or on the basis of some other indication and breaks his fast, only for the sun to reappear, he must make up that day. If he eats while still unsure that the sun has set, he must both make up the day and perform the expiation, unless the balance of probability was that it had in fact set.
Anyone who is uncertain whether dawn has broken is, according to Mālik, obliged to stop eating; if he does eat while in doubt, he must make up the day, just like one who forgot, and Mālik’s statement on this point is undisputed. Some scholars of Madinah and elsewhere, however, hold that nothing is required of him until it is clearly established that dawn has come.
If a person making up a day of Ramadan takes the pre-dawn meal at dawn or afterwards, thinking it is still night, and later discovers his error, he is not—according to Mālik—obliged to fast that day; he may break it and need only make up the single day he already owed. The entire night remains a time in which eating, drinking, and marital relations are lawful for whoever wishes.
Whoever interrupts the two consecutive months of expiatory fasting because of illness, menstruation, forgetfulness, or mistaken reasoning may resume and continue; but if he breaks it on account of travel he must start over. Should he deliberately fast during Dhū al-Ḥijjah while fully aware of the Day of Sacrifice and the Days of Tashrīq, he must begin again. If, however, after beginning the two consecutive months in Dhū al-Ḥijjah he fasts those days out of ignorance, he should make up the Day of Sacrifice and the Days of Tashrīq and then continue, although restarting the fast from the beginning is preferable.
If someone fasts Shaʿbān and Ramadan intending thereby to fulfil both the expiatory fast and the obligatory fast of Ramadan, the Ramadan fast counts for neither. He must then fast three separate months: one for Ramadan itself and two consecutive months for the expiation, for no other intention may be combined with Ramadan. This point has already been mentioned in the chapter on the ruling of intention in fasting earlier in this book. Another view maintains that he need only complete the two consecutive months and that Ramadan itself suffices.
Whoever begins the day fasting with the intention of making up a day of Ramadan and then remembers that he has already made it up must, according to Ibn al-Qāsim, complete the fast and may not break it. By the standard inference from Mālik’s view, as understood by the rest of his companions, he is allowed to break it if he so wishes, although completing it is recommended—just as it is recommended for anyone who finds himself fasting on a Monday to carry on and complete the day.