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In the name of The God, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.

Qur’anic Concepts · Qur’an Completeness

Fasting in the Qur’an: Mindful Restraint, Human Capacity, and Fidyah

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Reading the fasting passages together: compensation for hardship, claims of abrogation, and inherited restrictions.

1. Has God provided a way for everyone?

Every year, millions of people observe Ramadan, the month of fasting. Some do so in health and comfort. Others face illness, physical weakness, demanding work, frequent travel, or exceptionally long days. The interval between dawn and night may be relatively short in one country and much longer in another. Near the poles, the familiar daily signs of dawn and night may not appear as they do in temperate regions.

Yet much discussion of fasting proceeds as though everyone lived under the same conditions. What breaks a fast? How many minutes before dawn must eating stop? Should someone who is ill fast? What is required of a traveler?

A more fundamental question receives less attention: When prescribing fasting, has God taken account of the real differences in people’s abilities and circumstances? Does the Qur’an provide a clear, practical way for someone who cannot carry it out?

The question becomes especially important when we consider different readings of Al-Baqarah 2:184. After addressing illness and travel, the verse refers to people described by yutiqunahu (they can bear or sustain it) and prescribes fidyah (a compensatory substitute), consisting of food for a person in need.

Three readings of this passage lead in different directions. One treats feeding a person in need as an obligation additional to fasting for those capable of fasting. Another treats it as an initial alternative to fasting, then claims that the following verse abolished that choice. A third understands it as compensation for people whose fasting would involve severe hardship at the limits of their endurance.

This is more than a disagreement about a word. The result can directly affect people’s lives.

Consider someone with a chronic illness for whom postponing the fast does not solve the problem. Or a worker who must spend long hours in a coal mine or an intensely hot factory to support a family. Or someone living near the poles who experiences extremely long days or continuous daylight during part of the year.

If such people are left with only two options—fast beyond their physical capacity or feel guilty for not fasting—is that what God intended?

The problem becomes more complicated when interpreters declare the compensatory provision abrogated, meaning that it no longer applies. When the resulting account encounters difficulties in actual life, other solutions are then introduced through transmitted reports, analogy, or scholarly rulings. These include asking people in regions with unusual daylight patterns to follow the fasting hours of Mecca, Medina, or another location.

Meanwhile, some readers seeking to understand the Qur’an independently of inherited rulings draw a different conclusion from ayyaman ma‘dudat (a counted or limited number of days). They argue that Ramadan fasting lasts only a few days, sometimes specifying a range such as two to ten. Their approach raises another question: can a phrase be detached from the passage that follows and made the basis of a rule inconsistent with the next verse’s explicit command?

Amid these competing readings, what does the Qur’an itself say?

In Al-Baqarah 2:183, God prescribes fasting and identifies its purpose as taqwa (mindful self-restraint and responsibility before God). In Al-Baqarah 2:184, He addresses a limited number of days, illness, travel, human endurance, and compensation. In Al-Baqarah 2:185, He identifies Ramadan and repeats the provision for illness and travel, then states that He desires ease rather than hardship for people, so that they can complete the prescribed number.

Why separate these statements, create a conflict between them, and then appeal to abrogation, added restrictions, or rules from outside the passage to resolve that conflict?

This study returns to the Qur’an’s language and the continuity of its argument. It examines a reading that preserves the obligation to fast, the provisions for illness and travel, the compensatory provision, and God’s stated purpose of ease, justice, and mindful responsibility.

2. Method and standard of judgment

The Qur’an is the starting point for understanding fasting and assessing rules attributed to it. This study does not begin with established rulings and then look for verses to confirm them. It asks first what God says about fasting: its purpose, conditions, and compensatory provisions. Historical interpretations and familiar practices are then assessed against that evidence.

The first step is to examine the language. Key terms include siyam (abstention, taking the form of fasting in this passage), taqah (capacity or endurance), fidyah (compensatory substitution), ma‘dudat (counted or limited), ‘iddah (a number or count), yusr (ease), and ‘usr (difficulty). Each must be understood within its range of meanings and its sentence. A root does not necessarily supply the complete meaning of every word derived from it. Nor should a possible dictionary sense, isolated from context, become a definitive religious rule.

The second step is to read the verses together. The statements in Al-Baqarah 2:183, Al-Baqarah 2:184, and Al-Baqarah 2:185 are not disconnected. The obligation, its timing, people’s different circumstances, compensation, and God’s desire for ease belong to one discussion. The practical limits of abstention are then explained in Al-Baqarah 2:187.

The third step is to distinguish an explicit command from an interpretation or historical report. The provisions for illness and travel are stated in the text. Anyone who limits the people described by “they can bear it” to a particular group, declares the compensatory provision abrogated, or makes another country’s timetable religiously binding must provide evidence for that claim.

The burden of proof rests with whoever attributes a rule to God. An old ruling, a widely circulated report, an influential commentator, or broad acceptance within a religious school does not by itself establish that God issued the rule.

Earlier reports and commentaries can nevertheless illuminate the history of interpretation: who understood a passage in a particular way, when, and for what reasons. Historical testimony is not the same as a divine command. Disagreement with a report also does not, by itself, prove that the report was fabricated; allegations of fabrication require evidence. This study’s central concern is whether the rule extracted from a report can legitimately be attributed to God.

