the intention he had earlier no longer suffices. Even though he had framed it for fasting the whole of Ramadan at the outset, he must nevertheless renew his intention explicitly for the days that remain. Any continuous fast—such as the expiatory fast for ẓihār, the expiation for unintentional killing, the fast that expiates deliberate eating in Ramadan, or the fast of a full month or a set of consecutive days vowed to God—one single intention at the beginning is enough, according to Mālik; he need not renew it for every subsequent night.

The same applies to someone whose habit is to fast on Mondays and Thursdays, or the like. In sum, Mālik’s position is that any fast whose obligation is not tied to a specific time is invalid unless the intention is made during the night, whereas a fast whose obligation is linked to a particular time—and which a person regularly observes either before that time or the moment it begins—may be observed without an overnight intention.

In our view, articulating the intention overnight is required for both obligatory and voluntary fasts alike, as we have already stated to be the foundation of the school. Some of Mālik’s companions and other scholars of Medina maintain that an overnight intention is obligatory every night for every obligatory fast, whether one is travelling or resident. That opinion is also reported from Mālik, and his ruling on the person who falls into a coma lends it support, yet the first view remains the distilled doctrine of his school.

Whoever, during Ramadan, intends his fast merely as a supererogatory act gains no legal credit for it, whether he is travelling or at home. The same holds if he directs his intention to fulfilling a month’s fast he owes by vow: it discharges neither Ramadan nor the vow. Nothing other than the fast of Ramadan may be observed in Ramadan.

If someone still owes days from a previous Ramadan and delays making them up until the next Ramadan arrives, then observes this Ramadan intending it for that previous one, Mālik has three opinions:

1. It counts for the current Ramadan, and he must still make up the earlier one.
2. It counts for the earlier Ramadan, and he must make up the current one.
3. It counts for neither, and he must