intended Rajab of any year and Shaʿban of any year, then there is no objection if she fasts, for example, Rajab one year and Shaʿban another, provided she had not fixed a particular year—or she may fast them both in a single year.

Question: I vowed that I would fast five days every time I smoked a cigarette. The purpose of the vow was to spur me to give up smoking for good. After some days and years had passed, I lapsed and smoked again. I then remembered the vow, performed the expiation, and fasted the five days I had pledged. Does this expiation cancel the vow—just as an oath repeated three times over one matter counts as a single oath—or am I required to fast five days for every individual cigarette, as I expressly stated in my vow? I have now smoked many cigarettes; if five days of fasting are due for each one, that would amount to well over 1,000 days. How could I manage that? What is the solution? Is there a way out, such as giving charity or something similar?

Answer: First, we advise the questioner—and anyone else afflicted with smoking—to repent to Allah and abandon this foul substance that harms their religion and worldly life, their health and their bodies. It is pure harm with absolutely no benefit; it is one of the vile things. Allah the Exalted says, describing His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): “He makes lawful for them what is wholesome and forbids them what is vile” (Al-Aʿrāf 157).