The fourth step is to assess interpretations against the Qur’an’s established principles. Does a reading serve mindful responsibility? Does it impose more than a person can bear? Does it preserve the provision for compensation? Is there a genuine conflict between verses, or does the conflict arise from our interpretation? Does a rule presented as divine have clear support in the Qur’an?

We must also distinguish ordinary difficulty, which may be part of cultivating restraint and resolve, from severe or harmful hardship that makes the same practice impossible or dangerous for a particular person. Not every experience of tiredness releases someone from an obligation. Equally, one person’s ability cannot be treated as the measure of everyone else’s.

The aim is to understand how the verses illuminate and confirm one another. We should not first make them contradict one another and then set aside part of God’s instruction to preserve our interpretation.

This approach connects with Forqan’s studies of abrogation and claims that Qur’anic rulings have been superseded, reasoning and the evidence required for religious authority, and taqwa: mindful responsibility before God.

3. The proposed reading before examining the disputes

Reading Al-Baqarah 2:183, Al-Baqarah 2:184, and Al-Baqarah 2:185 together makes it possible to propose a coherent account before turning to the disagreements.

God prescribes fasting for believers. This is a devotional form of abstention whose practical requirements the Qur’an itself explains. Its time is Ramadan, and its purpose is mindful responsibility before God.

For someone able to fast, the instruction is clear: observe the fast of Ramadan.

For a person who is ill or traveling and cannot fast at the prescribed time, other days provide a way to make up the fast. Illness and travel do not erase the responsibility; the time of its fulfillment can change.

Postponement, however, is a solution only if fasting later is realistically possible. A person with chronic illness, or someone whose lasting conditions of work and life make fasting exhausting and harmful, may gain nothing by moving the obligation to another date.

Under the third reading of Al-Baqarah 2:184, God provides such a person with compensation through feeding someone in need. The obligation does not lead to an impasse, and a person unable to fast still has a way to contribute through care and generosity.

This provision is not limited to labels such as “elderly” or “ill.” What matters is the person’s actual condition in relation to the obligation. Chronic illness, physical impairment, severe hardship from necessary work, prolonged travel, or unusual geographical conditions may be relevant. A particular occupation or country of residence does not automatically establish inability; actual capacity, severe hardship, and the risk of harm must be considered.

The same verse commends voluntarily doing more good. Someone using the compensatory provision may willingly provide more food. But voluntary generosity must not be turned into an additional compulsory duty.

This reading preserves fasting for those able to undertake it while recognizing compensation for others.

Those able to fast do so; people affected by illness or travel make up the days when possible; and those for whom genuine incapacity or overwhelming hardship leaves no practical way to fast use the compensatory provision.

This account does not require abrogation. Nor does it require a newly devised timetable to be attributed to God as a definitive command for people living with unusual daylight patterns. The Qur’an supplies the obligation, compensatory provisions, recognition of human capacity, and the principle of ease.

The question now is whether the language and the wider Qur’anic evidence support this reading.

4. The verses, competing readings, and their arguments

4.1. Siyam: abstention before the practice is specified

In Al-Baqarah 2:183, God says:

يٰأَيُّهَا الَّذينَ ءامَنوا كُتِبَ عَلَيكُمُ الصِّيامُ كَما كُتِبَ عَلَى الَّذينَ مِن قَبلِكُم لَعَلَّكُم تَتَّقونَ

Al-Baqarah 2:183

“Believers, abstention has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may become mindful of God.”

Siyam (abstention) is commonly translated as “fasting.” That translation points to the familiar religious practice, but it does not by itself show the broader meaning of the Arabic word family ṣ-w-m.

Sawm (abstaining or refraining from an activity) belongs to that same word family. What a person abstains from must be learned from context. The Qur’an offers a clear example in its account of Mary.

فَكُلي وَاشرَبي وَقَرّي عَينًا ۖ فَإِمّا تَرَيِنَّ مِنَ البَشَرِ أَحَدًا فَقولي إِنّي نَذَرتُ لِلرَّحمٰنِ صَومًا فَلَن أُكَلِّمَ اليَومَ إِنسِيًّا

Maryam 19:26

“So eat and drink, and be comforted. If you see any human being, say: ‘I have vowed abstention to the Entirely Merciful, so today I will not speak to any person.’”

Mary is told to eat and drink, while the abstention she announces concerns speaking to people. The Qur’an’s use of the word therefore cannot always mean refraining from food and drink.

This does not imply that Ramadan fasting lacks specific requirements concerning eating and drinking. It shows why those requirements should be learned from the Qur’an’s explanation rather than assumed to be the entire underlying meaning of the word.

In Al-Baqarah 2:183, abstention is prescribed, but the verse has not yet specified which activities, times, and conditions it involves. The subsequent verses explain those limits.

This approach guards against importing a fully developed definition of a religious practice from inherited sources and then imposing it upon each word of the Qur’an.

The verse’s ending also matters: “so that you may become mindful of God.” Before giving the practical details, God identifies the purpose of fasting.

