The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then asked him, “Can you obtain a slave to free as an expiation for what you have done?” He replied, “No.” He said, “Are you able to fast two consecutive months?” He answered, “No—and was it not my fasting that landed me in this trouble? (1)” for he suffered from an overpowering desire that prevented him from abstaining from intercourse, a condition akin to an illness.

He asked, “Can you feed sixty needy people, each one a mudd of wheat or something equivalent?” He said, “No.”

The Prophet ﷺ fell silent and waited. Presently, as was their habit, one of the Companions came to him with a palm-leaf basket (zanbīl) of dates holding fifteen ṣāʿs, intending that the Prophet distribute it in charity. He said, “Where is the questioner?” The man answered, “Here I am.”

He said, “Take these dates and give them away in charity; that will be your expiation for the sin you have committed.”

The man—who had arrived fearful and bewildered, but who had found safety and reassurance in the presence of the Messenger of Allah—now hoped for Allah’s bounty at the hands of the most merciful of people. He said, “O Messenger of Allah, shall I give it in charity to someone poorer than I am?”

He then swore that there was no household in Medina poorer than his, so severe was the hardship he faced. The Prophet ﷺ was amazed: the man had come trembling in search of deliverance, yet was returning secure and carrying food for his family—and the Prophet ﷺ allowed him to spend it on them. May Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him.

Scholarly differences

Most scholars hold that expiation is obligatory for anyone who deliberately has intercourse while fasting. They disagreed about the one who forgets; the correct view, mentioned earlier, is that no expiation is due from him.

They also disagreed whether the expiation is a matter of choice or must be carried out in sequence. Mālik and, in one report, Aḥmad maintained that one may choose, citing the two Ṣaḥīḥs where Abu Hurayrah narrates: “A man broke his fast in Ramadan, so the Prophet ﷺ ordered him to expiate by freeing a slave, or fasting two consecutive months, or feeding sixty needy people,” clearly granting him a choice.

The majority—including al-Shāfiʿī, Abu Ḥanīfah, the well-known position of Aḥmad, al-Thawrī, and al-Awzāʿī—held that the forms of expiation must be followed in order. They take the present hadith as evidence, treating the hadith of choice as general and the hadith of sequence as its clarifier, thus reconciling both reports. If one acted only on the hadith that grants a choice, the hadith that stipulates an order could not be applied, though both are authentic.

They also differed over whether the expiation is waived when one is unable to perform it. The well-known view in Imam Aḥmad’s school—and one opinion attributed to al-Shāfiʿī—is that it is waived, because the Prophet ﷺ allowed the man to give the dates to his family; had the dates still counted as his expiation, that concession would not have been permissible.

The majority, however, say that inability does not annul the expiation, for nothing in the hadith indicates that it is cancelled