiation is due; this was said by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī.

The basis of their disagreement is whether expiations can be analogically extended to one another. Those who disallow analogy in matters of expiation say that only the make-up is required. Those who permit it say that an expiation is likewise due, by analogy with the one who deliberately breaks the fast, for both show disrespect for the sanctity of fasting—the latter by intentionally eating, the former by postponing the make-up beyond its allotted time