Taqwa (mindful self-restraint and responsibility before God) belongs to the Arabic word family w-q-y, associated with guarding, protecting, and keeping oneself from danger. Devotional abstention is meant to move people toward conscious restraint in their conduct and choices.

Fasting thus has a purpose beyond temporarily enduring hunger and thirst. Through abstention, a person develops resolve and responsibility so that these qualities can also shape other areas of life.

4.2. Three readings of the compensatory provision in Al-Baqarah 2:184

أَيّامًا مَعدودٰتٍ ۚ فَمَن كانَ مِنكُم مَريضًا أَو عَلىٰ سَفَرٍ فَعِدَّةٌ مِن أَيّامٍ أُخَرَ ۚ وَعَلَى الَّذينَ يُطيقونَهُ فِديَةٌ طَعامُ مِسكينٍ ۖ فَمَن تَطَوَّعَ خَيرًا فَهُوَ خَيرٌ لَهُ ۚ وَأَن تَصوموا خَيرٌ لَكُم ۖ إِن كُنتُم تَعلَمونَ

Al-Baqarah 2:184

“For a limited number of days. Whoever among you is ill or traveling, then a number of other days. For those who bear it with difficulty, there is compensation: food for a person in need. Whoever voluntarily does more good, it is better for them. And to abstain is better for you, if you only knew.”

The verse connects fasting with three matters: the prescribed period, illness and travel, and compensation for the people described by yutiqunahu (they can bear or sustain it).

The main disagreement concerns that description. Distinguishing three readings makes their consequences easier to see.

First reading: fasting together with feeding someone in need

On this reading, the description refers to people who are able to fast, and feeding a person in need is understood as an obligation alongside fasting.

A rendering that makes this interpretation explicit would read:

“For a limited number of days. Whoever among you is ill or traveling, then a number of other days. For those able to undertake it, there is compensation [in addition to fasting]: food for a person in need. Whoever voluntarily does more good, it is better for them. And to fast is better for you, if you only knew.”

The words in square brackets are an interpretive addition, not words present in the verse.

The central difficulty is explaining why feeding someone should be called “compensation” if it is obligatory for everyone capable of fasting and must accompany the fast itself. Its relationship to the voluntary good mentioned immediately afterward also needs clarification.

Second reading: an initial choice, later abolished

This reading also understands the description as referring to people able to fast. It treats compensation, however, as an optional substitute for fasting.

A rendering that makes this interpretation explicit would read:

“For a limited number of days. Whoever among you is ill or traveling, then a number of other days. For those able to undertake it, there is compensation [if they choose not to fast]: food for a person in need. Whoever voluntarily does more good, it is better for them. And to fast is better for you, if you only knew.”

Here too, the words in square brackets express an interpretation.

Some commentaries and transmitted reports state that capable people initially had a choice between fasting and feeding someone in need, and that Al-Baqarah 2:185 subsequently ended this choice.

Accepting this reading therefore requires establishing two claims: first, that Al-Baqarah 2:184 grants a general choice; second, that Al-Baqarah 2:185 abolishes it.

Third reading: compensation when fasting reaches the limits of endurance

On the third reading, the description refers to people for whom fasting entails severe hardship and strains their actual capacity. Compensation provides an alternative way to fulfill their responsibility in those circumstances.

This does not require changing the verb into a negative or inserting la (the Arabic word for “not”). The argument is that ability comes in degrees, and that “bearing” something in this context can include enduring severe difficulty.

All three readings must be assessed against the wording, the meaning of compensation, the following command, other Qur’anic principles, and people’s actual circumstances.

4.3. Being able to do something, or barely being able to bear it?

The Arabic word family ṭ-w-q includes a collar or encircling band, encirclement, limits, and capacity. Taqah (capacity or endurance) need not describe ability as a simple yes-or-no condition; it can concern how much a person can bear and where that capacity reaches its limit.

In his lexical work Al-Mufradat, al-Raghib al-Isfahani relates capacity to the amount of work a person can perform with difficulty. The commentary Al-Manar likewise distinguishes ordinary ability from bearing an activity in a condition of extreme weakness and hardship when discussing Al-Baqarah 2:184.

The grammatical form must still be respected. Yutiqunahu (they can bear or sustain it) is affirmative: it expresses an ability to undertake something. The form alone, without reference to context, cannot simply be declared to mean “those who are wholly unable.”

The more precise point is that ability is not uniform.

One person performs an activity without significant difficulty. Another completes it only under considerable strain. A third might manage under ordinary conditions but reach the limit of endurance because of illness, intense heat, insufficient water, or physical exertion.

Should all three be placed in the same category merely because the word “can” could be used of each?

In Al-Baqarah 2:249, a group facing Goliath and his forces speaks of lacking the capacity to confront them. In Al-Baqarah 2:286, people ask their Lord not to burden them with what they lack the capacity to bear. These uses concern the extent of human ability and endurance.

In Al-Baqarah 2:184, the description “they can bear it” is immediately followed by compensation consisting of food for a person in need. A reading concerned with difficult endurance is therefore defensible in both language and context.

The argument does not depend on etymology alone. Its force comes from reading the word’s range together with the compensatory provision, the following verse, and the Qur’anic principles of ease.

4.4. Compensation or an additional obligation?

Fidyah (compensatory substitution) belongs to the Arabic word family f-d-y, associated with compensation, substitution, and release from a particular condition.

In Al-Baqarah 2:196, under particular pilgrimage circumstances, compensation may take the form of fasting, charitable giving, or a ritual offering. The provision responds to a specified situation and need not always take the same form.

Another passage directly connects inability to fast with feeding people in need.

فَمَن لَم يَجِد فَصِيامُ شَهرَينِ مُتَتابِعَينِ مِن قَبلِ أَن يَتَماسّا ۖ فَمَن لَم يَستَطِع فَإِطعامُ سِتّينَ مِسكينًا ۚ ذٰلِكَ لِتُؤمِنوا وَرَسولِهِ ۚ وَتِلكَ حُدودُ ۗ وَلِلكٰفِرينَ عَذابٌ أَليمٌ

Al-Mujadilah 58:4

“Whoever cannot find the means, then fasting for two consecutive months before the two have intimate contact. Whoever is unable, then feeding sixty people in need. This is so that you may believe in God and His Messenger. These are God’s limits, and for those who reject there is a painful punishment.”

This verse continues the provisions concerning zihar (a declaration by which a husband likens his wife to his mother, treating marital intimacy as forbidden). After specifying the first remedy in the preceding verse, the Qur’an prescribes two consecutive months of fasting for someone unable to find the means for that remedy. It then says:

فَمَن لَم يَستَطِع فَإِطعامُ سِتّينَ مِسكينًا

Al-Mujadilah 58:4 — excerpt

“Whoever is unable, then feeding sixty people in need.”

The relationship is explicit: prescribed fasting, inability to perform it, and feeding people in need as the alternative remedy.

This passage does not concern Ramadan. Its requirement to feed sixty people and its other details must not be transferred to Al-Baqarah 2:184. Nevertheless, the Qur’an itself explicitly provides for feeding people in need when a person cannot undertake prescribed fasting.

This evidence matters to the third reading. It shows that relating compensation to inability to fast is not an idea imported wholly from outside the Qur’an. God establishes such a provision in another context.

Now return to Al-Baqarah 2:184.

If every capable person must feed someone in need in addition to fasting, why call that feeding “compensation”? And if feeding is a general compulsory obligation, how does it relate to the voluntary good immediately introduced by “whoever voluntarily does good”?

If, however, compensation substitutes for fasting under severe hardship, the term retains its compensatory role. Those able to fast do so; those whose endurance does not permit them to fast practically and safely have a way to compensate.

The immediate reference to voluntary good then highlights the distinction between the prescribed responsibility and generosity beyond it.

A person may give more. Additional generosity cannot become everyone’s obligation without a clear command.

4.5. The command and the provision of ease in Al-Baqarah 2:185

شَهرُ رَمَضانَ الَّذى أُنزِلَ فيهِ القُرءانُ هُدًى لِلنّاسِ وَبَيِّنٰتٍ مِنَ الهُدىٰ وَالفُرقانِ ۚ فَمَن شَهِدَ مِنكُمُ الشَّهرَ فَليَصُمهُ ۖ وَمَن كانَ مَريضًا أَو عَلىٰ سَفَرٍ فَعِدَّةٌ مِن أَيّامٍ أُخَرَ ۗ يُريدُ بِكُمُ اليُسرَ وَلا يُريدُ بِكُمُ العُسرَ وَلِتُكمِلُوا العِدَّةَ وَلِتُكَبِّرُوا عَلىٰ ما هَدىٰكُم وَلَعَلَّكُم تَشكُرونَ

Al-Baqarah 2:185

“Ramadan is the month in which the Qur’an was sent down as guidance for people, with clear proofs of guidance and a criterion distinguishing right from wrong. Whoever among you witnesses the month should fast it. Whoever is ill or traveling, then a number of other days. God desires ease for you and does not desire hardship for you, so that you may complete the prescribed number, magnify God for guiding you, and give thanks.”

The verse identifies Ramadan as the period of fasting and commands its observance. It then repeats the provision for illness and travel already stated in the preceding verse.

If its purpose were to discard the entire compensatory provision of the previous verse, why immediately follow the command to fast with another provision addressing people’s particular circumstances?

The structure places the obligation and accommodation of differing circumstances together. God prescribes fasting while recognizing that the people addressed do not all face the same conditions.

The next statement is fundamental:

God desires ease rather than hardship so that people can complete the prescribed number.

The order matters. God’s desire for ease and rejection of hardship precede the reference to completing the count.

Ease is thus integral to making fulfillment possible, rather than an incidental concession detached from the command.

If illness or travel prevents fasting at the prescribed time, other days provide the remedy. If severe hardship persists and postponement does not resolve it, the third reading understands compensation as the available remedy.

On this understanding, God does not trap people between harming themselves and disobeying Him.

Discarding compensation and insisting that every situation be resolved either by fasting now or postponing it may instead leave some people with an obligation they cannot realistically fulfill.

This is the difference between the Qur’an’s accommodation and hardship produced by narrowing its provisions.

4.6. Temporary and chronic illness: does postponement always help?

In Al-Baqarah 2:184 and Al-Baqarah 2:185, the Qur’an refers people affected by illness or travel to other days.

The provision is clear. But making up the fast later must be a real possibility.

Someone temporarily ill may be able to fast after recovery. Someone with a chronic condition for whom fasting remains harmful or beyond endurance does not gain new capacity merely because the obligation is moved to another month or year.

Should that person be told to carry the missed days indefinitely, even when there is no prospect of making them up?

This is a practical human problem. People have real and sometimes permanent physical limitations. Someone may need water, food, or medication that cannot safely be withheld for long periods.

Other Qur’anic provisions also recognize actual circumstances. In Al-Baqarah 2:173, necessity brings relief from a prohibition. In the purification provisions of Al-Ma'idah 5:6, God explicitly states that He does not intend to impose hardship upon people.

Why disregard that reasoning when interpreting fasting?

The third reading understands compensation as a remedy for someone whose difficulty postponement cannot solve. Responsibility remains, while the person is not burdened with an impossible undertaking.

4.7. Physically demanding work: do people have equal capacity?

Imagine a miner who must spend long hours underground to support a family, or a worker doing strenuous physical labor in intense heat with a considerable need for water.

Another person spends the same day in cool, comfortable surroundings, with ample opportunities to rest and adequate living resources.

Do these two people have the same capacity to abstain from food and drink for a long period?

Is it just to treat their physical capacity as identical without examining their circumstances?

Someone might say that the worker should change jobs or stop working during Ramadan. But does everyone have that freedom? A family dependent on daily wages may be unable to manage even one unpaid day.

The issue is not ordinary comfort or discomfort. It arises when fasting involves severe hardship or a genuine risk of harm and the person has no practical alternative for supporting the household.

Equality before God does not mean identical physical, economic, or environmental circumstances.

In the commentary Al-Manar, Muhammad Abduh’s explanation of the phrase about capacity explicitly discusses people whose livelihoods depend on strenuous work, including coal mining. This historical discussion does not function here as divine authority. It shows that considering workers’ severe hardship in interpreting the verse is not an unprecedented concern.

The criterion should not be an occupational title or social class. Being a worker does not automatically establish inability, just as living comfortably does not prove ability in every circumstance. The question is the person’s actual capacity to fulfill the obligation.

4.8. Polar regions: when familiar daily time markers disappear

Regions with exceptionally long days offer a particularly clear reason to read the fasting passages as a whole.

In Al-Baqarah 2:187, eating and drinking are permitted until the white thread of dawn becomes distinguishable from the dark thread. Fasting is then to be completed until night.

Across much of the earth, people can identify dawn and night through familiar daily signs. Near the poles, those conditions do not always hold.

In some seasons, the sun does not set for an extended period. Elsewhere, prolonged daylight or darkness makes the ordinary daily markers of fasting difficult to identify in their familiar form.

What, then, is required of people living there?

Religious rulings have offered different answers. Some propose following Mecca or Medina. Others prefer the nearest region with ordinary day-and-night patterns. Others insist on local times wherever dawn and sunset occur.

For example, Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, an institution issuing religious legal opinions, has proposed using Mecca’s hours in a ruling addressing short nights and unusual conditions.

The central question remains:

Which verse requires people to replace the time markers of their own location with the hours of Mecca, Medina, or a neighboring country as a binding rule of fasting? Where is the revealed authority for that requirement?

Such rulings may be motivated by a desire to relieve hardship. That intention does not, by itself, make a practical solution a command revealed by God.

There is an important distinction between suggesting a workable response and attributing that response to God as a definitive obligation.

Why assume, moreover, that God has not accounted for these regions?

God created the earth, sun, moon, changing seasons, and differences between day and night. The extent of His knowledge is described in Al-An'am 6:59, while Al-Mulk 67:14 asks whether the Creator does not know what He has created.

Should we suppose that God knew of polar regions but provided no compensatory way for their inhabitants within the fasting provisions?

Or does the difficulty arise because a restrictive interpretation or a claim of abrogation has removed the compensatory provision in Al-Baqarah 2:184, creating a gap that new rules are then asked to fill?

The third reading examines the issue through the person’s actual endurance. Where fasting is possible, the obligation and its value remain. Where day length, missing daily markers, or climatic conditions make it overwhelming or harmful, this reading recognizes the compensatory provision.

A person need not then be required to undertake something beyond actual capacity in order to demonstrate devotion to God.

4.9. Does Al-Baqarah 2:185 cancel what Al-Baqarah 2:184 provides?

One of the main difficulties with the second reading is its claim of abrogation.

It holds that capable people initially could choose between fasting and feeding someone in need, but that the revelation of Al-Baqarah 2:185 ended that choice.

This interpretation is recorded in commentaries and transmitted reports, including discussions by al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir, two influential Qur’anic commentators. The same interpretive heritage also contains reports maintaining compensation for elderly people and those unable to fast.

For example, a report attributed to Ibn Abbas, an early authority on Qur’anic interpretation, says that the provision in Al-Baqarah 2:184 is not abrogated and applies it to elderly people unable to fast. The history of interpretation itself therefore contains more than one position.

Disagreement among earlier authorities does not settle the question. The primary inquiry must return to the Qur’an.

In Al-Baqarah 2:184, the discussion includes illness, travel, capacity, and compensation. In Al-Baqarah 2:185, fasting Ramadan is prescribed and the provisions for illness and travel are repeated. If compensation concerns a condition different from ordinary ability, what conflict remains between the verses?

Why first extend “they can bear it” to everyone capable of fasting, derive a general choice between fasting and feeding, and then declare compensation abrogated in order to reconcile that interpretation with the next command?

Is the contradiction in God’s words or in the premises we have added to them?

In An-Nisa 4:82, the Qur’an invites reflection and presents its consistency as evidence of its divine origin. In Al-An'am 6:115, the Lord’s word is complete in truth and justice; Al-Kahf 18:27 denies others the power to alter His words.

This does not deny God’s authority to change a command. He can amend it, lighten it, or bring its operation to an end.

But how has God’s authority to legislate passed to a commentator or jurist?

Anyone claiming that God Himself ended the provision in Al-Baqarah 2:184 must show where the Qur’an states that ending.

Reading two verses as contradictory because of a prior assumption does not establish that one has been abrogated.

For a fuller discussion of naskh (abrogation), the use of reports to declare Qur’anic rulings inoperative, and the distinction between God changing a command and interpreters declaring a verse superseded, see Forqan’s study of abrogation.

If both verses can be understood together, why is abrogation needed?

4.10. When interpretation becomes a parallel source of religious law

When an interpretation reaches an impasse, there are two possible responses.

One is to reconsider the interpretation: has part of God’s statement been overlooked, or has a meaning been imposed upon a word?

The other is to treat the earlier interpretation as unchangeable and devise further rules and exceptions to preserve it.

The problem arises when that second approach produces rules imposed on people in the name of religion.

If compensation for fasting is confined to a few named groups, leaving severe occupational hardship or unusual climatic conditions outside its scope, another solution will have to be sought.

That solution may be derived from a transmitted report, analogical reasoning, or a jurist’s opinion. But what evidence authorizes presenting it as God’s definitive requirement?

In An-Nahl 16:116, the Qur’an warns against using unfounded assertions to declare things permitted or forbidden and attributing those claims to God.

The warning is not addressed only to followers of other religions. Anyone attributing a rule to God must provide evidence, whether a specialist in transmitted reports, a jurist, or a researcher claiming independence from inherited religious traditions.

In Ar-Rum 30:35, the Qur’an asks for revealed authority to support claims of assigning partners to God. The same discipline of testing an assertion against evidence matters when examining religious obligations.

Human rulings must be judged against God’s command; God’s command must not be subordinated to human rulings.

Not every practical arrangement is itself a new religious law. People can devise solutions to real problems. Human planning and divine instruction remain distinct, however. A parallel source of religious legislation emerges when a proposed solution is presented as God’s binding rule without clear authority.

4.11. “A limited number of days”: does Ramadan mean only a few days?

Some readers challenging inherited interpretations emphasize ayyaman ma‘dudat (a counted or limited number of days) and conclude that fasting is required only for a small number of days.

They appeal to related expressions in Al-Baqarah 2:80, Al-Imran 3:24, and Yusuf 12:20, sometimes asserting that the wording must refer to a fixed small range, such as two to ten.

Does the word itself establish such a numerical ceiling?

Ma‘dudat (counted or limited) describes a finite number and can convey a sense of fewness. It does not follow that every Qur’anic use is restricted to one fixed numerical range.

More importantly, the surrounding passage identifies which days are meant.

In Al-Baqarah 2:203, a reference to counted days is followed by an explanation of leaving after two days or remaining longer. In the fasting passage, the next verse identifies Ramadan and connects the command to fast with that month.

The ending meaning “it” in fal-yasumhu (let that person fast it) refers back to “the month.” The command therefore concerns Ramadan, not a few days selected at will on the basis of a possible implication of smallness.

A lunar month does not always contain the same number of days: it may have twenty-nine or thirty. Rather than giving a fixed number for every year, the Qur’an identifies the period as the month of Ramadan itself.

The following words also call for completion of the prescribed count.

“A limited number of days,” “the month of Ramadan,” and “so that you may complete the count” form a connected argument. Detaching the first expression and deriving a rule contrary to what follows is not a sound way to read the passage.

Independence from inherited traditions does not mean freedom to detach words from context. New readings require the same scrutiny applied to jurisprudence and transmitted reports.

4.12. Ease makes completion possible

In Al-Baqarah 2:185, God’s desire for ease rather than hardship is immediately connected with completing the prescribed count.

That connection is fundamental to understanding the fasting provisions.

Ease here does not abolish the command. It means that a practical way of fulfilling responsibility is available.

Someone ill who can fast later makes up the days. A traveler who later has suitable conditions fasts then. Someone able to fast benefits from abstention. And under the third reading, someone facing lasting, severe hardship can fulfill a religious responsibility through compensation.

In Al-Baqarah 2:286, obligation is related to human capacity. In An-Nisa 4:28, God expresses His desire to lighten people’s burden and recalls human weakness. In Al-Hajj 22:78, He denies imposing hardship in religion. In Al-Ma'idah 5:6, the same principle appears in the context of purification.

These statements provide a shared standard for considering the relationship between an obligation and the circumstances of those asked to fulfill it.

Accommodation does not mean that anyone may abandon fasting at will. Ordinary difficulty and genuine, overwhelming hardship must be distinguished.

But that distinction must not become an excuse to deny people’s real limitations.

Has God prescribed a practice through which people can develop mindful responsibility, or a task that some can never realistically complete?

The Qur’an’s provision of ease is a way to fulfill the command, not an escape from it or a privilege supplied from outside the Qur’an.

Here the third reading differs from the first two. It preserves the practice and the compensatory provision together. Compensation is not declared inoperative, and people unable to fast are not given an impracticable obligation.

4.13. “Fasting is better for you”: can wealth buy an exemption?

One objection is that allowing compensation for severe hardship would make it too easy for people to abandon fasting.

Does the possibility of abusing a provision justify removing it?

People can misuse many provisions. Someone might falsely claim illness or exaggerate difficulty. That deception is the person’s responsibility; its possibility does not justify closing the compensatory path to everyone genuinely unable to fast.

The ending of Al-Baqarah 2:184 is especially significant here:

وَأَنْ تَصُومُوا خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ

Al-Baqarah 2:184 — excerpt

“And to abstain is better for you, if you only knew.”

After stating the compensatory provision, God recalls the value of fasting itself. That statement belongs within the discussion of capacity and responsibility.

Compensation is not a way for a capable person to purchase an exemption simply because they can afford to provide food.

Imagine someone wealthy, healthy, comfortable, and fully able to fast, who would rather give a little food and avoid the effort of abstention.

Does having more money entitle that person to set aside a practice prescribed for developing mindful responsibility?

Can the ease of paying compensation release someone capable of fasting from the discipline of restraint?

“Fasting is better for you” has a clear force against such opportunism: the value of abstention must not be displaced by money or the ability to give.

Fasting aims at mindful responsibility. Someone capable of undertaking it should recognize that it is more than a financial duty: it is a practice of restraint, resolve, and responsible action.

That does not erase the circumstances of someone unable to fast.

A person whose fasting reaches the limits of endurance or entails severe hardship and real harm is not in the same situation as someone seeking only to preserve their comfort.

A person who can fast without harm despite some difficulty may benefit from abstention. But its value for someone capable does not justify imposing harm upon someone incapable.

The verse’s ending thus has an important role in the third reading. It preserves compensation for genuine hardship while preventing compensation from being understood as a convenient escape for capable people.

Compensation addresses inability and hardship; it is not a wealthy person’s purchase of exemption. The value of fasting lies in restraint and mindful responsibility, not in requiring people to damage their health or endanger their lives.

Together, these provisions discourage misuse while keeping accommodation available to those who genuinely need it.

4.14. Feeding someone in need: devotion and social responsibility

The compensatory provision offers more than an alternative for someone unable to fast. The form of compensation matters: food for a person in need.

Why connect a practice involving abstention from food with another person’s need for food?

Someone capable of fasting works toward mindful responsibility through deliberate restraint. Someone for whom fasting is overwhelming can contribute through feeding a person in need.

Personal discipline and social responsibility are brought together.

Someone unable to fast should not have to damage their body or endanger their life to prove devotion. During the same days when others practice abstention, that person can help provide food to someone who needs it.

The Qur’an then commends voluntarily doing more good. A person may willingly provide more food and assist more people.

No one may turn that additional generosity into a new obligation without a clear command.

If a person struggles to feed their own household, their ability to provide compensation must also be considered in light of the general principles of capacity and justice. The wording of Al-Baqarah 2:184 does not justify asserting, without evidence, that someone lacking resources must obtain a specified quantity of food at any cost. Details of this situation should not become definitive divine rulings without support.

The connection between fasting, mindful responsibility, and generosity becomes clearer here. The practice should do more than occupy someone with temporary deprivation. It should deepen awareness of other people’s needs and suffering.

4.15. The Qur’an specifies the practical limits in Al-Baqarah 2:187

The discussion of Al-Baqarah 2:183 began with abstention as the underlying meaning of fasting and looked to the following passage for its practical form.

In Al-Baqarah 2:187, eating and drinking are permitted until dawn becomes clear, after which the fast must be completed until night.

Sexual intimacy with spouses is permitted during the fasting night. The restriction on intercourse remains, however, for those observing i‘tikaf (a period of devotional retreat in a mosque).

The Qur’an thus explains both the activities concerned and the times when abstention applies.

The expression “the night of fasting” also deserves attention. Night belongs to the fasting period even though food, drink, and marital intimacy are permitted then. The end of daily abstention therefore does not imply that every boundary associated with the practice disappears at night.

The verse ends by returning to mindful responsibility, the same purpose identified in Al-Baqarah 2:183.

God has prescribed the practice and explained its limits. People should not add restrictions He has not stated on the pretext of completing the religion.

4.16. After fasting: refraining from taking other people’s wealth wrongfully

Immediately after the fasting provisions, Al-Baqarah 2:188 prohibits consuming one another’s wealth wrongfully.

The verse establishes an independent rule concerning financial rights. Its placement also invites ethical reflection.

If fasting aims at mindful responsibility, that quality should become visible in transactions, respect for property, trustworthiness, and resistance to injustice.

Someone who abstains from food for several hours but seeks wealth through deception, bribery, exploitation, or wrongful appropriation should ask what the practice has taught them.

Ramadan itself can expose such behavior when traders exploit increased demand for food and essentials, using unjust practices to profit from people’s pressing needs.

A price increase is not automatically wrongful appropriation; legitimate trade has a place in the Qur’an. The concern is fraud, injustice, deliberate exploitation of necessity, and violations of people’s rights.

The principle extends far beyond Ramadan or the food market. The wording of Al-Baqarah 2:188 also addresses bribery, misuse of adjudication, and knowingly taking people’s property wrongfully.

Read together, the passages prompt a searching question:

How can someone refrain from food, fail to refrain from consuming other people’s wealth wrongfully, and still assume that the purpose of mindful responsibility has been achieved?

At the end of the daily fast, eating and drinking become permitted again. There is no time or occasion when wrongfully consuming another person’s wealth becomes permitted.

Fasting should cultivate conscious restraint that also operates against greed, oppression, injustice, and violations of people’s rights.

5. Is the difficulty in God’s command or in our interpretation?

This study has examined Al-Baqarah 2:183, Al-Baqarah 2:184, and Al-Baqarah 2:185 as a connected passage.

The first verse prescribes fasting and identifies its purpose. The second addresses a limited number of days, illness, travel, capacity, and compensation. The third identifies Ramadan, commands fasting during that month, and connects God’s desire for ease rather than hardship with completing the prescribed number.

Reading the three together supports a coherent account.

The obligation to fast remains. Those able to fast do so. People affected by illness or travel who can make up the days later do so. Under the third reading, someone whose chronic illness, lasting physical limitation, severe occupational hardship, or difficult geographical circumstances prevent practical and safe fasting has recourse to compensation.

This reading neither removes compensation from the Qur’an nor makes it an additional obligation for everyone capable of fasting. It also avoids attributing a general choice between fasting and feeding to the verse and then invoking abrogation to end that choice.

The Qur’an itself provides a clear example in Al-Mujadilah 58:4 of feeding people in need as a remedy for inability to fast. The relationship already exists within its provisions; it need not be imported from elsewhere.

The ending of Al-Baqarah 2:184 retains its force: “And to abstain is better for you, if you only knew.”

It preserves the value of fasting and prevents compensation from becoming an escape for capable, wealthy people. The ability to afford food for someone else does not authorize disregarding the purpose of restraint and mindful responsibility.

Conversely, genuine incapacity or overwhelming hardship should not force someone to injure themselves to prove devotion.

Readings that cannot preserve these provisions together face difficult questions.

If compensation has been abrogated, where is the Qur’anic authority for that claim?

If only narrowly named groups qualify, what Qur’anic evidence excludes others facing the same severe hardship and genuine inability?

If dawn and night mark the fast, which verse requires people in unusual geographical conditions to use the hours of Mecca or a neighboring country?

If God desires ease so that the prescribed count can be completed, why attribute to Him a reading that gives some people a harmful or impracticable obligation?

And if the Qur’an is complete, clarifying, and guiding, why defend inherited interpretations by making its verses conflict, then appeal to reports, abrogation, or newly devised rulings to solve the resulting problem?

Criticism of inherited traditions must not produce unsupported new readings either. Restricting “a limited number of days” to a few days while disregarding the command concerning Ramadan illustrates the danger of detaching a phrase from its full context.

The standard is the same for everyone: neither earlier authorities nor contemporary researchers take precedence over God’s words.

At the end of Al-Baqarah 2:185, people are called to magnify God for His guidance and to give thanks. Honoring God involves more than speaking of His greatness. It requires placing His knowledge, wisdom, justice, and command before our own preferences and interpretations.

Do we honor God by calling Him the all-knowing Creator while behaving as though He overlooked some people’s circumstances in the fasting provisions?

Do we give thanks for guidance by closing the paths of ease and compensation that the Qur’an describes, then imposing further hardship in religion’s name?

Fasting in the Qur’an is a path toward mindful responsibility, not a competition in suffering or self-injury. God calls people to deliberate restraint, not to denial of their actual capacity and circumstances. Knowing the lives of all His servants, He places the command alongside provisions for compensation and ease.

The problem begins when people place their interpretation above the Qur’an, close the compensatory path, create conflict between verses, and then appeal to abrogation or external rules to resolve that conflict.

The verses should be read as illuminating one another. In this reading, fasting, compensation, justice, ease, and mindful responsibility belong together in the work of guiding human beings.

God’s way should draw people toward devotion, growth, and responsibility. Unfounded severity should not trap them between harming themselves and feeling disobedient.

God desires ease so that His command can be fulfilled. Honoring Him means accepting that wisdom; gratitude for His guidance means refusing to replace His command with our own opinion.

Related studies

Historical sources documenting the competing interpretations

The commentaries and religious rulings below document the existence of different interpretations. They are not treated here as independent sources of divine legislation. The linked sources are in Arabic.